Report: PGA Tour, LIV Golf Drop Promise to Not Poach Players amid US Pressure on Deal

Amid pressure from the United States Justice Department regarding their potential merger, the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf League have reportedly renounced a key provision of their tentative deal.

According to Alan Blinder, Lauren Hirsch and Kevin Draper of the New York Times, the two sides have "abandoned" their promise not to poach each other's players.

According to the report, the decision made by the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund "was an early casualty of an antitrust review by Justice Department regulators, who are expected to decide in the coming months whether to try to block the transaction."

The tour informed its board about the move on Thursday.

Prior to the decision, the deal between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-funded LIV Golf League included a nonsolicitation provision that said neither side would "enter into any contract, agreement or understanding with" any "players who are members of the other's tour or organization," nor would they "solicit" or "recruit" players away from one another.

The provision was meant to put a halt to any defections from either side as they worked out the final details of the deal.

Upon its establishment in 2021, LIV notably poached a long list of top golfers from the PGA Tour by offering them massive contracts, some of which were in excess of nine figures.

Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith were among those who made the jump to LIV for its inaugural season in 2022.

By abandoning their promise, the PGA Tour runs the risk of more players doing the same thing until the deal with LIV Golf is completed.