We already figured this was the case, but further confirmation came Wednesday evening:
LIV Golf won’t be supported by the Saudi Public Investment Fund after this season.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, LIV plans to tell players and staff by Thursday that the circuit’s primary source of funding—essentially all of its funding—is being pulled after the 2026 campaign concludes.
This is no surprise to those who have been following this saga over the past couple of weeks. Numerous reports emerged earlier this month stating that the Saudi’s were backing out of LIV. This coincided with the PIF’s five-year vision being announced. Notably, LIV wasn’t mentioned in that vision.
And then Golf Digest just reported that representatives for multiple LIV players have contacted the PGA Tour to discuss a potential return.
“People familiar with the conversations say a path back to the PGA Tour will exist, though the conditions are expected to be considerably more restrictive than those granted to Brooks Koepka,” the article reads.
To add insult to injury, LIV Louisiana was postponed for financial reasons surrounding the tournament. As it stands, LIV has no tournaments between June 7 and July 23—and it’s entirely possible that future events get axed as some players may sit out as they want to get a head start on serving their suspensions for a return to the Tour.
This has all happened recently but the writing has been on the wall for much longer than a couple weeks.
Although the Saudis have poured several billion dollars into LIV, the product never really gained traction with a U.S. audience. Ratings were comically low throughout the league’s four-year history. There were a few positives over the years—such as tremendous events in Australia and South Africa—but it was abundantly clear that LIV had no future commercially.
The only reason for its existence was that LIV was willing to be an irrational actor, paying golfers well north of market value to secure their services.
This is the end of LIV Golf as we know it
There has been a lot of blustery talk from LIV backers, including CEO Scott O’Neil and Ian Poulter.
The reality here is that LIV has never had a functional business. It has been bleeding money by the hundreds of millions. It only secured the services of players like Bryson DeChambeau because he was given a gargantuan contract (now looking for a new contract, DeChambeau reportedly wants north of $400 million).
I am sure there will be efforts made to secure other funding, but even the rosiest outlook would have LIV looking totally unrecognizable.
There is talk about national opens being co-opted by LIV to become an international tour. There is some validity to the idea but the DP World Tour has been on this beat for decades—and the corporate sponsorship available is limited.
The corporate money in professional golf resides mainly in the U.S. market. That is why LIV insisted on playing nearly half of its events in the U.S. despite the success of certain tournaments in other countries.
The bottom line is that LIV will never be the same.
Can it still exist in the future? Yes. But barring some miracle investor who doesn’t care about return on investment, the LIV venture will be a much, much smaller and less disruptive play than before.
How will LIV players come back to the PGA Tour?
The Tour has some decisions to make with how to handle LIV players.
“There were rules, and they were broken,” Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp said recently. “With rules comes accountability.”
Unless there is a new returning member program like we saw earlier this year when Brooks Koepka came back on Tour, LIV players will have to serve a suspension of at least one year before getting back on Tour.
Koepka had already gotten out of his LIV contract, which made a return simpler. DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith rejected opportunities to come back immediately with minimal consequence (they might be regretting that move now).
And in terms of qualifying, most players would need to go through the normal channels—DP World Tour, Korn Ferry Tour, Q-School, etc.—to regain their full-time membership.
Patrick Reed is on his way back to the Tour have playing well in Europe. But he will have served a year suspension. Reed had resigned his Tour membership prior to playing for LIV, so he didn’t violate any rules. Some LIV players did not do that and could be facing longer suspensions.
There are also 11 players who joined an antitrust suit against the Tour early in LIV’s tenure. They are expected to face additional scrutiny. DeChambeau, Poulter, Phil Mickelson and Talor Gooch were a part of that suit.
Although LIV as a whole pushed the Tour to make changes and increase purses, there is still “scar tissue” with how certain players left.
“I don’t necessarily have scar tissue, but there are plenty of people around our tour who do,” Rolapp said. “It has to be accounted for in some shape or form.”
Reading between the lines, LIV players are not going to be welcomed back with open arms. It’s possible new rules are put in place to provide certain pathways back—or the Tour could rely on its current structure.
What do you think of the situation? Let me know below in the comments.
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