O’Neil is starting to make pitches to prospective financers now that Saudi PIF has stopped bankrolling the league following somewhere in the range of $5 to $8 billion spent on the venture. The league is seeking $250 million to $350 million to continue operations and is projecting profitability within three years. Axios reported earlier this week that LIV was targeting profitability in 20 months. In a February interview with the Financial Times, CEO Scott O’Neil said profitability could be five to 10 years away, and in a since-deleted on-air comment, O’Neil said the league had funding only through the end of 2026.

However, earlier this week Front Office Sports reported there is doubt among LIV executives that the league will be able to complete its remaining four events on the calendar. LIV has already postponed one event this season, citing summer heat and the World Cup. Asked during a guest spot on CNBC’s afternoon programming, O’Neil was asked if he could guarantee those events will be played.

“What I can guarantee is a heck of a return if you come invest in this business,” O’Neil said.

O’Neil asserted LIV has a “very, very special opportunity to create tremendous value,” and said he’s had five meetings about funding interest and more scheduled for this week. “While we have incredible business momentum, what we don’t have is a lot of time, so we’re very urgently out there talking to those who are interested,” he said.

In late April LIV created an independent board of directors to help focus on securing long-term financial partners after Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF and architect of LIV Golf who had held the position of chairman of LIV’s board, stepped down. Still, while PIF is gone, O’Neil believes they will fund the remaining four events.

“I can say they’ve been terrific partners so far, and you have to take an incredible organisation like PIF at their word,” O’Neil said. “They’ve been very public about funding us through the season, so we are full steam ahead.”

LIV Golf’s next event is scheduled for July 23-26 outside of London.

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As uncertainty surrounds LIV Golf, Bryson DeChambeau is adamant he’ll use his star power to help the league raise investment after acknowledging that the decision from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to withdraw funding after 2026 came as a “surprise.”

Last month, the PIF confirmed it would not finance LIV beyond the 2026 season, following a reported spend of between $5 billion and $8 billion since the league launched in 2022.

PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan also stepped down as chairman of LIV’s board in the wake of the withdrawal. The league has since installed Gene Davis and Jon Zinman to lead a restructured board, describing them as “seasoned experts with proven track records for navigating complex situations and unlocking value for global organisations.”

LIV, which postponed an event in Louisiana, scheduled for June, to a slated Fall date, continues this week in South Korea at the Asiad Country Club in the coastal region of Busan. The eighth event of LIV’s 2026 season comes after reports that the league is laying the groundwork to file for bankruptcy.

The league is pressing on, pitching a 10-event schedule to potential investors having officially entered the marketplace this week via New York-based Ducera Partners.

It is believed the target for investment is between $250 million and $350 million, while a new-look version of the league would extend equity beyond just the team captains and will have an emphasis on team golf.

Sources said more than 12 players provided introductions to potential investors, for both the league and its teams.

With all this as context, DeChambeau was asked by reporters about the PIF’s withdrawal from LIV and his optimism for new investment when he spoke with media on Tuesday.

“We were surprised that they pulled out as quickly as they did,” DeChambeau said. “We didn’t really see that coming. But that’s OK. One door closes, another opens. I think that’s the way a lot of us are looking at it. I think we all have optimism that there is a business plan that makes sense for team golf.

“I’m very optimistic with the business plan of team golf compared to other models, in my opinion.”

DeChambeau expanded on how team golf could be a point of differentiation and a catalyst for LIV to survive.

“Other models have worked, as well, so I’m not going to say that one is better than the other. But I do see value in what team golf can provide not only worldwide but also in grass rooting the game of golf. National support, team national support, city local support, we grass root ourselves there. There’s a couple ideas that we have … quite a few ideas that we have that could be interesting.

“We’ll see if investors like it or not. I’m giving all I can to make it happen, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t happen.”

DeChambeau, who won last year’s LIV Golf Korea, was asked how he manages to focus while the league tries to secure its future.

“I go out there on the first tee on Thursday and hit a beautiful drive down the middle of the fairway, hopefully,” DeChambeau said in Korea. “That’s what we’re focused on. In the background, yeah, we’re trying to help where we can, but ultimately, it’s up to executives and everybody banding together. If we all band together, there’s an opportunity here. If not, it’s going to be a different day for all of us.”

If his performance on the course is a way to decipher whether the future of LIV has been a distraction for DeChambeau, the results have been mixed. He won consecutive LIV events in Singapore and South Africa leading into the Masters, only to miss the cut at Augusta National. He finished third at LIV Golf Virginia then missed the weekend rounds at the PGA Championship at Aronimink.

