Jimmy Dunne resigns from PGA Tour Board sighting frustration over stalled PGA-LIV negotiations

Jimmy Dunne, one of the architects behind the PGA Tour’s stunning reversal to strike a deal with the Saudi backers of LIV Golf, has abruptly resigned from the PGA Tour board with a letter that expressed frustration at the lack of progress that no longer included his input.

Dunne, a power broker on Wall Street and in golf circles, was not included on the PGA Tour Enterprise’s new “transaction subcommittee” that will be handling the direct negotiations with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF).

Dunne and Ed Herlihy, an attorney specialising in mergers and acquisition and chairman of PGA Tour Inc., were whom PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan leaned on when he first met with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the PIF governor, that led to the June 6 agreement.

The immediate result of the deal was an end to antitrust lawsuits neither side wanted and had already cost the PGA Tour in the neighbourhood of $US50 million ($A76 million). The tour has since brought on Strategic Sports Group as a minority investor in a deal initially worth $US1.5 billion ($A2.3 billion).

“As you are aware, I have not been asked to take part in negotiations with the PIF since June 2023,” Dunne wrote in his letter to the board first obtained by Sports Illustrated.

“Since the players now outnumber the independent directors on the board, and no meaningful progress has been made towards a transaction with the PIF, I feel like my vote and my role is utterly superfluous.”

The tour, feeling pushback and resentment for the secrecy behind the June 6 deal, appointed Tiger Woods to the board with no term limit. The board now has six player directors -- Woods, Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, Webb Simpson, Adam Scott and Peter Malnati -- and five independent directors.

Dunne is the second independent director to resign following the June 6 announcement, after Randall Stephenson.

McIlroy resigned from the board in November, and player directors appointed Spieth to finish his term.

The move signals the tour in a state of disarray as it tries to work out a deal with PIF and start the process of unifying a sport that has been divided since LIV launched in June 2022.

The June 6 agreement included a deadline to complete a deal by the end of 2023. By then, the tour had private equity suitors and LIV Golf signed reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm and eventually Tyrrell Hatton.

Dunne said along with the lawsuits being dismissed -- often overlooked as a key point in the agreement with PIF -- the agreement did not contain an exclusivity clause that allowed players “a full range of options to seek outside investors.”

“It is crucial for the board to avoid letting yesterday’s differences interfere with today’s decisions, especially when they influence future opportunities for the tour,” Dunne wrote.

“Unifying professional golf is paramount to restoring fan interest and repairing wounds left from a fractured game. I have tried my best to move all minds in that direction.”