Report - Commissioner says PGA Tour couldn't afford fight - ESPN

Commissioner Jay Monahan told PGA Tour employees during a meeting Thursday that it couldn't financially afford to keep spending tens of millions of dollars in its legal fight against Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund while continuing to increase its own purses to keep players from defecting to the rival LIV Golf League, according to a report Saturday by the Wall Street Journal.

Monahan, during a meeting at PGA Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, reportedly told employees that the financial model wasn't sustainable while fighting Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, which reportedly has $620 billion in assets.

The meeting came two days after the PGA Tour's stunning announcement that it had formed an alliance with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and DP World Tour to form a new for-profit entity that will dramatically alter the global ecosystem of men's professional golf.

«We cannot compete with a foreign government with unlimited money,» Monahan told employees, according to the Wall Street Journal. «This was the time.… We waited to be in the strongest possible position to get this deal in place.»

According to the report, Monahan told employees that the tour had already spent $50 million in legal fees and had dipped into its reserves for $100 million to help pay increased purses in elevated events and other bonuses to players.

«To characterize that this agreement was made due to litigation costs and other use of reserves is an oversimplification,» a PGA Tour spokesman said in a statement provided to ESPN on Saturday. «With the end of the fractured landscape in the world of men's professional golf, the PGA Tour has never been a more valuable property.

»The Public Investment Fund (PIF) has recognized that