Chasing a third major after U.S. Open victories in 2020 and 2024, DeChambeau is hopeful of turning his form around in time to challenge for another title at Shinnecock before wrapping up major season at the Open Championship in July at Royal Birkdale.

“I’m playing some solid golf; I’m working on my golf swing quite hard, trying to get back to that 58 level at Greenbrier [he shot 58 during his LIV Golf Greenbrier win in 2023] when I just had this golf swing that was so easy,” DeChambeau said.

“The weeks that I’ve been playing in major championships, I’ve been playing OK, just having nothing happen for me, and that’s kind of the game of golf,” he continued. “The weeks before that I played really well going into them. I won two events going into the Masters and then finished third in Virginia. So it’s not like I’m playing bad golf. I think I’m putting some pressure on myself to play well in those tournaments, and that’s the reality. Nobody is perfect, and I’m still working hard to play as good as I possibly can, and the year before I played really well in the majors, missed one cut there, and it just happens.

“That’s golf, and ultimately excited for the opportunities I have moving forward. There isn’t any quit in me, as you can see. Even at Aronimink, I birdied my first last three holes trying to make the cut there, and it is what it is.

“I’ll tell you this: I played worse golf and shot better scores at majors. It’s one of those scenarios of ebbs and flows in golf. I’m really excited for the future over at Shinnecock and overseas, as well, for the Open Championship. Head down, keep moving forward.”

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Dustin Johnson was asked his opinion on the PIF pulling funding of the league ahead of LIV Golf Korea, and in classic DJ fashion, he offered a lengthy answer:

“Long LIV Golf.”

He’s a man of many words! @DJohnsonPGA @4AcesGC_ @livgolf_league https://t.co/Ya4DRFzpVa pic.twitter.com/yxN2DOnLva

— Flushing It (@flushingitgolf) May 26, 2026

Ahead of this week’s LIV Golf Korea event, Dustin Johnson was asked about the future of LIV Golf following the Saudi Public Investment Fund sudden exit from pro golf. As one of the very first adopters of the league in 2022, Johnson was asked how he personally felt about the uncertain status of LIV’s future and he replied with one of the cringiest golf media moments we’ve seen in a long, long time. Get ready to squirm, folks.

After listening to the question, clearly meant to elicit a thoughtful, considered response from Johnson, the 2020 Masters champion raised the mic to his lips and dropped this nugget:

“Long LIV Golf.”

He paused for a moment for reaction—perhaps he thought he cooked, perhaps he thought that one man in the back would rise and slowly begin to clap, and that others would steadily follow until the room was roaring with hope and defiance. Instead his quip, more fitting for some unfortunate macrame on your aunt’s fridge, was greeted with deafening silence as the former World No. 1 looked to his teammates for help, finding them with their heads down praying to be anywhere else.

This has all the hallmarks of a classic DJ quote, but perhaps the golf world has simply moved on. Perhaps in a world of Rory McIlroys and Scottie Schefflers, we demand pop philosophy from our pros now. Perhaps Cam Young has replaced him as golf’s soft-spoken bomber. Or maybe it’s not golf that’s moved on. Maybe DJ, now 41 and without a clear future in golf should LIV disintegrate, has simply lost a step. That would be sad news indeed, to which we only have one thing to say:

Long live DJ.

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In remarks made to the BBC at the time, Rahm seemed to give fuel to the second version.

“I could be the start of a tipping point in that sense,” Rahm said. “I understood the weight that [my] decision could have and the impact it could have. I understood that perfectly and that’s why it wasn’t an easy decision. … Luckily, in my career, especially last year, I accomplished a lot and I got to be one of the bigger names in golf. There are few active players that could have had a bigger impact than myself in that sense. Not to be patting myself on the back too much, but I understood the position I was in.”

Two years later, of course, things look very different—the PIF is pulling its investment in LIV at year’s end, and the future of the league is in serious jeopardy. Players like Rahm, whose contracts run past 2026, find themselves in limbo as LIV scrambles to find a lifeline via new investors. On Tuesday at the PGA Championship, he first distanced himself from the notion that he believed he’d be a catalyst for the merger.

“I was never like thinking that I was going to be any sort of weight that would tip the scales to make things come together,” he said. “That was never an argument in my mind. When asked if that was the case for people to come together, that would be great. I never made a decision based on that.”

As to whether he looks back with any regret or would change his decision if he had known how the last two years would play out, he was more circumspect.

“Now, I would also say I’ve made a lot of decisions in my life, and I’ve never gone back thinking, ‘Oh, had I known this again, I would do X and Y different,’” he explained. “I could do that about 15 different golf shots on the golf course every single day. If I lived my life like that as a golfer, I would be a very pessimistic person … just to speculate on what could have done, what could have been different doesn’t really make much sense.”

