PGA Tour/LIV soap opera never ends
Dunne's board resignation further clouds negotiations; McIlroy files for divorce; Tiger doesn't sound ready for Ryder Cup captaincy
Jimmy Dunne testifies before Senate subcommittee (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Time to enjoy another episode of “As the Tour Turns.”
This week’s chapter is about the short-lived time Jimmy Dunne was on the PGA Tour Policy Board.
When Dunne joined the board in January of 2023, the PGA Tour was embroiled in legal wrangling between itself, LIV Golf and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.
Players were leaving and the PGA Tour didn’t have the financial resources to fight and bottomless well of money to the end, something that was originally unclear to the PGA Tour and its commissioner Jay Monahan.
Unclear because the PGA Tour just kept fighting, pulling funds from anywhere possible to make up shortfalls in a legal fight it was faring well in.
But when Dunne entered the frame, he knew that the robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul mentality could not last forever and believed that a deal could and needed to be done and persuaded Monahan to let him try.
If not for Dunne, it’s likely that the two groups, the PGA Tour and PIF, would still be at legal loggerheads. But Dunne got a dialogue started with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, that grew into a negotiation and eventually a “framework agreement” that was announced on June 6, 2023.
Unfortunately, the timeline to convert the framework agreement into a definitive agreement had an expiration date of the end of 2023. That was extended to just before the Masters and when that expired no one has provided a new target completion date.
According to Dunne, the vice chairman and senior managing principal of Piper Sandler and a member at Augusta National and Seminole golf club (where he serves as club president in Jupiter, Fla.), no meaningful progress has made towards a transaction with PIF. He deemed his role as “utterly superfluous.”
Dunne is a player and being left on the sidelines, which he has been since testifying on behalf of the PGA Tour in front of the U.S. Senate in July, is unacceptable to him.
He clearly felt he had something left to offer.
“It is crucial for the Board to avoid letting yesterday’s differences interfere with today’s decisions, especially when they influence future opportunities for the tour,” Dunne said in his three-paragraph resignation from the board on Monday.
Jordan Spieth, another policy board member as a player director, agreed that there has been a shift in the direction away from the PGA Tour Policy Board centered on the independent directors and instead having the player directors have a louder say.
Historically, business decisions were handled by the independent directors and on-course issues by the player directors.
But after the June 6 debacle, where Monahan bungled the roll-out with his bombshell announcement with Al-Rumayyan, the players have been at odds with the PGA Tour staff and the independent directors.
This has caused a move toward the players gaining full control of the board.
“The PGA Tour is for the players and by the players. So, we have an influence and there’s roles for the player directors and there’s roles for the independents,” Tiger Woods said Tuesday. “We’re trying to make the PGA Tour the best it can be day-in and day-out. That’s one of the reasons why we have arguments and we have disagreements, but we want to do what's best for everyone in golf and the tour. Without those kind of conflicts I don't think there’s going to be that much … the progress is not going to be there. So it’s been good.”
Spieth pushed back on the narrative that the players are driving the bus.
“You need to have everyone’s perspective on both sides of it, and everyone that’s involved within Enterprises,” Spieth said. “You have a lot of strategic investors that know a heck of a lot more than any of us players. So that’s a false narrative that the players are determining all these things.
“There’s been a shift that direction, but I think that we’re finding the appropriate balance going forward. I think there probably was a need for it from years ago from pre-COVID, and maybe the balance got tipped a little and there’s just a little seesaw kind of to try to make sure it’s figured out.”
In that seesaw process, Dunne has become a casualty of the internal politics.
And his loss is no-one’s gain.
“I think Jimmy Dunne not being involved when he was involved is a loss,” Spieth said. “I've spoken with him quite a few times over the last few months and had really good conversations, and when he explains kind of how everything went about since he came on the board, it makes a lot of sense to me. So, I was a bit surprised, for sure.”
Rory McIlroy and wife, Erica Stoll, at 2023 Ryder Cup (Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
McIlroy files for divorce PGA week
There is no making light of the situation. Rory McIlroy filed for divorce on Monday from his wife of seven years, Erica Stoll. The couple has a daughter, Poppy, born in 2020. Nobody at this point knows the back story, and the fact that it occurred during the week of the PGA Championship is unfortunate from the standpoint of privacy.
From a pure golf perspective, however, it certainly does not appear to be a distraction for McIlroy. He obviously knew Monday’s court filing in Palm Beach County, Florida, was coming a day after his impressive victory at the Wells Fargo Championship. And its likely he knew as far back as a few weeks ago in winning the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with partner Shane Lowry. Divorce doesn’t happen on the spur of the moment,
Perhaps McIlroy had come to terms with it already, freeing him up to play some of his best golf of the year. Because, certainly, the timing would not otherwise be good as McIlroy seeks to break a 10-year major championship drought this week at Valhalla — the course where he last won a major at the 2014 PGA.
TMZ Sports first reported the news of McIlroy’s divorce filing on Tuesday. His agent, Sean O’Flaherty, later confirmed it in a statement and court filings show he cited the marriage as “irretrievably broken,” noting the couple had a prenuptial agreement and requesting “shared parental responsibility of the minor child; establishing a parenting plan, including a timesharing schedule.” McIlroy arrived at Valhalla on Tuesday afternoon after spending a day at home in Jupiter, Fla.
McIlroy and Stoll married in a lavish wedding at Ireland in 2017. The four-time major winner from Northern Ireland met Stoll in 2012 when she worked for the PGA of America and helped him make it on time to his singles match at the Ryder Cup played at Medinah.
He was engaged to tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, a relationship that ended in 2014 before he went on a summer run to win two major championships. In fact, the very week his engagement was called off, McIlroy won the DP World Tour’s flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. A couple months later, he won the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship. Clearly, any personal distractions did not get in the way then.
According to the court filing, McIlroy is being represented by Thomas Sasser, the attorney who handled Tiger Woods’ divorce in 2010.
“Rory McIlroy’s communications team confirmed today that divorce has been filed,’’ said O’Flaherty in a statement. “They stressed Rory’s desire to ensure this difficult time is as respectful and amicable as possible. He will not be making further comment.’’
Tiger Woods at Valhalla on Tuesday (Scott Michaux)
Don’t count on Tiger as 2025 Ryder Cup captain
There was a time when Tiger Woods arrived at a major and all the talk centered on whether he could win another one. On Tuesday, the man who won the third leg of his Tiger Slam at Valhalla in a duel with Bob May in 2000 couldn’t avoid constant questions about his bigger role on the PGA Tour Policy Board and the transaction committee that is negotiating peace with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.
“I think we’re working on negotiations with PIF. It’s ongoing; it’s fluid; it changes day-to-day,” Woods said. “Has there been progress? Yes. But it’s an ongoing negotiation, so a lot of work ahead for all of us with this process, and so we’re making steps and it may not be giant steps, but we’re making steps.”
The buried news, however, was that the off-course work seems very likely to prevent Woods from being the U.S. Ryder Cup captain next year at Bethpage Black. He laid the groundwork for refusing that role on Tuesday.
“We’re still talking. There’s nothing that has been confirmed yet,” he said of conversation with the PGA of America and its CEO Seth Waugh. “We’re still working on what that might look like. Also whether or not I have the time to do it. I’m dedicating my so much time to what we’re doing with the PGA Tour, I don’t want to not fulfill the role of the captaincy if I can’t do it.
“What that all entails and representing Team USA and the commitments to the PGA of America, the players, and the fans and as I said, all of Team USA. I need to feel that I can give the amount of time that it deserves.”
A betting man would say that Woods will wait to be Captain America until the 2027 Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in Ireland.