We already knew that was the case, but further confirmation came on Wednesday evening:
LIV Golf will not be supported by the Saudi Public Investment Fund after this season.
According to a Wall Street Journal reportLIV plans to tell players and staff by Thursday that the county’s main source of funding — essentially all of its funding — is being pulled after the 2026 campaign ends.
This comes as no surprise to those who have followed this saga over the past two weeks. Multiple reports emerged earlier this month stating that the Saudis were withdrawing from LIV. This coincided with the announcement of PIF’s five-year vision. Notably, LIV was not mentioned in that vision.
And then Golf Digest just reported that representatives of several LIV players have reached out to the PGA Tour to discuss a possible return.
“People familiar with the talks say a path back to the PGA Tour will exist, though the terms are expected to be significantly more restrictive than those given to Brooks Koepka,” the article said.
To add insult to injury, LIV Louisiana was postponed due to financial reasons surrounding the tournament. As it stands now, LIV has no tournaments between June 7th and July 23rd – and it’s entirely possible that future events will be canceled as some players may sit out as they want to get a head start on serving their suspensions for a return to the tournament.
This all happened recently, but the writing has been on the wall for much longer than a few weeks.
Although the Saudis poured several billion dollars into LIV, the product never gained traction with American audiences. Ratings were comically low throughout the league’s four-year history. There were some positives over the years – such as outstanding events in Australia and South Africa – but it was very 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 tough talk from backers of LIV, including CEO Scott O’Neil and Ian Poulter.
The reality here is that LIV has never had a functioning business. It has bled money into the hundreds of millions. It only secured the services of players like Bryson DeChambeau because he was given a giant contract (now looking for a new contract, DeChambeau is reportedly asking for a whopping $400 million).
I’m sure efforts will be made to secure other funding, but even the best prospect would make LIV look completely unknown.
There is talk that the national steps have been co-opted by LIV to become an international tour. There is some validity to the idea, but the DP World Tour has been at this pace for decades – and available corporate sponsorship is limited.
Corporate money in professional golf resides primarily in the American market. That’s why LIV insisted on playing nearly half of its events in the US, despite the success of certain tours in other countries.
The bottom line is that LIV will never be the same.
Could it still exist in the future? yes. But barring some amazing investors who don’t care about the return on investment, the LIV venture will be a much, much smaller and less disruptive game than before.
How will LIV players return to the PGA Tour?
The Tour has some decisions to make about how to treat 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 as we saw earlier this year when Brooks Koepka returned to the Tour, LIV players will have to serve a suspension of at least a year before returning to the Tour.
Koepka was already out of his contract with LIV, which made the return simpler. DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith all turned down opportunities to return immediately with minimal consequences (they may be regretting that move now).
And in terms of qualifying, most players will have 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 playing well in Europe. But he will have served a year of suspension. Reed had resigned his Tour membership before playing for LIV, so he didn’t break any rules. Some LIV players did not and could face longer suspensions.
There are also 11 players who joined an antitrust lawsuit against the Tour early in LIV’s tenure. They are expected to face additional scrutiny. DeChambeau, Poulter, Phil Mickelson and Talor Gooch were 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 some players left.
“I don’t necessarily have scar tissue, but there are a lot of people around our tournament who do,” Rolapp said. “It has to be accounted for in some shape or form.”
Reading between the lines, LIV players will not be welcomed with open arms again. It’s possible that new rules will be put in place to ensure certain return routes – or the tournament could rely on its current structure.
What do you think about the situation? Let me know below in the comments.
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