“We all go back,” he added. “We all think what could have been and what couldn’t have been. It’s inevitable … if the terms change afterward, like it’s happened with LIV that things changed a little bit, it’s an afterthought, not a problem from the choice.”

Later in the press conference, a reporter asked him to clarify what he had learned from the last two years.

“That is for me to know,” Rahm said with a smile. “And that’s about that.”

Rahm, 31, comes into this year’s PGA Championship on the strength of LIV Golf wins in Hong Kong and Mexico City, and he’s looking to improve on his performance at last year’s PGA at Quail Hollow, when he briefly held a share of the lead on the back nine Sunday before fading to a T-8 finish. He has three major top-10s since moving to LIV and finished T-38 at this year’s Masters. He’s the highest-ranked LIV player in the Official World Golf Ranking at No. 20. It was clear from his remarks that he’s confident in his form.

“I feel like I’m playing better than the ranking I have right now,” he said. “I’m not going to get into the details of what number I would be [in the OWGR] because I don’t want to insult any player who doesn’t play fantastic golf, but I feel like higher than I am right now, that would be fair.”

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In that time, LIV’s scheduled event for Louisiana in June was postponed until the fall. LIV also unveiled a new board led by Gene Davis and Jon Zinman.

Now readying for the sixth event of a turbulent season, O’Neil spoke to the press at Trump National Golf Club in Washington D.C. His session came a day after the league announced it had retained Ducera Partners LLC as its investment banking advisor to find investment partners.

“Was I surprised? I don’t know, it’s hard to even think about that moment,” O’Neil said about when he learned PIF would cease funding after 2026. “So I’d rather not comment on how I actually felt, my emotion. I can tell you that it was very clear 18 months ago that for this to be a growing concern, we were going to have to make significant and substantive changes in terms of the way we do business.

“Guys, remember, when my phone rings, it never is the case that everything is going well. I am not a status quo manager. I never have been. Like this is what I do … so, it would be naive to be surprised, and it would be irresponsible to be thinking anything else other than how far we have to go to make sure that we can continue to grow this game around the world.”

O’Neil was also asked about the possibility of prize purses being significantly reduced from the current offering of $30 million per event—$20 million for the individual tournament purse and $10 million for the team portion.

“I definitely will not be talking through specifics of the plan, but it’s a pretty—it’s a playbook that won’t surprise too many people once you see it,” O’Neil said. “We have a good runway through this season fortunately, and it’s for next year that we’re going to be making some pretty significant, substantive changes. If you can piece together what I’ve said over the last six months, there won’t be too much surprise in terms of what you find.”

Hector Vivas

As LIV restructures, a pertinent question becomes how it can retain its biggest names if the prize purses were reduced; LIV counts Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith among its group.

“Our view of what got the players here—I wasn’t here when most of the players came in—I have been here when players have come in, and they’re coming for very different reasons,” O’Neil said. “I’d encourage [you to] ask them why they’re here. Some of them, sure, came for money. Others are here for very different reasons, and I appreciate that.

“You’ve got 57 players from 21 different countries all looking for something in their lives … others are chasing fame, others are chasing legacy and career, others are looking for more predictability and a schedule. There are a whole host of others that want to travel the world. So, I definitely don’t want to take 57 guys and pigeonhole them into what they care about. I think that would be irresponsible.”

If LIV golfers were to supplement their schedules with other tours, O’Neil said he would not stand in their way. On Tuesday, Rahm announced he and the DP World Tour had come to an agreement for the Spaniard to continue playing on the European circuit after settling his fines for playing in conflicting events.

“We have never, since our inception, ever restricted our players,” O’Neil said. “That’s from bans, from fines, not us. Nope, go play where you want to play. We believe in free golf, free agency of golf.

“We believe that players should play when they want and where they want so long as they sign up for these 14, and we’ll be sticking to that.”

One topic O’Neil was somewhat clearer on was whether there will be competitive changes to the league in 2027.

“We’ve changed pretty dramatically in my two seasons here, and I’ve been on the record saying the format changes won’t stop, and we’ll continue to evolve to optimise the business,” O’Neil said. “So I would not be surprised to see a continued evolution in our format.”

Finally, O’Neil was queried about LIV’s biggest drawcard, two-time U.S. Open champion DeChambeau.

“You want to talk about a business partner, we’re literally talking about the future of LIV Golf, I’m talking with him about how does he see, not just the golf, but the business,” O’Neil said. “He’s smart, he’s driven, he’s committed, and he’s a heck of a partner.”

