Tommy Fleetwood once said, “Some people will go and some people won’t. At some point, we’ll either all play together, or we won’t. I, like everybody else, will just wait to find out.” Well, it seems like the time has come for all that mystery to unfold.

Remember the deal about the merger of the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and the Saudi-funded LIV Golf League? Yes, the deal is once again the hot topic, as DP World’s Group Chief Communications Officer, Daniel Van Otterdijk recently opined on the situation.

While the news of the merger has been testing the time and patience of the players ever since last June, finally a verdict has come by Otterdijk who claims that an agreement can be reached within the next six months. During his interaction with Gulf News, Otterdijk said, “We’re confident that within the next six months, they’ll come up with a structure that befits world golf in a much better way than what we currently have. But, of course, there are legacy issues to sort out.”

Yet again the merger hangs in the realm of speculation, as Otterdijk’s confidence isn’t enough to bring peace to the players who desperately wait for the final verdict. It seems long enough since golfers have been juggling all this while. But Otterdjik’s stance seems firm with optimism. “I can see an end-to-end calendar from January to December, where there’s a prominent place for the PGA Tour, a prominent place for LIV Golf, and a prominent place for the DP World Tour, but there will be overlaps,” said Otterdjik.

Pointing out to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour star Tommy Fleetwood, the DP World CCO remarked, “A guy like Tommy (Fleetwood) can say, ‘Look, I want to keep my PGA Tour card, I want to play on the DP World Tour, but I’d like to play some LIV Golf events as well.” Fleetwood’s name perhaps stems from his participation in both the PGA and DP World Tour, meanwhile, the golfer’s name was also previously linked to LIV Golf, which he bluntly denied.

Coming back to the merger, as Otterdjik describes, it may bring many opportunities on the horizon, but one lingering question remains constant: when?

Van Otterdijk envisioned the future of golf resonating with cricket

Rory McIlroy previously expressed that a World Tour is his “dream scenario,” where the top 80 players globally would compete in a “Champions League” style tour. Well, now that’s something that resonates with what Otterdijk has envisioned for the sport. If you are familiar with cricket, you may know that players compete in various leagues and franchises worldwide in cricket. This is exactly, what Van Otterdijk perceives Golf to be in the future. He said, “The way that it will go, as far as we can see if you look at cricket as a model, cricketers these days can play in franchise leagues around the world – the IPL, the Big Bash – whatever it is.” 

And if things go as planned, Otterdijk expects to see a “fantastic buffet of golf throughout the year in different places around the world,” offering players a variety of opportunities to compete across different formats and tours.

While this vision sounds promising, it raises important questions: will this new model cater to every player’s career ambitions? The future of golf could look exciting, but it’s not without challenges. What do you think—will this buffet-style format unite the sport, or create new dilemmas for players? Let us know in the comments.