The one-year anniversary of the Framework Agreement deadline fast approaches. There is little doubt that any real clarity or finalizing of a PGA Tour and PIF deal will be consummated by the end of the year. Right now, this is like some bad infrastructure project beset by political infighting, contract disputes, and permitting issues that leave you with a ditch and unmanned heavy machinery sitting idly by for months on end. Nothing is being built, but at least some guys are getting, or got, filth(ier) rich off some grand ideas.

So we’re going to commemorate overshooting the hamfisted and hastily thrown-together “Framework” deadline by at least one year. The larger question is how many more of these anniversaries might be in our future. An article in The Athletic on Thursday outlined a pro golf future that could be dependent on the U.S. Presidential election, with differing administration DOJs perhaps leading to different outcomes. And this is the larger pain in all of this: the PGA Tour, and pro golf, have yielded so much power and control of its future to others in their mismanagement of the Saudi threat. They once had full control and the ability to execute their own vision. Now they might be dependent on American voters and the electoral college?

If you’re a golf fan, and there are fewer now than there were before all of this, accepting the status quo might be the most sanity-preserving and realistic choice. Pro golf seems stuck with what we have. LIV Golf, while still hemorrhaging money, is full-steam ahead. They continue to make high-level hires and snoop around on venues (Indy rumors abound!) for future schedules. The promotions event, or Q-school, is set for Riyadh in December. The Range Goats announced their new marketing agency. Dom Dolla has been booked as the musical act for Adelaide 2025.

LIV is pushing ahead. They have money, are spending it, and can keep doing so. And they might need to keep up appearances with the DOJ. Billy Horschel, a sort of grand marshal around the Ponte Vedra Global Home, and someone who played golf recently with both Jay Monahan and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, said on a podcast that 2025 is going to look a lot like the last couple of years. It’s possible that 2026, 2027, and maybe more look that way, as well. But the comms guy at DP World (the company, not the Tour) says a deal is “within reach” in the next six months, pending “legacy issues to sort out.” So, yeah.

And this says nothing of the issues now outside of their control, like an election or the Department of Justice. The internal board fighting, money squabbling, and schedule headaches can cause delays forever but at least the tours ostensibly have the power to fix and change them. The current shouting about Monahan needing to be fired is detached from the reality of the situation, and his very limited power at the moment. He’s doing his best, sweetie. But the more valid critique, and it is damning, comes back to the misapprehension of the competitive threat, the anything-but-proactive or even casual dismissal of it, and then the hasty scramble to try and patch things together at a point when they’d lost their ability to more fully control their path forward. They let this threat get off the ground and now they’re left dependent on others, like the DOJ. We’re left in another year, or two or more, of a watered-down purgatory.

I watched the Baltimore Ravens make major inroads into suburban Washington, D.C. during the Dan Snyder Redskins-Commanders era. A generation, or certainly a significant age group, was lost to the nearby Ravens and probably aren’t coming back now that the Commies may be ascendant with a new owner again. A mega-Tour may come back stronger than ever someday, but it’s not fully in their hands anymore and it will come with a cost. In the interim, embrace the path of mediocrity we’ve been stuck on the last couple of years for a good bit longer.


This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.