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As speculation rages that LIV Golf may lose its funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in 2027, questions mount as to what might be next for Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, the league’s two highest profile starts. DeChambeau said in an interview last week he’s committed to making LIV work, and Rahm seems to be supporting

But what of the league’s rank-and-file players? How are they handling the uncertainty of the league’s future? For two of its up-and-comers, the mindset echoes the British catchphrase: stay calm and move on.

Caleb Surratt of Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII team and Josele Ballester of Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs G.C. were both in Singapore over the weekend for the second time in six weeks. Having played LIV Golf Singapore in March, the duo returned for the Asian Tour’s International Series event in the Singapore Open.

“I flew 31 hours,” Surratt told Golf Digest via phone from the Singapore Open, where he finished T-9. “A lot of opportunity. I enjoy playing on the International Series. [The Serapong at Sentosa G.C.] is probably one of my favorite courses I get to play all year.”

Surratt and Ballester were also gunning for the two spots into the Open Championship on offer in Singapore, which was part of the R&A’s Open Qualifying Series. Both players missed out as South Korea’s Jeongwoo Ham won the tournament ahead of Australia’s Cameron John. The winner and runner-up grabbed the invitations to Royal Birkdale in July.

The week prior to the Singapore Open, during the LIV Golf Mexico City event, reports surfaced that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund was on the verge of withdrawing its financial support of the upstart league. It was, and remains, one of the biggest stories in sports this year.

LIV Golf’s CEO, Scott O’Neil, said his league has the PIF’s support through this season. Operations will continue in 2026 with events in Washington, D.C., South Korea, Spain, Louisiana, England, New Jersey, Indianapolis and Michigan to come.

The uncertainty surrounding LIV is something Surratt, who joined in 2024, and Ballester, recruited last summer, obviously are aware of. Yet Surratt feels enough information has been conveyed to players so far to make them comfortable—at least in the short run.

“The reassurance is you have 60 players in the league or so, and I think every single one of them is 100 percent fully invested in making it a better place to play,” Surratt, 22, said. “I think it’s out of my control, but I know that Scott O’Neil is probably the No. 1 guy that we all want in charge in … for a successful future. So there’s no doubt in my mind everything’s going to work out, but in the end, I’m not really in control and my job is just to work hard, get better, and try to play well.”

Ballester, also 22, finished third at LIV Golf Mexico City. He is also optimistic about LIV’s future.

“So far we know that we’re excited to finish the season in fashion and looking forward to continue next year,” Ballester said from Singapore, where he finished T-3. “As you said, it was a little turbulent at the beginning of last week [in Mexico], but pretty excited for what’s forward.”

Ballester said it means a lot that Bryson DeChambeau came out and said he’s trying to look out for LIV’s young players as the league tries to figure out its future. Hector Vivas

It would be understandable if the league’s younger players—a group that includes 20-somethings Tom McKibbin of Northern Ireland, Spain’s David Puig and last year’s NCAA champion, Michael La Sasso—were nervous about the 2027 season and beyond. It helps though to hear DeChambeau express his belief that “there will be a solution” to his impending contract renewal with reports suggested DeChambeau and his team met with LIV organisations at the Masters to explore all options.

“As of right now, my job is to help make the league work after this year,” DeChambeau told the social media account Flushing It. “I’m going to do everything in my power to make it work and I really see the value in franchise golf. And, you know, another reason why I’m doing this is not just for myself and the team aspect that I really believe in on the Crushers side. It’s for Michael La Sasso. It’s for Caleb Surratt. It’s for Josele Ballester. It’s for David Puig.”

Suffice it to say Ballester and Surratt appreciated the two-time U.S. Open winner’s mention of them.

“Yeah, for sure, it definitely means a lot and not just for myself but for the other young guys on LIV and the league overall,” Ballester said. “Bryson, Rahm are the top two guys on the league. Having those two guys looking over, not [only] for themselves but also for the rest, it’s pretty cool to see. As a young player, there’s not so much that I can control, so I’m just focusing on my golf and hopefully they will continue for many years.”

Surratt added: “Bryson, he’s a great guy to have around. He is certainly an amazing player, and I know for a fact that I think what he said is true. He is going to fight for what’s right.”

Prior to joining LIV, Surratt and Ballester enjoyed highly promising amateur careers. Surratt, from the University of Tennessee, was named SEC Freshman of the Year in 2023, when he also helped the U.S. to a Walker Cup victory at St. Andrews in 2024. Ballester won the 2024 U.S. Amateur and finished third in the PGA Tour University in 2025, but was recruited by Garcia’s team on LIV Golf.

