PGA Tour-PIF dealmaker resigns, citing ‘no meaningful progress’

On May 12, 2023, Jimmy Dunne was in Venice, Italy, assembly with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, amongst others. Jay Monahan was there, too, seeking to set up an settlement between the PIF and the PGA Tour to reunify the game. Exactly one 12 months and at some point later — on May 13, 2024 — Dunne issued his resignation from the PGA Tour Policy Board, attributable to an absence of progress with that settlement. 

Dunne’s resignation arrived Monday at 5 p.m. Eastern time within the type of a 361-word letter to his fellow board administrators, which was obtained by GOLF.com and first reported by Sports Illustrated. Ultimately, two phrases stood out above the others: completely superfluous. That’s how Dunne described his function and the load of his vote lower than 12 months after reaching a Framework Agreement with the PIF and the DP World Tour.

“Since the players now outnumber the Independent Directors on the Board, and no meaningful progress has been made towards a transaction with the PIF, I feel like my vote and my role is utterly superfluous,” Dunne wrote. 

“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. Unifying professional golf is paramount to restoring fan interest and repairing wounds left from a fractured game. I have tried my best to move all minds in that direction.”

Dunne’s work a 12 months in the past — in Venice, London, San Francisco and New York — led to the shock June 6 information that the Tour and PIF meant to merge industrial enterprise pursuits through a Framework Agreement. The first month of conferences between events was completed virtually solely in secret. The rollout of the gorgeous announcement was disjointed and haphazard. Commissioner Monahan regrets how he dealt with it. But Dunne was out entrance, conducting interviews with Sports Illustrated and ESPN and Golf Channel, arguing that it was previous time for the game to reunite its prime gamers.

But solely a framework was signed into place — a deal to make to a deal — one which included each side dropping their ongoing litigation, at a time when Tour and LIV executives, gamers, brokers, board members, and so forth., have been beginning to be deposed. In his letter, Dunne famous, “a path was created for the Tour to remain in control of professional golf.” 

Dunne himself testified in early July on Capitol Hill, as one among two Tour reps explaining the deal to the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Why? Because there have been antitrust issues concerning the legality of two competing entities now doing enterprise with one another, notably when Monahan referred to as the act taking “a competitor off the board, and turning them into a partner, not an owner.” According to the settlement, the destiny and way forward for LIV Golf have been to be assessed for its empirical worth to professional golf at giant, however Dunne was not set to go anyplace. As paperwork within the investigation famous, Dunne and fellow Policy Board member Ed Herlihy have been as soon as thought-about (not less than by Monahan) as potential figures to in some unspecified time in the future oversee LIV Golf. 

The U.S. Senate was . The Department of Justice was . PGA Tour gamers have been extremely . Many felt wronged by the secretive nature of the deal. Rory McIlroy, a pal of Dunne’s, mentioned he felt like a sacrificial lamb. Tour gamers demanded solutions from Monahan and didn’t obtain many declarative ones. Dec. 31, 2023, was set because the preliminary deadline for a Definitive Agreement, however little, if any, progress was made. Only the Policy Board — the best rating function in PGA Tour governance — started to really feel like a giant of musical chairs. 

At the tip of July, Tiger Woods was rapidly added in what amounted to a coup. Forty-one of the most effective gamers on Tour demanded so in a middle-of-the-night letter to Monahan, and a day later it was enacted. They wished equal illustration between gamers and impartial administrators on the board and so they acquired it. Woods stays the one participant with out a mounted time period. In November, the pinnacle of Valero Energy, Joe Gorder, crammed the empty board seat left by Randall Stephenson, who resigned in July saying he couldn’t “in good conscience support” a deal.

That identical mid-November day, it was introduced McIlroy resigned his seat. Jordan Spieth got here aboard. Charley Hoffman noticed his time period finish on Jan. 1 and Adam Scott noticed his start. Monahan was added as a voting member in early March. Former participant Joe Ogilvie was, too, as a participant liaison. If that sounds a bit like musical chairs, there’s a transparent purpose for that, given what number of conferences and Zoom calls gamers have mentioned with the press at numerous instances this season. There appears to have been extra motion out and in of the board than definitiveness of any of its choices. 

Dunne famous in his letter that he has had zero involvement with the Saudi PIF since June 2023, however famous throughout his testimony that he would again the gamers within the occasion of an settlement with the PIF. Are we nearer to that occuring? It depends upon whom you ask. Dunne feels his function as grasp negotiator has change into moot. DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings lately famous in April that each one three events of the unique settlement had nonetheless not been in the identical room collectively. Only in March did participant administrators all congregate within the Bahamas for a meet-and-greet with Al-Rumayyan, a transfer that Dunne himself made occur 11 months prior. 

It has change into clear that variations of opinion have slowed the board’s motion in current months. Webb Simpson lately made clear he wished to resign his place, however solely within the occasion that it could possibly be crammed by McIlroy, who now felt able to be concerned once more. That, Monahan famous, was not in accordance with the Tour’s governance insurance policies, and was barred from occurring. McIlroy has as an alternative been deemed worthy of a place on the Transactions subcommittee of PGA Tour Enterprises, the for-profit firm created in January when the Tour accepted an funding of $1.5 billion from Strategic Sports Group. 

“Since there was no exclusivity clause, the players had a full range of options to seek outside investors,” Dunne talked about in his resignation letter. “That resulted in a multi-billion-dollar commitment from the Strategic Sports Group. I believe that history will look favorably on this outcome and the very real opportunities now afforded the Tour.”

Just when that consequence delivers actual alternatives — like official funding from the PIF — stays to be seen. Potential agreements really feel far more down the highway than on the doorstep. Pro golf strikes on with the second males’s main championship of the season this week on the PGA Championship in Kentucky. Dunne strikes on from official PGA Tour conferences to a nonetheless sizable function behind the scenes, as a pal and mentor of lots of the recreation’s most vital individuals. He is a member at lots of the true establishments of the game — Augusta National, Shinnecock Hills, National Golf Links and Pine Valley — and can little doubt proceed connecting individuals within the recreation. But he is not going to be casting a vote or negotiating the Tour towards a reunited future, regardless of all of the work he did to make occur. He ended his letter with this be aware:

“I want to express my sincere gratitude to all of the Directors that I have served with over the past year and half. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication during a challenging period. I want you to know that no one will be pulling harder for your success than me. Golf has given much more to me than I could ever give back, and for that, I will always be grateful.”

You can learn the whole letter under.