LIV Golf will officially announce to staff and players that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the primary financial backer of the renegade golf tour, has officially pulled its funding at the conclusion of the 2026 season.
The official announcement, which the Wall Street Journal is reporting will take place on Thursday, will formally clear the way for O’Neill to look for other funding.
The Saudi-backed men’s golf league, which intended to compete with the PGA Tour, has reportedly lost more than $5 billion since its debut in 2022 and failed to achieve a significant television audience, especially in the U.S., where it aired on the CW Network before signing a deal with Fox, although ratings have continued to be abysmal.
Rumours that PIF would pull its financial backing have been circulating for weeks, and LIV’s CEO Scott O’Neill confirmed as much in an interview on April 17 that the league is only funded through the rest of the season, and then he’ll “work like crazy” to keep it going. In an interview that aired during the LIV Mexico tournament, O’Neill declared, “LIV Golf is in the best shape it’s ever been in its history, period, end of sentence,” while at the same time stating that future funding was to be determined.
“The reality is you’re funded through the season and then you work like crazy to create a business plan to keep us going,” O’Neil said. “But that’s not different from any other private equity-funded business in the history of mankind.”
The news comes just weeks after the PIF’s governor and primary LIV backer, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, shared a new five-year strategic plan that re-prioritised the kingdom’s domestic spending and reduced its international investments.
LIV Golf kicked off its first event in June 2022, with no cuts and shotgun starts, and a team golf element that never found an audience. With lavish guaranteed contracts, it succeeded in signing some of the world’s notable names, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm. It had some success with tournaments in Australia and, more recently, this season in South Africa. Anthony Kim’s comeback and eventual win created a bit of buzz earlier this year, but overall, the league failed to gain traction.
Earlier this year, five-time major champion Brooks Koepka opted to return to the PGA Tour, and past Masters champion Patrick Reed also chose to leave LIV and focus on the DP World Tour with hopes of earning a promotion back to the PGA Tour next season.
LIV Golf is scheduled to play in Northern Virginia next week. It has seven events remaining this season, and its leadership is officially on the clock to find new deep-pocketed backers away from PIF, a tough task for a Tour that has struggled to gain much traction and has blown through over $5bn in four years.
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