Sports world rocked by announcement of PGA, LIV merger

(WFSB) - The sports world was rocked Tuesday morning with the announcement that the PGA Tour and LIV Tour are merging.

These two organizations had staged a public war with multiple lawsuits for about two years.

For this year’s Traveler’s Championship in two weeks, it means nothing. But next year or in years to come, there could be changes in everything from the prize money to the tournament format.

Word of the merger caught everyone, including many players on the tours, by surprise.

The tour will be run jointly by heads of both the PGA and the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, and it will be a for-profit organization.

“It’s less about how people respond today, and it’s all about how people respond in 10 years,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan.

There are so many questions to be answered, and problems and conflicts to work out.

How might this affect future Traveler’s Championship tournaments? Will the money change, will the tournament be 72 or 54 holes, will team play be implemented?

One of the first questions and problems to be rectified is those LIV golfers who left the PGA Tour to join LIV and became suspended. How will they return and what price, if any, is there to pay?