Surratt (second from left) poses with his Legion XIII teammates after their team win at LIV Golf Mexico City earlier this month. Hector Vivas

Despite the now hazy future for LIV, Ballester says he does not regret his path he’s taken.

“No matter what happens, and again, I’m pretty confident that this is going to continue, but I still look at it as a good decision because when I made the choice, what came down as the biggest thing and the balance was the fact of believing that being surrounded by these kind of players was going to make me a better golfer,” Ballester said. “And it has proved my point since the very beginning, so my golf is way better than what it was when I turned professional thanks to being on this league and playing with these players.”

That said, prior to LIV Golf’s 2026 season, the Spaniard was also trying to secure status on the DP World Tour following a T-10 and a T-6, respectively, at the Australian PGA and Australian Open. It’s a path that a number of LIV golfers have followed, and Ballester plans to continue the pursuit.

Surratt contends that he is at least three full seasons ahead of the developmental trajectory he was on, had he not left school two years early.

“Right now I’d be graduating college and coming up here this month, and instead I’ve gotten three years playing with a lot of the best players in the world and traveling the world doing it,” Surratt said. “So I think when I look at the long career that I plan on having, I’m off to a great headstart.

“College taught me a lot, but I’ve learned a lot over the last three years. I’ve learned how to be a pro, and I can’t say that that would be the case if I didn’t make the move. So there’s not been one second that I’ve regretted it.

“What’s going on doesn’t change anything in my mind from a business perspective. It’s rare that you’re going to have a startup that doesn’t get some winds and rain here and there, but I think looking back in the future, I think we’ll look and see that this is a great time for growth. If I had the same decision and opportunity to go right now, I would still take it. It’s been amazing for my family. It’s been amazing for my golf game.”

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LIV Golf—the circuit that has spent five years and $5 billion trying to crack a sport that never fully cracked back—is reportedly about to lose its funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, signalling LIV could be done by the end of the season. There’s even the idea the league may not reach the end of the season. You have questions. We have answers. If there’s been one throughline in this whole saga, it’s that nobody—players, executives, journalists—ever had a complete picture of what was actually going on. We’ll do our best to explain what LIV’s collapse means, where its players land next, and what the sport looks like on the other side.

Wait, LIV Golf might be done?

Multiple outlets—the New York Times, the Athletic, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, to name a few—have reported that PIF will no longer fund LIV. The Telegraph reported that LIV executives were called to an emergency meeting in New York City, while the Athletic noted LIV executives are seeking “life rafts” out. Golf Channel has reported players and vendors haven’t been paid for recent services. The league has some investors, although the biggest ones tend to be offshoots of PIF like Aramco and Riyadh Air. LIV officials have stated they continue to believe they have a bright future and that, for now, its business as usual for the league. However, without immediate and significant backing, LIV will not be able to continue after this year.

Why now?

Fair question, given they’ve spent five years failing to build a real fan base while spending billions of dollars. The answer is that the world changed around LIV faster than LIV could change itself.

The regional war involving Iran has created serious financial pressure on Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth vehicle that bankrolled LIV from the start. The PIF’s resources are vast but not bottomless, and a destabilised Middle East has a way of concentrating minds about where money goes.

At the same time, the PIF unveiled a new strategic direction this week that amounts to a fundamental rethinking of its mission. For the better part of a decade, Saudi Arabia used the fund as an image-laundering operation, pouring money into global sports, entertainment and technology as a means of projecting a modernised, westernised face to the world. That approach is being shelved. The new priority is domestic investment, and any international ventures that survive the cut are expected to generate returns. LIV Golf, which has done nothing but lose money in a foreign market that largely rejected it, was never going to survive that audit.

How quickly will PIF act?

It already has in some cases, completing a deal this week to sell one of the three top-level soccer clubs it owns in Saudi Arabia, while also likley halting the support of a Tom Brady flag football venture. Interestingly, after LIV Golf was mentioned in PIF’s Vision 2030, it is no longer in any of the fund’s marketing on its website. There were reports that PIF would announce its pulling funding by Thursday; as of Friday morning no public statement has been made.

What has LIV said in response?

LIV CEO Scott O’Neil has acted like all the reporting is wrong, except what he has said—and hasn’t said—has essentially confirmed the reporting is correct. O’Neil, who has repeatedly asserted LIV had funding into the 2030s, changed his tune this week. First in an email to staffers, citing the league is funded only through 2026, and again in a TV interview posted Friday where, when asked about future funding, replied “That’s not how the world works.” He continued that funding is secured through this season and then he has to “work like crazy to keep it going.” (The interview was promptly deleted from social media.) Also in his email O’Neil nodded to the speculation, but instead of dismissing it, he said startups are defined by “moments of pressure.” We don’t know how many startups receive $5 billion, but to each their own.

