President Trump hosts second 'constructive' meeting about reunification of golf

At the first meeting, golf fanatic Trump met PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Adam Scott, one of the circuit’s policy board player directors.

On this occasion, Monahan and Scott were joined by Tiger Woods, another player director, and also Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the chief of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Following the meeting, a statement was released on behalf of Monahan, Scott and Woods and it read: "We have just concluded a constructive working session at the White House with President Trump and H.E. Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

“Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, we have initiated a discussion about the reunification of golf. We are committed to moving as quickly as possible and will share additional details as appropriate.

We share a passion for the game and the importance of reunification. Most importantly, we all want the best players in the world playing together more often and are committed to doing all we can to deliver that outcome for our fans."

A framework agreement was announced on 6 June 2023 but, due to challenges over regulatory approval in the US, it has taken until now for real confidence about a new landscape for the game to be expressed.

Speaking last week, Monahan had said that the first meeting with Trump had been a “very productive visit” and said of the owner of both Trump Turnberry and Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen: “I think you all have been around him enough to know how passionate he is about the game of golf.

“For him to respond to our request to sit down and talk about how we achieve what he stated publicly as a goal, which is the game of golf operating under one tour with all the top players playing on that one tour, was a great opportunity. We had a really productive conversation.”

Speaking on Sunday in a chat with CBS during the final round of the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines, Woods had also been upbeat about the talks.

“We’re in a very positive place right now,” said the 15-time major winner. “We had a meeting with the President. Unfortunately, I had some other circumstances that came up, but Jay and Adam, they did great during the meeting, and we have another subsequent meeting coming up.

“I think that things are going to heal quickly. We're going to get this game going in the right direction. It's been heading in the wrong direction for a number of years and the fans want all of us to play together, all the top players playing together and we're going to make that happen.”