They say a few months in sports can feel like a lifetime. In March 2023, just before golf’s first men’s major of the year, the Masters tournament, we explained in The Conversation how men’s professional golf had been shaken up by Saudi Arabia’s billion-dollar drive for legitimacy. This was via the introduction of LIV Golf in 2022, created by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Presented as an individual and team event, that is “golf but louder”, LIV tempted several of the PGA tour’s top players away. It’s easy to see why they were attracted: LIV offered astronomical signing fees and the chance to win up to US$4 million (£3 million) per event, the largest prize in golf.

In response, the PGA tour banned all professional players who played in the LIV from their tour and repeatedly decried the LIV tour as a sportswashing exercise by PIF and Saudi Arabia. There were also a number of legal battles between the two in 2023 and 2024 over claims of anti-competitiveness and financial legitimacy.

A shock “merger”, between the PGA tour, DP World tour and the LIV has now been announced, which represents a seismic shift for professional golf as a sport.

Given the acrimony, the change of heart shocked many, including a number of PGA tour golfers who felt blindsided. This even led to the US Senate opening an investigation into the drastic reversal of the PGA and the planned merger, which offered minimal details about the actual plan. We may never know the exact reasons why the bodies have joined forces, but we can hazard a guess at a few factors.