On the day where LIV Golf came out all guns blazing, after just five shots of their ‘business as usual’ approach their coverage in Mexico suffered technical issues for about an hour. Those who were already laughing at them laughed louder.
Attending the Masters at Augusta National means that nothing else matters. This oasis in a decrepit town is all that is allowed to suffocate your focus, what’s out there in the real world is irrelevant. Other bits and pieces from the sporting world or even from the Masters commentary on TV went over our heads. That was until Wednesday when news broke of LIV’s reported demise upon our landing in Dublin Airport.
It is funny to point and laugh at LIV Golf, but those staunch defenders and supporters of the PGA Tour could do worse than to wake up and smell the roses. LIV are playing for $30m in Mexico while the PGA Tour has a Signature Event on in Hilton Head to the tune of $20m. The Signature Events were set up as part of Jay Monahan’s throw money at the problem and hope it sticks response to the threat of the Saudi backed tour. This hasn’t really worked and SSG were brought in to invest $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises.
Both tours are as bad as each other.
Whatever the future of LIV Golf it is clear that just throwing millions upon millions into men’s professional golf is unsustainable. Let’s not forget the amount of money Tiger Woods was getting paid for sitting on his backside and this whole TGL farce.
Since its inception in 2022, the Public Investment Fund has reportedly pumped more than $5 billion into LIV Golf incurring losses each year high into the hundreds of millions. LIV Golf’s UK-based organisation has suffered total losses in excess of $1.1 billion since its launch. Seems like a good long term plan right? Eh, maybe not.
In what world is paying Talor Gooch, Caleb Surratt, Victor Perez, Harold Varner III and Dean Burmester hundreds of millions a good investment?
Talk of the PIF cutting funding and LIV shutting down has cooled over the last 24 hours although having Arlo White as your defender in chief is a bit embarrassing. But it will do little to quash the rumours that cracks are appearing among the Saudi disruptors.
Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed leaving gave the indication that all is not what it seems while lesser players have left the circuit due to the grass not always being greener. Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm have also been non committal on their LIV futures with their contracts expiring at the end of the current campaign.
Let’s say LIV Golf did die. I would not feel sorry for any of the players, they made their bed, they took the get rich quick option and good luck to them. It is the many good people working in the organisation that I would feel for, those who have mortgages to pay, those who are actually earning a normal wage who feel the pressure of bills. Those are the people who would have their careers plunged into the murky waters of uncertainty.
Bryson DeChambeau will not be on the dole, Jon Rahm will not be on the dole, Tom McKibbin and Graeme McDowell won’t be on the dole, Dustin Johnson won’t be on the dole. You get the picture.
If LIV Golf did die, where would these players play? Maybe the DP World Tour would take some of these players back with open arms. Brooks Koepka was all but given the red carpet treatment to come back to the PGA Tour. This was wrong. It was a two fingers from the PGA Tour to LIV but from its whole ‘meritocracy’ standpoint which it shoves down our throats, it was wrong.
Last week, Tom Watson said that Koepka or any further potential returnees should go through the Korn Ferry Tour and earn their way back to the PGA Tour. Maybe it is easier to make an exception to one player but should a host of LIV players be looking for a way back then they should all be made go through the feeder tours to both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.
There are already enough players who stayed loyal to both tours coupled with players who have been grafting and grinding their way up the golfing ladder who don’t need to be push down a rung or two by those who are undeserving.
LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil insisted that LIV will continue “full throttle.” What on earth does that actually mean? Does that translate to continuing to buy an audience and failing? Aside from South Africa and Australia who have been starved of top level golf.
Every week in golf is different. We had a tournament with a rich history and heritage that everybody watches. I do not know anyone who watches LIV Golf. One need only look at LIV Golf players results in the major championships since 2022 to see that it has been detrimental to their game.
Cameron Smith has missed six successive cuts, Dustin Johnson is non existent, Jon Rahm has been very poor, while Koepka was off the boil completely in 2024 and 2025. Only Bryson has enhanced his game since joining, while Tyrrell Hatton has shown up well recently. We are continuously fed this nonsense that Joaquín Niemann, who has one career top-10 finish in majors, is a world class player. Do me a favour.
Every event so far except for the Singapore tournament has seen winning scores north of 20-under-par. On the PGA Tour you would call it a hit and giggle. It isn’t serious golf and the players are not being tested enough to stand up to the scrutiny of the major championships.
LIV Golf has served its purpose as a Saudi Arabian geopolitical move and a flexing of financial muscles, it is meaningless, has no history, will never have the heritage that most sports are built on. It is soulless. Even though the PGA Tour, who at one stage were open to getting into bed with the Saudis, are doing their best to strip away its own legacy with the diminishing of some famous tournaments.
LIV Golf’s bullishness has always sounded like bulls**t, with metrics that don’t actually signal an upward curve. A tour with backers who have money to burn, well, what if they actually have burned it all? Men’s professional golf needs a complete overhaul. Nobody has pockets deep enough.
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