NORTH BERWICK, Scotland – The divide in professional golf that was caused by LIV Golf, and the contentious rhetoric and legal wrangling the split created, has been bridged, however slightly, in recent months.
Laurie Canter, in March’s Players Championship, became the first notable former LIV player to participate in a non-major PGA Tour event and last month, James Piot, who played one season on the Saudi-backed circuit, played the Rocket Classic on a sponsor exemption.
This week’s Genesis Scottish Open, a co-sanctioned event with the DP World Tour, includes Eugenio Chacarra, who played three seasons on the breakaway circuit and won a LIV event in Bangkok, in addition to a DPWT tournament this season.
Thursday, the business universe for each tour inched closer with LIV Golf announcing the league has penned a “multi-year partnership” with HSBC, a banking and financial services firm that is also a longtime sponsor of the European tour’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
The PGA Tour and DP World Tour created a “strategic alliance” in 2020 and that partnership was expanded two years later into a “13-year operational joint venture partnership” with the PGA Tour taking a 40% stake in European Tour Productions.
While the European tour maintains a level of business autonomy even with the expanded partnership, a major sponsor bridging the gap between LIV Golf and the existing ecosystem is significant.
According to a release from LIV Golf, the deal with HSBC will “span the entirety of LIV Golf’s 14-event global season, as well as support two of LIV Golf’s thirteen teams [Crushers GC and Majesticks GC].”
HSBC’s deal to sponsor the European tour event in Abu Dhabi, which is the circuit’s penultimate stop in November, runs through this year and it is historically a year-to-year deal with the expectation being the two sides will agree to terms for a new deal after this year’s event.
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