LIV Golf is dead

LIV Golf was built on a foundation of defiance, greed to “grow the game” platitudes and – significantly – unfathomable waves of money. But when the money dried up, defiance became an unsustainable strategy, platitudes were as empty as a well-hit shot in a rifle.

LIV Golf has officially started on the verge of bankruptcy, bringing an end to the most turbulent era of any major American sport in decades. The final clear rang out in the New Jersey market on Thursday morning after the league’s lender refused to offer 50 percent of its life. The winding process designed to address the demands of the Credit Union will begin in the coming days.

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BC Credit Partners, which reached a tentative agreement to fund “LIV 2.0” with up to $300 million; the offer was withdrawn after Liv did not convince enough big name players to sign on. Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia, Graeme McDowell, and many others have not decided to follow LIV into the next iteration; Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed have already severed ties after their contracts flowed.

The Financial Times reported that about 30 players on the new vision of the federal, global, player golf tour, with another 10 players – including some star names – will join the fences. But that was not enough for BC, because the treaty was no longer viable.

The golf course, initially founded by Saudi billionaires, changed the entire trajectory of golf, drawing lines between colleagues, throwing billions into laughter, increasing purses, changing the makeup of the Ryder Cup and all four majors, and ultimately reshaping the entire PGA Tour schedule. But after Saudi Arabia withdrew its financing, LIV Golf simply could not remain an independent operation in the high-stakes, world’s largest economy it helped create.

The LIV Golf took a laugh at a wild, expensive vehicle, one that fundamentally changed every element of the game. Its impact on golf, as a game and as an institution, will last long after anyone remembers what the “Range Goat” was, but not just what its founders intended.

LIV Golf

The LIV Golf is always going to perish from the start, in your face. Quite as it is a highly individual pursuit, golf as a sport is very personality driven, but golf as a business is and always has been, an establishment, a risk aversion, a conservative operation of the lower cause-c.

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So when LIV Golf — funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, noted provocateur Greg Norman — thundered into the golf world in 2021, it was like a golf ball being thrown into a pepperoni cheese sandwich. Unlimited money! Cool attitude! Live the music! Only money! Dance parties! Neo everywhere! Did we mention money?

LIV plane almost never falls back on the bridge. Phil Mickelson gave it his all game in late 2021, stating that he wants to go into business with “motherf****** form” – a phrase that now lives on in golf infamy – to take a bite out of the PGA Tour’s imperial dominance of the game. After great PR loss control, and more Saudi wealth scoops, LIV tournaments began to play in 2022 with a distinctive number of players.

The value of the LIV proposition — that of course stick to a man no matter what, but mostly money — has attracted many of golf’s best-known antagonists, with notes other than their first stars drawn by salaries that could be obtained nowhere else in the country. Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood — each one of them has admitted to performing the same “No Comment” dance before, and yes, eight or nine like payday to jump to 50.

In the early days of the 1950s, the pro-Saudi environment generated the most heat, with critics reporting Saudi Arabia’s appalling human rights record. The players drew criticism from the 9/11 organizations of record and presented their justifications for taking Saudi money in cinematic ways. LIV was the first example of sports laundering, using soft power projects such as sports to undermine the image of an autocratic petrostate.

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And I worked for a while. With rare exception, LIV did not exactly attract huge crowds either by themselves or on television. But the immense wealth of the Saudi government after 15 years was enough to attract the attention of the PGA Tour. Then-PGA Tour CEO Jay Monahan and Rory McIlroy, among others, stated the distinction between the two tours morally, between tradition and short-term profit, between legacy money and blood. Lawsuits and accusations flew between the two parties, forcing everyone to pick a side involved.

However, the truth was much more complicated, and moral states far more fragile. The tour realized that it was being drawn to a series of unsustainable financial instruments, and in June 2023, the PGA Tour and the Saudi PIF announced the cessation of the legal battle and a “framework agreement” for future cooperation between the two.

