Sign up every week for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the hottest topics in sports and join the conversation by tweeting us at @golf_com. This week, we discuss LIV Golf’s chaotic week and uncertain future, Matt Fitzpatrick’s RBC Heritage win and Rory McIlroy’s career Masters prospects.
At the beginning of last week, some media reported uncertainty about the future of LIV Golfindicating that the Saudi PIF was on the verge of withdrawing its funding. LIV CEO Scott O’Neil told his staff via email Wednesday: “Our season is proceeding exactly as planned, uninterrupted and full steam ahead. While the media landscape is often filled with speculation, our reality is defined by the work we do on the grass.” But O’Neil was more specific about the situation Thursday, when he said in a television interview, “The reality is you get funded during the season and then you work like crazy as a business to create a business and a business plan to keep us going.” (The clip has since been deleted, but is still circulating online.) On Sunday, Jon Rahm won LIV’s sixth event of the season, in Mexico City. What is your main point? what a wild week it was for the five-year league?
James Colgan, news and features editor (@jamescolgan26): My main takeaway is simple: the Saudis appear to be getting out of the business of running a golf league, which is a really important step for the entire sport. LIV now enters a period in which it will have to work hard to find a path to survival, and as its CEO Scott O’Neil himself said, it seems that all options are on the table.
Josh Sens (@joshsens). One thing is as old as capitalism: that new businesses – even the disruptive variety – are hard to grow, no matter how much money you put into them. That said, for Saudi Arabia, getting out of the business of financing a professional golf tournament doesn’t mean getting out of golf. A new course has just opened in Jura. Others are in the works. The ambition is still to increase the country’s presence in the game, but it is likely now as a host for golf tourism and tourism events. Which, in retrospect, seems like it would have been the best route all along.
Josh Schrock, news editor (@Schrock_And_Awe): My main reason is that if PIF withdraws, LIV Golf as we know it would have to reinvent itself. O’Neil said he would pursue all avenues to get more funding, but it’s hard to see one or more sponsors willing to fund the league at a level that would allow more nine-figure contracts. O’Neil himself said that LIV would not be profitable for five or 10 years without significant changes.
According to Schrock, could LIV continue in its current form without PIF‘deep pockets? If so, what would need to change?
Colgan: Definitely not in its current form. The league has spent more than $5 billion in Saudi funding to date, and, as Josh noted, O’Neil has already said the league is years away from any hope of profitability. Depending on who steps up to help LIV with funding, I’d say any change is on the table.
Meaning: No, the league would not be sustainable in its current form, and I have a hard time imagining what other form it could take. A limited series of world championship events with big dollar overseas sponsorships? But is there really a market for professional golf worth more than we already have? The LIV experiment has shown that some markets – Australia and South Africa, for example – are starved for golfing star power, but, globally, building and attracting eyeballs to a new league is a steep hill to climb.
Schrock: LIV could try to join the DP world tour or rebuild how it did a lot of things when the PIF spy was on. But contracts and purses will have to come down, and, at that point, how many players will want to continue when the financial payoff isn’t what it was when they originally signed? Lots of moving parts to consider, many of which we still have limited by lack of information.
If LIV doesn’t survive past 2026, would you expect the PGA Tour to offer LIV’s top players – Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, etc. – a path back to the tournament through a similar deal that Brooks Koepka agreed to?
Meaning: For the big names of LIV, absolutely. If the Tour wants to be a showcase for the best talent in the world, and it does, it will strike a deal with Rahm and DeChambeau and maybe a handful of others. The rest, I suspect, will have to play their way back through other smaller tournaments.
Colgan: On that theory, I’d think the Tour could afford to offer a “Koepka Deal” to Bryson and Rahm … and maybe let the rest of the LIV contingent serve their DP World Tour suspensions.
Schrock: From a pure cost-benefit analysis, Tour CEO Brian Rolapp would probably like to add Bryson and Rahm back to the fold, just as he did with Brooks. But things aren’t always that easy when you’re dealing with two players who have already turned down an opportunity to return, who may not be as well-liked by the current membership as Brooks, who kept his head down after leaving and didn’t take a shot or recruit other players. The sentiment may not be the same toward Bryson, who was a named plaintiff in LIV’s lawsuit against the PGA Tour and its members, or Rahm, whose post-framework severance agreement rubbed many players the wrong way. Would they immediately add value to the tournament? yes. But for Rolapp to sell that vision will be a tricky move.
Matt Fitzpatrick won the RBC Heritage in a playoff against Scottie Scheffler, who started the day three shots off the lead but caught Fitzpatrick late. Is your Hilton Head win more focused on Fitzpatrick’s second win in the last month, or Scheffler’s second straight runner-up finish?
Colgan: How quickly do we forget that Scottie Scheffler remains one US Open win away from a career Grand Slam? Kudos to Fitz for another win and continuing to re-establish himself as one of the premier players in the sport … but my eyes are already looking ahead to Shinnecock.
Meaning: Like Woods before him, Scheffler has blown our expectations so far out of proportion that a runner-up finish is somehow considered a failure. Fitzpatrick is on a great golf course. Scheffler is operating in another dimension. Whatever “struggle” he went through before seems to be behind him. So yeah, like James said, eyes on Shinnecock. But also in Aronimink before that. And honestly, wherever Scheffler shows it.
Schrock: Scheffler’s “struggles” were out of proportion as we tend to do when an elite athlete falls below the level we’re used to seeing them perform at. Scheffler nearly erased a 12-stroke weekend deficit at the Masters with an ice-cold putter. He is the best in the world and I expect him to fight every time he does it. For me, this was more about Fitzpatrick. A year ago, he was in a bad situation. His game was “rubbish” and he was ranked 79th in the world. A year later, he has three worldwide wins and has beaten Rory and Scottie in separate playoffs. His comeback is impressive and I think he is a much better player now than we thought his ceiling was when he won the 2022 US Open. Expect him to threaten at Aronimink and the Open.
Speaking ahead of the Senior PGA Championship, the major champion Padraig Harrington made a bold claim about how many more Masters Rory McIlroy can win given his success at Augusta, the comfort there and the fact that the course allows some players to stay competitive into their 50s. “Rory could win 10 (Masters) at this stage, or five of them, anyway.” While 10 seems high, what do you say? How many Masters titles will Rory end his career with?
Colgan: I think we do this a lot with star players: we see them win a little and immediately assume they can win a lot. It is so, so hard to earn a Masters. I believe Rory can make it to three, like fellow late August Phil Mickelson, but I’ll probably rush before I add more to the list.
Meaning: When Tiger won the Masters by a staggering 12 strokes, I remember the talk being that he would never lose that tournament again. He reached five. impressive. But yeah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Things happen. Life happens. Four green jackets for Rory doesn’t seem entirely out of the ordinary. Maybe five if all the stars align? But 10 is absurd. It won’t happen.
Schrock: We quickly forget that Rory went 10 years without winning a major of any kind. Golf is a fickle, fickle game. I think he can earn a third jacket and maybe, maybe you can get me a fourth at the end of his career. But the real question is how many degrees does Rory earn? I feel like I want to say nine, but then again we like to be prisoners of the moment with these things.
;)