Aren’t they playing this week?

They sure are, in Mexico. There were rumours that the league would not even play this week, although the first round was held on Thursday.

Harry How

How is that going?

Not great! After commentators Arlo White and David Feherty tried to laugh off the reports, the feed went down for roughly two-and-a-half hours. Earlier in the week, press conferences were cancelled. Both incidents were cited as local power outages, but not the best of looks amid reports of vendors not being paid.

What does this mean for LIV players?

The situation breaks into roughly two tiers, and neither is particularly comfortable.

Former PGA Tour members who played LIV are facing a minimum one-year ban from the tour, beginning from the date of their last LIV event. Since most of them are still playing this season, that clock doesn’t start until the circuit officially shuts down—meaning the earliest any of them can return is sometime in 2027 at best. Several players have indicated their bans extend beyond a year, with multi-year suspensions tied to the specifics of how and when they left.

For players who never had PGA Tour status to begin with, the calculus is different but not better. They weren’t banned from anything—they simply have no standing to return to. Which is its own problem.

But wait, I thought Brooks Koepka was able to come back immediately?

He was.

Uh, why?

Under the “Returning Member Program”—which is a fancy way of saying the tour wrote a new rule specifically to let Koepka back in—he was reinstated without serving any suspension. The program extended the offer to any player who had been away from the tour for at least two years and had won a major or the Players Championship between 2022 and 2025. It was a narrow window by design. Only four players qualified: Koepka, Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith. The tour wasn’t throwing open the doors. It was cracking them just wide enough for the players it actually wanted back—the ones with major pedigree, marquee value, and enough goodwill remaining that their return wouldn’t cause a locker room revolt.

So Rahm, DeChambeau and Smith would come back?

No. The window closed on Feb. 2. The tour’s message on the way out was essentially: this offer existed, you chose not to take it, and we are not promising another one. Whether that was posturing or policy was unclear at the time. Given what’s happened since, it’s looking more like policy.

But isn’t the PGA Tour incentivised to have the best players playing their tour?

Absolutely. Brian Rolapp didn’t take the CEO job to administer someone else’s rulebook. He’s made clear his priority is building a better product, and if that means revisiting policies inherited from Jay Monahan’s tenure, he’s not going to let institutional inertia stop him. The tour has bent its own rules before when it suited the moment and there’s no reason to think it couldn’t do so again.

That said, it wouldn’t be simple. Koepka’s return worked in part because of who Koepka is—a five-time major winner who kept a relatively low profile during the war, didn’t recruit other players, and didn’t spend two years publicly antagonizing the tour. Rahm and DeChambeau did not leave under those conditions. Whatever Rolapp wants to do, he still has a locker room to manage.

Can you please just tell us where Rahm and DeChambeau would go?

Rahm’s situation is complicated, and not entirely by forces outside his control.

He’s currently locked in a dispute with the DP World Tour over membership reinstatement—a fight that carries real stakes, since his eligibility for the 2027 Ryder Cup runs through the European circuit. The DP World Tour has, somewhat remarkably, been trying to find a path back for him. Rahm has been making that harder. At the Masters he was defiant and showed no signs of bending, which is a strange posture for someone who needs a favour.

The PGA Tour is an even colder conversation. The feeling among players and at headquarters is pointed and specific: Rahm’s departure at the end of 2023 may have single-handedly extended the war by a year. LIV was struggling. The framework agreement was in progress. Then Rahm signed, gave the Saudi circuit a credibility injection it desperately needed, and the tour felt ambushed. Talks froze. That damage is remembered, and it has names attached to it.

Zhizhao Wu

A Koepka-style offer for Rahm would be a surprise. The far more likely outcome is a return to the DP World Tour, hat in hand, on whatever terms he can get. His leverage is not what it was—and neither, honestly, is his game. Rahm is still a top-five talent, but he’s visibly not the player who won the Masters and the U.S. Open. LIV didn’t give him the competitive environment to maintain that level. Sitting out won’t restore it.

And Bryson?

Strap in.

In the weeks leading up to the Masters, DeChambeau’s camp pushed LIV for a new deal. Whatever you make of him, he remains the league’s marquee draw—one of the most recognisable figures in the sport and arguably its most bankable personality. Sources tell Golf Digest that DeChambeau was aiming well north of Jon Rahm’s reported $300 million contract. LIV never seriously entertained numbers in that range. In recent months, DeChambeau has struck a deliberately vague tone about his future, noting only that his current deal runs through year’s end and that he’ll reassess when the time comes.

