After spending recent weeks on life support, LIV Golf has lost the funding of its Saudi backers.
LIV plans to tell players and staff by Thursday that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will no longer bankroll the circuit after this season, according to people familiar with the matter. The move sounds the death knell for the upstart that sowed chaos in professional golf by plowing billions into the sport and poaching A-list players.
The writing had been on the wall for nearly a month. When PIF recently laid out its vision for the next five years, it made no mention of the league that has divided the golf world since it first teed off in 2022. The people said that while LIV has grown the sport globally, the operation was no longer consistent with the new phase of PIF’s investment strategy.
Even as LIV seeks outside investors to keep it afloat, it will be nearly impossible for it to exist bearing any resemblance to its current form after the Saudis lost billions on the endeavor. They paid exorbitant fees to put on tournaments with lucrative purses featuring elite players such as Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm. LIV is already in talks with outside investors, a person familiar with LIV’s thinking said.
Now, as LIV evaluates its strategic alternatives beyond 2026, those same players will have to address their own futures. And one thing has already become clear: The mainstream golf world isn’t ready to simply welcome them back.
“There were rules, and they were broken,” PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp said before the PIF news on Wednesday. “With rules comes accountability.”
Already, five-time major champion Brooks Koepka rejoined the PGA Tour from LIV this year through a one-time returning member program that could cost him up to $90 million between charitable donations and forfeitures of bonuses and equity. But even that punishing arrangement, which was only offered during a brief window earlier this year, is unlikely to be available to LIV’s remaining high-profile players.
Rolapp said the circumstances surrounding Koepka’s return were unique because he had gotten out of his LIV contract and actively sought a return to the Tour. And Koepka’s path won’t be treated as a precedent if and when others seek to do the same.
While Tour officials can’t discuss specific players who are under contract with a competitor, DeChambeau’s situation explains why players will be treated on a case-by-case basis.
When DeChambeau joined LIV, he joined a group of players who filed an antitrust suit against the Tour challenging their suspensions, which generated intense animosity among those who stayed and cost the Tour vast sums of money before the litigation was dropped. (Koepka, on the other hand, never participated in the suit.) DeChambeau also stuck with LIV even when the returning-member window was open. So even though he’s a two-time major winner with a popular social media presence, the damage some players inflicted on their way out the door won’t be forgotten.
“I don’t necessarily have scar tissue, but there are plenty of people around our tour who do,” Rolapp says. “It has to be accounted for in some shape or form.”
Patrick Reed represents another scenario. Whereas many others joined LIV in violation of their contracts with the PGA Tour, Reed resigned his membership and as a result didn’t violate any regulations when he started playing for a rival. Now, after leaving LIV in January, he’s playing on Europe’s DP World Tour where he’s on track to regain his Tour card for 2027.
Others, though, might not be afforded a nice summer in Europe before returning stateside unscathed. The normal pathways to rejoin the Tour were available to Reed because of his resignation. Players who flaunted their contracts might well face additional punishments.
And the hill to get back on Tour could be even steeper for golfers with less illustrious track records. The Tour already drew a line in the sand when the previous returning member program was strictly limited to recent major champions.
“We’re interested in having the best players who can help our tour,” Rolapp said. “Not every player can do that.”
