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Brandel Chamblee says a round of golf with President Donald Trump made him re-consider Saudi Arabia’s intentions in the game.

Chamblee, the former PGA Tour player turned prominent analyst, has perhaps been the most ardent critic of Saudi’s disruptive emergence onto the fairways through the LIV Golf League.

The PGA Tour said in a statement on Thursday that it has asked President Trump to intervene in negotiations with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which bankrolls the LIV breakaway circuit.

“We asked the President to get involved for the good of the game, the good of the country, and for all the countries involved,” read a PGA Tour letter, signed by commissioner Jay Monahan and player directors Tiger Woods and Adam Scott.

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“We are grateful that his leadership has brought us closer to a final deal, paving the way for reunification of men’s professional golf.”

And speaking on the Golf Channel on Friday, Chamblee said that peace was “inevitable” after Trump’s return to the White House.

“I had the pleasure of playing with President Trump last year,” Chamblee added. “Almost after every single hole when he would put out he would want to come and talk to me about LIV Golf, about Saudi’s involvement in the game of golf and he was so magnanimous about our differences.

“He said ‘I know you and I differ on this but hear me out.’ He said Yasir (Al-Rumayyan) PIF governor and LIV Golf chairman) loves golf more than you do and more than I do. That’s hard to believe because President Trump plays a lot of golf and I’m crazy about it. But he was serious.

He was like: ‘He loves golf that much. They have 32 trillion dollars of oil underneath that sand and they really have to diversify their economy. He said they’re all in on this and they’re not going anywhere.”

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At this stage, it is unclear at this stage what a reunification deal between the PGA Tour and LIV’s Saudi backers would look like.

But since June 2023, the warring factions have been able to thrash out a deal under the scrutiny of the US Department of Justice, who are investigating the PGA Tour over a possible breach of antitrust laws.

Chamblee conceded in May last year that he didn’t support a peace agreement at first, but it is now the “better end of the bargain” to end the ongoing division in the sport.

The 62-year-old commentator said on Friday that Trump made him view LIV chairman Al-Rumayyan as a “partner” in the sport.

“Geopolitical issues aside, of course I understand why we acquiesce and need Saudi as a partner in the Middle East,” Chamblee said. “My issues were about the human rights concerns and about how golf at some point was going to have to apologise…”

“(Trump) said ‘look farther into the future, it’s going to be good for Saudi Arabia, it’s going to be good for the PGA Tour, it’s going to be good for LIV. At the end of the day, did I agree with him? No.

“But I’ve got to say he made strong points all day long. He wasn’t adamant about it but he was opinionated about it as I was. At the end of it he did change my mind. He made me think about Yasir as a partner in the game of golf.”