He was once a true believer in LIV. Now, sources say, he sees a league that fell short of its grand promises. Yet a return to the PGA Tour is hardly a clean fit—he felt marginalised there, constrained by a rulebook that clashed with his instincts. He may be open, in theory, to the changes under Rolapp, but that openness has limits.

Which leaves a very real possibility that DeChambeau steps away from organised professional golf altogether next year and leans fully into life as a full-time media force.

You’re kidding, right?

Nope. He’s invested in a new YouTube golf league. He has enough faith in his game to keep competing at majors until his exemptions run out. And he’s genuinely curious about ventures outside professional golf. It is a very real possibility that one of the best golfers in the world simply walks away from a tour.

It’s also worth noting what that would mean for the game. DeChambeau has done as much as anyone to bring non-traditional fans into golf—his content reach, his personality, his willingness to be a spectacle. Losing him from the tour ecosystem isn’t just a competitive loss. It’s a visibility one.

What about the rest of the LIV players?

Some are already eligible to play other tours. Tyrrell Hatton was one of eight players—along with Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, David Puig and Elvis Smylie—granted DP World Tour releases earlier this year. LIV has an alliance with the Asian Tour, which is where most of its relegated players have competed the past few years.

But it’s worth remembering that many former PGA Tour players either resigned their memberships or have since seen their status expire. The majority of LIV players are well past their primes, were rank-and-file members to begin with, or never had significant tour status at all—the tour can’t simply hand them a card. A meaningful contingent of current PGA Tour members are already fighting for enough starts to keep their own cards; dropping ex-LIV players into that mix would cause a riot. That’s before you even account for the hard feelings tour players already have about former LIV members returning without penalty.

For nearly all of them, once their one- or multi-year suspensions expire, the path back runs through a mini-tour circuit or Q-School to earn status the conventional way.

Even DJ or Phil?

Dustin Johnson had a lifetime membership at the PGA Tour thanks to winning 20 times but resigned his membership. As for Phil Mickelson—given everything he did, recruiting players to LIV, filing a lawsuit against the PGA Tour, relentlessly gaslighting the organisation that gave him a home for 30 years—it is highly, highly, highly unlikely you ever see him in a PGA Tour event again.

Can we take a second and admit the “Rhino Jive” is a banger?

Game recognise game; that tune slaps, as the kids say.

What about the LIV teams and franchises?

O’Neil stated on Thursday and Friday that LIV may be “restructured” in the future. But the PGA Tour wants no part of them. The LIV league was built around a franchise model, with branded teams and ownership groups that invested in the concept. When the circuit folds, those entities go with it. There’s no indication of any mechanism to preserve the teams or compensate franchise owners beyond whatever contractual obligations exist. Get your Range Goats merch while you can.

Would Saudi Arabia be done with professional golf?

Maybe. It would not be surprising if they angle to host an event on the DP World Tour—the very entry point that brought them into golf in the first place—or make another run at investing in the PGA Tour’s for-profit arm. Don’t rule out PIF making one more run at DP World Tour funding as well.

What does this mean for golf?

For the better part of five years, golf fans watched players and stakeholders trade their passion for paydays, with little apparent concern for where their actions were taking the game. That kind of damage doesn’t heal overnight, and real questions remain about the sport’s long-term health—fan trust, the tour’s competitive depth, and whether a generation of casual fans tuned out and never came back.

But this much is true: the game will survive. The PGA Tour bent, made concessions it never wanted to make, and lost players it couldn’t afford to lose … but it’s still standing. Whether it emerges leaner and stronger, or just relieved, probably depends on what Rolapp would build from here.

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‘Bombshell’ LIV Golf announcement imminent, report claims

Amid growing speculation that the league may be discontinued at the end of 2026, the Financial Times reported that PIF is weighing the prospect of no longer funding LIV, with an announcement coming as soon as Thursday. Though the sovereign wealth fund’s estimated worth hovers near $940 billion, the Iran War and Middle Eastern conflict has taken a toll on the fund, according to reports. Saudi Arabia was already retreating from promised investments before the war, strained by budget shortfalls and unrealistic designs. The U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran accelerated the reckoning. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut Saudi oil exports nearly in half. The kingdom has shut down most of its offshore fields and this month halted one of the world’s largest petrochemical plants.

Additionally, on Wednesday, PIF announced its new strategy focusing on domestic programs rather than investing in global entities, as well as tightening its expenditures on projects that have not brought a return. PIF has injected more than $5 billion into LIV Golf since the league launched in fall 2021. However, the league has haemorrhaged billions and failed to gain investors for its teams. LIV CEO Scott O’Neil said earlier this year that it could be another decade before LIV sees profitability.

