If there’s tangible progress in talks between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, Justin Thomas did not find out about it as he vented frustration over the lagging negotiations and restricted info obtainable to his friends.
Whereas PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan cited “substantial progress,” Thomas stated he is holding his head down and enjoying golf as a result of he is undecided what else to do because the merger mission approaches its second anniversary.
“I feel we’re form of previous the extent of exhaustion,” Thomas, 31, stated Tuesday in Ponte Vedra Seashore, Fla., website of The Gamers Championship this week.
“There’s simply so many people, actually on each side, each us on tour and I feel the LIV gamers, that we do not actually know what is going on on and we’re simply enjoying golf and hoping for one of the best and since there’s quite a bit that we do not know and that we won’t management.”
Thomas gained The Gamers in 2021 earlier than Cameron Smith gained in 2022 and Scottie Scheffler rattled off consecutive victories at TPC Sawgrass. One week after Rory McIlroy solid doubt in regards to the immediacy of a possible union between LIV and the PGA Tour, Thomas stated he understands it won’t matter the place gamers stand on what they think about a drained matter.
“It isn’t such as you or anyone can say, ‘All proper, that is what we will do,'” Thomas stated. “I feel clearly all people must be on the identical web page, and I feel when it will get to that degree, I do not know if the federal government’s getting concerned. There’s simply so many issues above my pay grade which might be concerned that I do not find out about, that I in all probability should not or cannot communicate to.”
Monahan acknowledged the place and leverage held by LIV probably has modified for the reason that framework settlement between the circuits was signed in June 2023.
Thomas stated he is aware of the PGA Tour has been a beneficiary of the breakaway LIV Golf circuit, particularly with elevated match purses and different alternatives that did not exist earlier than the golf panorama started to shift. He nonetheless would not agree with a number of the maneuvers made to get thus far.
“There is a couple guys like a Phil [Mickelson] or a Bryson [DeChambeau] that how they went about it possibly is not precisely how I might have, however they did say some issues that had some worth to them or had some fact,” the 15-time tour winner stated.
“It is laborious to say, has it made the sport of golf higher? Yeah, possibly carried out some issues on tour which have improved the tour, however the sport of golf as a complete, if it is separated in several [tours] and creating some animosity, then that is not essentially higher.”
–Subject Stage Media