PGA Tour turn to Tiger Woods in desperate attempt to validate $3bn investment deal

Tiger Woods heralded the PGA Tour’s new deal after receiving a huge cash injection from an investment group that includes Liverpool owner John W. Henry and Fenway Sports Group

Tiger Woods gave the PGA Tour’s $3billion (£2.4bn) investment deal with Strategic Sports Group (SSG) a ringing endorsement on a conference call.

The tour announced the deal, fronted by Liverpool owner John W. Henry, on Wednesday after negotiations were completed late on Tuesday evening, bringing an immediate $1.5b (£1.2b) cash injection, with the potential for that investment to double over time. New York Mets owner Steven A. Cohen and Atlanta Falcons supremo Arthur Blank are also part of the investment group.

The deal will give almost 200 PGA Tour members the opportunity to hold equity in newly-formed PGA Tour Enterprises, seen as a reward for loyalty amid the LIV Golf breakaway. The SSG investment is not directly tied to the PGA Tour’s ongoing negotiations with LIV backers the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, with merger talks that would heal the fractures in the elite game being held up by US Government scrutiny.

Many players have been left disillusioned by the leadership of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan since the LIV Golf breakaway, but Woods had his back in Wednesday’s conference call. With tour other executives and the new investors dialled in, 15-time major champion Woods took the floor and heralded a deal he believes is unlike any other in professional sports, with players given ownership of the tour.

“Hey everyone, this is Tiger Woods,” he began, according to Golf.com. “Just wanted to say thank you, SSG, for believing in us and believing in our sport. Believing in the potential growth that we could enjoy together. Golf is an amazing sport. It has allowed communities to heal and grow.

“And we, as a team, are going to offer that according to what we believe is the true compensation and meritocracy that our sport has been built upon for all these years.

Woods has thrown his full support behind the deal Jay Monahan negotiated to create PGA Tour Enterprises. (

“As has been described earlier, as the Tour grows, we grow. So the more we invest into the Tour, the more we get the benefits of it. Which has never been — it’s never happened in sports history. So we’re the first. Exciting for me to be able to be part of that.”

Peter Malnati, a 36-year-old rank-and-file PGA Tour member and player director with one victory back in 2015, also shared Woods’ enthusiasm for the deal, despite their vastly different career arcs.