Deal or no deal? That is the question

With first anniversary of 'framework agreement' approaching, progress reports ring hollow; A personal perspective on Murray tragedy; Georgia Tech will send another amateur champ to Augusta

Yasir Al-Rumayyan and Jay Monahan, June 6, 2023, on CNBC. (CNBC screenshot)

Next Thursday, June 6, the “framework agreement” will be a year old. No one is going to be baking a cake and blowing out a candle to celebrate.

Instead, every indication is the day will come and go without an agreement on a concrete framework. A second year of continued lost opportunities and intransigence of epic proportions will commence.

There are some hints that maybe — maybe — the stubbornness might be abating. I use “might” in the gentlest of ways.

In his pre-championship press conference at the PGA Championship, Jordan Spieth suggested that progress is being made between the two negotiating sides — the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and the PGA Tour.

Spieth banged the same drum again at last week’s Charles Schwab Challenge.

“|I think the narrative that things are in a bad place and are moving slowly — and some of the things that are asked to me or said — are untrue,” Spieth said at Colonial CC. “I know that it’s false, actually. Things are actually moving positively from both sides. I think, ultimately, we’ll end up in a place where professional golf is maybe the best that it’s ever been. I think both sides believe that.

“I think, although there’s always frustrations. I think in deal making — and I’m not a part of the deal making — from what I do know, it’s cordial, there’s open dialogue, and it’s moving along at the pace that it’s moving along. And anything else that’s said about it is just, I just know to be false.”

While it seems comical to believe such optimism when PGA Tour Policy Board member Jimmy Dunne up and resigned on the Monday of the PGA Championship, Spieth is connected as a board member. So we have to give his words some credence.

A second indicator of movement in this international golf game of intrigue came buried deep in a report last week in The New York Times.

According to the report, DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch cites two sources familiar with the talks saying “negotiations are still very much alive.”