On Wednesday the The Athletic reported that members of LIV’s leadership team were informed on Masters Sunday that they would soon lose their positions, while the Telegraph reported that LIV executives were brought to New York for an emergency meeting. Sources have told Golf Digest that LIV leadership is looking for alternative funding for the league but so far is coming up empty.

LIV Golf has an event this week in Mexico City. On Tuesday, press conferences were canceled and the media center closed for what was later described as a power outage. On Wednesday, the league held a press conference, where Sergio Garcia said players have not been informed of any developments. For the moment, it appears this week’s event will be played as scheduled.

“Honestly, you know how these rumours are,” Garcia said. “There are always a lot of them. And I can’t tell you anything more than what we already know.”

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil – Sarah Reed

On Wednesday, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil sent an e-mail to staffers (posted on X by ESPN reporter Jeff Darlington), stating that the league would continue operations for 2026.

“I want to be crystal clear: Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” O’Neil wrote. “While the media landscape is often filled with speculation, our reality is defined by the work we do on the grass. We are heading into the heart of our 2026 schedule with the full energy of an organization that is bigger, louder, and more influential than ever before.

“The life of a startup movement is often defined by these moments of pressure. We signed up for this because we believe in disrupting the status quo. We have faced headwinds since the jump, and we’ve answered every time with resilience and grace. Now, we answer by doing what we do best: putting on the most compelling show in sports.”

LIV is coming off a particularly poor showing at the Masters. Tyrrell Hatton parlayed a strong Sunday into a T-3 finish, but Jon Rahm—who entered as one of the tournament favourites—again struggled on the major stage, while LIV marquee attraction Bryson DeChambeau missed the cut. Garcia also created a viral moment for an outburst where he damaged a tee box and broke his driver.

LIV Golf has not responded to a Golf Digest request for comment.

This is a developing story and will continue to be updated.

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The claims were first made by Monday Q Info on X (formerly Twitter), which posted: “I’ve heard from multiple sources that a bombshell announcement on LIV’s future is imminent. We don’t give out gambling advice but if you’re a prediction market type person I would bet the under of whatever they have posted.”

Ive heard from multiple sources that a bombshell announcement on LIVs future is imminent.

We don't give out gambling advice but If your’re a prediction market type person I would bet the under of whatever they have posted.

— Monday Q Info (@acaseofthegolf1) April 15, 2026

While no official confirmation has been provided by LIV Golf or its backers, the report adds fresh intrigue surrounding the Saudi-backed league.

RELATED: Patrick Reed explained why he left LIV Golf to return to the PGA Tour

Earlier this year, financial disclosures highlighted the scale of investment and losses associated with the breakaway tour. In February, it emerged that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) was approaching $5 billion in total investment in LIV Golf, according to documents reviewed by Money in Sport.

Operating losses reached $394 million in 2023, an increase of $150 million compared to the previous year.

LIV Golf UK oversees the league’s operations outside the United States as part of its broader ambition to establish a global footprint. Events have already been staged in markets including Korea, Mexico, Australia, Hong Kong and Spain.

The filings also revealed that LIV spent $102 million on payments to Performance54, the sports marketing firm responsible for staging its events, while legal costs more than doubled year-on-year to $15.7 million in 2023.

In terms of revenue, LIV Golf Australia proved to be the strongest-performing market, with a single event in Adelaide generating $16.6 million — significantly higher than other non-U.S. tournaments.

Since its launch in 2022, LIV Golf lured a wave of players away from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia, Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith, enticed by big money contracts. However, the tide has begun to shift. In 2025 and 2026, notable names, including Koepka and Patrick Reed, left the league to return to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, with evolving pathways back to traditional tours having been created.

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil – Sarah Reed

Scott O’Neil was officially announced as the new CEO of LIV Golf on January 15, 2025, replacing Greg Norman to lead the league’s business operations. He stepped down from his previous role as CEO of Merlin Entertainments at the end of 2024 to join LIV Golf ahead of their 2025 season.

LIV Golf’s presence was once again felt at the recent Masters Tournament, where 10 players from the circuit competed. However, only five made the cut. Tyrrell Hatton emerged as the top performer, finishing in a tie for third. Dustin Johnson finished tied for 33rd, while Jon Rahm placed tied for 38th. Sergio Garcia ended 52nd after a frustrated outburst that saw him break his driver and damage a tee box, and Charl Schwartzel finished 54th.

LIV Golf continues its season this week in Mexico at Club de Golf Chapultepec, where the usual $30 million purse is on offer. The individual winner will take home $4 million, with an additional $3 million awarded to the winning team.

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