LIV Golf looks to be all but over, with players reportedly hours away from being told their Saudi backers have pulled the plug.
According to the Wall Street Journal, players will be told some time on Thursday (US time) the Public Investment Fund will end its financial support of the tour at the end of the season.
“The move sounds the death knell for the upstart that sowed chaos in professional golf,” The Journal wrote.
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Cameron Smith is reportedly about to be told LIV Golf will lose its funding. Augusta National/Getty Images
The news comes just days after the tour’s maiden event in New Orleans was postponed by the hosts over financial concerns.
The tour has been on life support for close to a month after the PIF released its five-year investment vision, which more or less omitted sport. Football and esport is expected to be the extent of the fund’s focus.
According to The Journal, senior LIV staff will continue to seek outside investment to keep the tour afloat, but given the Saudis have sunk billions into the venture, it would be impossible for it to continue in its current guise.
Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka. Getty Images for The Showdown
The news leaves the league’s biggest names at a crossroads. Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed both potentially saw the writing on the wall and accepted olive branches extended to them by the PGA Tour, but the likes of Jon Rahm, Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau will face a tougher time of getting their way back onto a tour.
DeChambeau was one of 11 players who in August 2022 filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the PGA Tour over suspensions dished to them for defecting to LIV. While other key names – including Phil Mickelson and Ian Poulter – have since withdrawn from the lawsuit, DeChambeau has not.
Rahm has steadfastly maintained his commitment to LIV, and it’s not known what a return to the PGA Tour might look like for the two-time major winner.
DeChambeau, Rahm and Cameron Smith were all offered the same olive branch as Koepka, but all refused. PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp has previously declared the offer was not a standing invitation, which has since lapsed.
“There were rules, and they were broken,” Rolapp said before the PIF news on Wednesday.
“With rules comes accountability.”
What a return to the tour looks like for them now remains to be seen.
For every other player, including the remaining Aussies of Marc Leishman and Lucas Herbert, it’s expected the PGA Tour will make them re-earn their cards as if they were re-starting their career. Elvis Smylie never previously held a PGA Tour card, and is unlikely to face the same sanctions as his peers.
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