LIV Golf now knows what it means to fall on the wrong side of the cut line. With one swing of the Saudi Arabian sword, this bombastic collective of disruptors and rebels are today staring at a stump where the money tree once stood. That and an existential crisis.
The announcement on Thursday, when the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund confirmed the 2026 season would be their last as LIV’s backers, was merely the airing of an open secret that has raged for weeks.
For all of LIV’s obfuscation in that wait, there is no longer any means of escaping the realities. Nor the questioning around what happens next.
Prime among them will be the immediate futures of their star names and another centres on whether we ought to predict LIV’s post-2026 lifespan in terms of months or weeks.
A third enquiry, which talks to the mood of rival tours, might go something like this: from where might we source a shipment of tiny violins?
The latter would be unkind – if LIV fails to secure new investors and folds entirely, dozens of good people from the rank and file will lose jobs.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will no longer bankroll LIV Golf after 2026, leaving the futures of the likes of Bryson DeChambeau in doubt
DeChambeau had been the favourite player of PIF governor and soon-to-be-former LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan (pictured)
But there will be no shortage of relief within the PGA and DP World Tours if this is, as expected, the beginning of a short journey to the end of a four-year civil war. For now, the only barrier to their victory is the thin prospect of LIV attracting investors with any desire to involve themselves with a league that drained the Saudis of more than $5billion dollars since 2022. That seems utterly inconceivable.
For the sums to work, we should look straight to Bryson DeChambeau. If losing PIF backing was LIV’s worst scenario, then losing their most marketable face would be a close second, which is awkward because his contract is up at the end of the season. His initial demands to renew had been estimated at around the £400million mark.
Such a figure would have been deemed a reasonable cost of business when PIF were flush. But they will be gone in a matter of months, as will their governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who long before DeChambeau’s US Open triumph in 2024 had already decided that the quirky American was his favourite recruit. A golf obsessive, Al-Rumayyan has spent hours talking about wedge strokes and shot shapes with DeChambeau.
But with the league haemorrhaging an estimated £75m a month, can any of the replacement backers being pursued spend even half of what DeChambeau wants? Let’s say they can, so £200m goes straight on the tab.
On top of that, how do they then balance the books for the running of LIV’s schedule? In 2026, there were 14 tournaments planned, with a combined prize fund of around £325m, meaning that a repeat in 2027 plus a half-price DeChambeau would come to £525m alone.
Considering the targets for new investment are understood by Daily Mail Sport to reside within the private equity sector, where profit is king, it seems beyond implausible.
A LIV source disclosed to me that one potential avenue for LIV to explore will involve paring down their schedule from 14 tournaments. The same source also suggested the absence of Saudi Arabia from the equation will help bring other parties to the table that were previously squeamish about the Kingdom’s reputation. Audacious doesn’t quite cover it.
Some players, like Lee Poulter (left) and Lee Westwood, took the money at the end of their careers
But others, such as Jon Rahm (pictured), left the PGA Tour at the height of their careers, and have appeared to have buyer’s remorse ever since
But audacity has been this league’s prime commodity. Growing the game? No one bought that slogan, just like too few bought tickets to the events and even fewer stumped up meaningful sums for the broadcasting rights.
Greed brought this venture into the open and greed has left a number of those star golfers with their pants down.
Jon Rahm, golf’s great traditionalist, once said even £400m couldn’t lure him away from a tour with history. When that promise was tested, he was off. And ever since he has rejected the informed whispers of buyer’s remorse with the face of a man who is bad at lying.
His failure to win a major since his departure in 2023 has given rise to the thought of a generational talent withering on the vine. Frankly, he brought it on himself, no doubt assisted by an agent in Jeff Koski, who is evidently better versed in misdirection.
When I presented Koski with my intention in November 2023 to reveal Rahm’s talks with LIV, he laughed it off as utterly ludicrous. To my shame, I believed him, and subsequently it has been tempting to wonder if Rahm himself was the victim of ludicrous advice.
Naturally, £400m is a reasonable pillow on which to sleep off any reservations. They have all been well remunerated, and many like Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter achieved it at the ends of their careers. To Dustin Johnson’s credit, he always said it was about the money. But you do have to query if Westwood, Poulter and Henrik Stenson will today attach any blame to themselves for a future that currently carries the consequence of ineligibility from Ryder Cup captaincy.
The younger end of the LIV talent pool will find life rafts, of course. The DP World Tour would welcome back all those who retained membership, Tyrrell Hatton (pictured) especially
The younger end of the LIV talent pool will find life rafts, of course. The DP World Tour would welcome back all those who retained membership, Tyrrell Hatton especially. One source sees it as likely, but added that Rahm is ‘in bad standing’ over his stand-off over unpaid fines. Presumably that can be overcome.
It is also known that the PGA Tour are lining up similar sweetheart deals to the one that allowed Brooks Koepka to return this year, and certainly the hope would be to entice the likes of DeChambeau, Johnson, Cam Smith, Joaquin Niemann and Rahm, if they are now minded to jump.
What of Phil Mickelson, the original firestarter? Reconciliation with the PGA Tour seems about as likely as that tree stump blossoming into another backer with an appetite for losing money.
