Trump Meets With Tiger Woods About Merging PGA Tour with LIV Golf

Trying to finalize long-simmering and contentious plans to unite the PGA Tour with the Saudi Arabian-backed LIV Golf circuit, President Trump met with the leader of the kingdom’s sovereign-wealth fund at the White House on Thursday, according to five people who were briefed on the gathering.

The meeting included the wealth fund official, Yasir al-Rumayyan, and Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, as well as the golfer Tiger Woods, said three of the people who were briefed on it.

Mr. Trump’s specific objectives for the meeting were not immediately clear, according to those people. But the president has been agitating recently to repair the divide that has shadowed professional golf for several years.

That divide led the tour and the wealth fund in June 2023 to announce half-baked plans to combine in some form. But those efforts have been stymied by, among other things, angst over regulatory review, player frustration and the future of LIV Golf itself.

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As recently as Feb. 4, Mr. Trump hosted Mr. Monahan in the Oval Office. During that meeting Mr. Trump spoke with Mr. al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund and also the chairman of LIV Golf, by phone. That meeting, among some of Mr. Trump’s other recent actions, fueled misgivings about the conflicts of interest he is engaged in as president; Mr. Trump’s company has hosted multiple LIV tournaments, and the circuit will return to the Trump course in Doral, Fla., in April.

Golf executives said the Feb. 4 meeting with Mr. Trump helped propel the sides toward a resolution. Mr. al-Rumayyan, a close associate of Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, missed a day at his own investment conference in Miami Beach, known as the Future Investment Initiative, a foundation he chairs, to attend the meeting.

Early Thursday, a conference organizer announced from the dais that Mr. al-Rumayyan could not deliver his scheduled opening remarks because of a last-minute meeting in Washington. The organizer did not provide details.

Princess Reema Bandar al-Saud, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, took Mr. al-Rumayyan’s place.

Sharon LaFraniere contributed reporting from Washington.