LIV Golf ready to deliver news of Saudi funding setback

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.

LIV Golf has signaled that they will plan to continue by seeking additional outside investment and sponsorship and keep the tour alive, but it’s hard to see a relevant path forward.

Star players were offered nine figure contracts by the Saudi PIF just to join LIV, let alone the massive purses that the tour has given for tournaments. Talor Gooch, with one PGA Tour title to his name, has won four events on LIV and amassed over $70 million. Jon Rahm, perhaps the most controversial defection from the PGA Tour, tops the LIV money list with over $90 million won in earnings. Even journeymen like Pat Perez, Jason Kokrak, and Harold Varner III have won over $20 million in their short time at LIV.

Perhaps the most significant part of the WSJ news is the on-the-record response from PGA Tour commissioner Brian Rolapp. Although the tour welcomed back Brooks Koepka earlier this season with an exclusive opportunity for major winners, it is already sending the signal that it was a one-time offer. Players who took the Saudi money and ran will face a difficult time making their way back.

“I don’t necessarily have scar tissue, but there are plenty of people around our tour who do,” Rolapp told the Journal. “It has to be accounted for in some shape or form.”

After an initial decline, the PGA Tour has found a way to impressively rebound from the schism. Ratings are up, new stars are being established, and Rolapp seems committed to modernizing the tour’s schedule and media approach. And as LIV has faltered in ratings and interest, the PGA Tour has increasingly held all the cards in golf’s civil war.

While LIV has failed to make any impact stateside, it has found an audience in under-represented parts of the golf world like Australia and South Africa. Could the tour continue as a smaller, sleeker regional tour? Perhaps. Maybe they will find a way to keep the team-golf innovation going and find a way to be self-sustaining. For the players who jumped at the chance to leave the PGA Tour, they may be stuck with whatever is left of LIV Golf as it becomes a shadow of its former self in 2027 and beyond… if it even exists at all.

The only certainty right now is that the dreams of LIV to overturn the golf world and buy its way past the PGA Tour appears to be done and dusted.

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