The entire golf course was taken by surprise. Nor, however, because he had paid nothing at all. The PGA Tour went ahead and sought extra investment to reduce its potential reliance on the PIF; LIV Golf went ahead and poached several players, most notably then world No. 3 Jon Rahm, when he hints that more failures are coming soon.

They were not.

Cracks are beginning to show

Even as the LIV continued to make strides toward legitimacy — Koepka won the 2023 PGA Championship while a member of the LIV, and DeChambeau captured the 2024 US Open, and majors agreed to extend limited proposals to LIV members — the tour failed to gain traction in the United States. Events in both South Africa and Australia drew significant crowds, suggesting that there was not a moderate hunger for football in those countries. But stateside, 55 results are rendered irrelevant.

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Through 2024 and 2025 some signs of hope have emerged for LIV and its advocates. The Official World Golf Rankings agreed to give some 55 points to players, offering them a path into the majors. This year and earlier, Augusta National President Fred Ridley played 50 in the closing ceremony, an indication of the pole he had boarded on tour.

But at the same time the signs were disturbed. Just before the holidays in late 2025, Koepka began his next journey on the PGA Tour, and Reed followed soon after. The one-time tour provided a path for some notable members of the LIV — Rahm and DeChambeau in particular — but no other player followed.

Then in April of this year the hammer fell. Just days after the end of the Masters, the PIF announced that it would withdraw all costs from LIV, effective at the end of this season. The movement has reached a total of 55 officers, who have been forced to panic because of a potential siege to keep them operating as a leaner, less red-handed organization.

and the hits kept coming. Neither Rahm nor DeChambeau seemed to be publicly affected by the situation at LIV. Although DeChambeau found himself involved in talks with outside investors, he was also unpaid and under contract to LIV Golf. As Saudi wealth disappeared, so did its pressure and incentive to remain at LIV. One summer’s tournament thrown into doubt, small disputes mounting, and the famous investment announcements all combined to darken the clouds over LIV.

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In late July, Cleeks captain Martin Kaymer indicated there were serious concerns about whether they would make it into the league this season or at all. More omen, the Asian Tour, which was affiliated with LIV, entered into a long-term agreement with the PGA and the European Tour, effectively cutting LIV out of the international tournament circuit.

Although LIV had sought to adopt an open-door policy — players could play on other tours in addition to their LIV duties — other tours did not reciprocate. A long-term suspension on the PGA Tour for any player who disqualifies him in a LIV event, and when the DP Tours also barred LIV players from its tournaments in October, LIV lost yet another boost to its players.

Not until now.

Liv’s legacy

What did LIV Golf bring to the game, and how did LIV change the game?

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The circuit’s “Golf, But Louder” slogan never really stuck; It turns out that most galleries and TV viewers prefer golf tournaments that focus on golf, not chainsmokers’ concerts or zoos. More broadly, the emergence of LIV has turned golf into a cold, bloody pursuit of money, with tournaments and tours alike staking huge purses.

It has forced the broader LIV PGA Tour to take a hard look at how the business has conducted itself over the past 50-plus years. The result: an all-new PGA Tour schedule with two different playing tracks, “champions” and “champions.” The best and most well-known players in the new framework that will definitely benefit from 2028, the lower ones were preferred, it is unlikely.

On a less salacious note, LIV’s greatest legacy is the demonstrated interest in golf far beyond the traditional American-European axis. LIV Events in the Southern Hemisphere observe a summit of six figures; who can meet the price that the work will surely flourish.

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LIV Golf enriched players and destroyed reputations, forcing new perspectives on the game at a great price. The definitive goal is that at this stage, creating a legitimate league of competition in the growth industry is effectively impossible. The mercenary’s mind was stripped bare in the heart of the game. It deprived some players of their first competitive years on the PGA Tour, but it also made those players astronomically rich.

For years to come, the LIV adventure will be a study in myth and ambition, the wealth of riches against the power of the legates. In the end, the legacy was sought … although not before the millions were earned, and the billions were driven. It is quite quiet now, but it is always changing.