PGA Tour and LIV Golf Look for Merger Deal Under Trump

The PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund are racing to reshape their plans to combine their rival golf circuits, emboldened by President Donald J. Trump’s eagerness to play peacemaker for a fractured sport, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Since the start of secret talks in April 2023, PGA Tour executives and their Saudi counterparts have been weighing how they could somehow blend the premier American golf circuit with the Saudis’ LIV Golf operation. But negotiators have struggled to design a deal that would satisfy regulators along with players, investors and executives.

Mr. Trump’s return to Washington has offered a new opening: After an Oval Office meeting this month that ethics experts have said tested the bounds of propriety, the two sides are considering options that might have stalled during Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidency but that the Trump administration’s antitrust enforcers could offer a friendlier glance.

The details of any prospective agreement, including LIV’s fate, remain in flux. In general, regulators would see any transaction that led to the dissolution of one of the leagues as anticompetitive; under Mr. Trump, though, antitrust regulators could take a more relaxed view.

The two sides are looking beyond a simple cash transaction, though it is unclear how exactly the deal would be structured. The PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, has said they are looking at a “reunification,” but there are many complicating factors, including how to value both ventures.

There is also the matter of how to handle any deal alongside a separate $1.5 billion investment in the PGA Tour by a band of American sports magnates.