Tiger Woods Urgently Roped In to Save PIF Merger as Rory McIlroy’s Plea Gets Brutally Shut Down

Back in April, Webb Simpson put up his resignation from the PGA Tour’s Policy Board while requesting Rory McIlroy to take his place. Since then, news about the Northern Irishman’s return to the committee has been rife. However, his comeback as a director was curtailed recently owing to certain ructions on the board. Now, just a day after the said events took place, it appears Jay Monahan reached out to Tiger Woods to help save the merger with the PIF.

A report was made public regarding the same just hours ago by The Associated Press and reshared by NUCLR GOLF on their X handle. It mentions how Woods, as per reports, will be the only golfer and Tour player who will take part in the talks with the Saudis regarding the merger. He will reportedly join Monahan, Board Chairman Joe Gorder, John W. Henry of Fenway Sports, and Joe Ogilvie, a former Tour player, as the circuit and the Public Investment Fund look to find a proper end to the negotiations.

Tiger Woods became a member of the Policy Board back in August and was appointed the sixth player-director of the committee back then. Nine months later, he was appointed as the Vice Chairman of the for-profit entity, the PGA TOUR Enterprises, as a part of the “transaction subcommittee” that was formed after McIlroy’s snub, the last of which will report back to the full board.

The 13-member board for the PGA Tour Enterprises consists of six golfers, including the likes of VC Woods, Jordan Spieth, Webb Simpson, Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, and Peter Malnati. They are joined by Ogilvie as well as CEO Jay Monahan and Joe Gorder, who is a Tour board member, along with four members from SSG, who provided the initial $1.5 billion investment.

Meanwhile, the recent developments went down just after McIlroy’s plea to join the PGA Tour board to the position that he resigned from was shut down. The reason? Well, a certain group of people from the board refused to give their approval for the 35-year-old to be reinstated.

Rory McIlroy’s response to Tiger Woods-led Policy Board’s refusal

“It got pretty complicated and pretty messy,” said the 4-time major champ before adding how it would be better for Simpson to finish his tenure as a member of the Tiger Woods-led body since news of his return might have opened up some unwanted wounds due to some reasons: “I think the best course of action is, if there’s some people on there that aren’t comfortable with me coming back on, then I think Webb just stays on and sees out his term. I think he’s gotten to a place where he’s comfortable with doing that and I just sort of keep doing what I’m doing.”

As for Simpson, he decided to stay on and McIlroy seemed to be very happy with the resolution. He added, “My fear was if Webb stepped off and it wasn’t me that was going in his place, what could potentially happen. I’m really happy that Webb has made that decision to stay on and serve out the rest of his term.”

Even so, the 25-time PGA Tour champ seemed to not have any grudge owing to everything that transpired. “I put my hand up to help and it was,” expressed McIlroy as he said, “I wouldn’t say it was rejected, it was a complicated process to get through to put me back on there. So that’s all fine, no hard feelings and we’ll all move on.” Well, the golfer truly seems to be someone who cares deeply about the sport, and especially the future of both the PGA Tour and the PIF.