RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Rory McIlroy is hopeful a peace deal within golf can be reached by the close of the year after 16 months of tediously slow negotiations. It has been perceived as a positive sign that both Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the boss of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund who bankroll LIV, will play in the same group at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on Thursday. That tournament, contested at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, has suddenly taken on the appearance of a political summit at a point when exasperation around merger talks has made way for cautious optimism around an agreement being struck. McIlroy pointed last month to roughly half of all players on each tour being opposed to a collaboration, as well as scrutiny from the US Department of Justice acting as a barrier to a deal.
