Justin Rose admits he is currently struggling to see how the top three tours in men's professional golf can possibly unite while finding a situation which works for everyone involved.
Discussions remain ongoing between officials of the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, and LIV Golf regarding a potential joining of forces in order to end the fracture on the men's side, but the latest reports suggest progress - if any - has been slow.
While Rose is not privvy to the exact nature of the talks, the Englishman stated that simply working out a schedule which all of the best players in the world will agree to is becoming almost impossible given the general saturation of the calendar.
The 11-time PGA Tour winner also suggested he was not surprised by the invention of LIV given the increasing number of tournaments introduced over time.
The 44-year-old stated that golf's main issue right now, from an elite player's point of view, is that many only want to play a maximum of 22 times a season, restricting the amount of time fans may look to engage with the sport and consequently cutting down how many sponsors partner up with leading events.
As a result of the sport being pulled in so many different directions by its key stakeholders, Rose admitted he is unclear on what a win-win resolution might look like.
Speaking ahead of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth this week, the DP World Tour's signature event, Rose said: "I think that's why we're in the predicament that we're in, because historically, or even if you looked at the PGA Tour a while back, I don't know how many tournaments, I'm going to say 45, but there were a lot of tournaments, and obviously the top players have seemed to only want to play 20 to 25 it times a year tops, 22 probably seems to be the magic number. Majors plus 18.
"I think that's why there was an opportunity for someone, a tour, a league to kind of have the concept, at least hypothetically, that the top players want to play X amount of times together, and that's why we are where we are."
Including the Majors and FedEx Cup Playoffs, the PGA Tour offered its members the chance to play a maximum of 34 events in 2024. Including the Olympic Games in Paris, Scottie Scheffler only played 20 times as he framed his schedule around the biggest championships.
Meanwhile, LIV's Individual champion for 2024, Jon Rahm, only teed it up 16 times including the Olympics and is highly unlikely to compete at more than 20 tournaments before the year is out. Rory McIlroy has recently made comments about cutting down his schedule again, too.
Rory McIlroy plans to reduce his schedule in 2025
Rose continued: "That's been a very hard thing to figure out, obviously, because we have different nationalities, different tours, how do you all kind of get into that position? That's why I can't quite see what the future is in terms of us coming back together because I think you're still limited to the fact that there's only a certain amount of weeks that the top players want to play.
"So you can create this league, that league, this tour, supplement with this, but if it accumulates to 30 tournaments, you're still going to get players choosing, no matter how much money you put up, not to play."
Scheffler has previously mentioned that he would play the Majors for 'significantly less' money - a view that Rose says he and 96% of others would agree with.
Scottie Scheffler played 20 times this season
Scheffler's Ryder Cup rival pointed out that nearly every top player frames their season around being in the best possible shape come the Majors, and - no matter which tour someone competes on - that is always likely to be the case.
Rose said: "Ultimately, you're going to look at the four majors and go, 'okay, I need to be fresh and ready for these; this is my preparation.' You have a family component to your life. All the other factors that come into play.
"So that is the however-many-million-dollar question that we're all trying to figure out, like what is the product and what is the best way of the top players playing together in an attractive, condensed, manageable way? Not just for us but for the product itself and for the fans' attention and all of that."
