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Mark Schlabach
A number of Authors
Amid reviews that Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund could be on the verge of pulling its funding for the league, LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil instructed employees in an e mail Wednesday that its season will go on “as deliberate, uninterrupted and at full throttle.”
The e-mail, which was obtained by ESPN, did not straight tackle reviews that PIF may cease investing within the breakaway circuit after spending greater than $5 billion since its inception in 2022, or whether or not the league will proceed competitions past this season.
“I wish to be crystal clear: Our season continues precisely as deliberate, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” O’Neil wrote within the e mail. “Whereas the media panorama is usually stuffed with hypothesis, our actuality is outlined by the work we do on the grass. We’re heading into the center of our 2026 schedule with the complete vitality of a company that’s greater, louder, and extra influential than ever earlier than.”
LIV Golf is scheduled to play its sixth match of the season beginning Thursday at Membership de Golf Chapultepec close to Mexico Metropolis. Its first match within the U.S. is scheduled for Could 7-10 at Trump Nationwide Golf Membership in Sterling, Virginia.
“The lifetime of a startup motion is usually outlined by these moments of stress,” O’Neil wrote. “We signed up for this as a result of we consider in disrupting the established order. We have now confronted headwinds because the leap, and we have answered each time with resilience and charm. Now, we reply by doing what we do greatest: placing on essentially the most compelling present in sports activities.”
The Monetary Instances and different shops reported Wednesday that PIF was on the verge of pulling its funding for LIV Golf. A supply conversant in the state of affairs instructed ESPN the league’s executives had been on the bottom in Mexico Metropolis on Wednesday.
The league had promised to be a extra entertaining model {of professional} golf with shotgun begins, 54-hole occasions and group and particular person competitions being performed concurrently.
Whereas LIV Golf has drawn massive crowds to its tournaments in Australia, South Africa and different worldwide websites, it has struggled to achieve footing within the U.S. It has had low TV rankings and restricted business income from its broadcast offers with The CW and Fox Sports activities.
It additionally has struggled to land contracts to stage its occasions at top-rated programs within the U.S., which annoyed lots of its star gamers, who did not really feel they had been correctly making ready to contend within the main championships.
PIF invested greater than $5 billion in LIV Golf since 2022, reportedly spending $100 million per 30 days throughout the previous three-plus years. A lot of that cash was spent on golfers’ contracts and match purses, which elevated from $25 million to $30 million this season. The additional $5 million went towards group purses.
With assured contracts purportedly price lots of of tens of millions of {dollars}, LIV Golf — led by former CEO Greg Norman, with the assistance of six-time main champion Phil Mickelson — was in a position to lure former main champions equivalent to Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and others away from the PGA Tour.
The tour performed its first match on the Centurion Membership in England in June 2022.
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Norman had described LIV Golf as a “disruptor” and a champion for gamers’ rights, arguing golfers ought to be allowed to play anyplace on the planet and never on only one tour.
Then-PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan suspended greater than 30 golfers for competing in LIV Golf tournaments with out conflicting-events releases.
Eleven LIV Golf gamers, together with DeChambeau, filed a federal antitrust lawsuit in opposition to the PGA Tour in August 2022, accusing it of utilizing its monopoly powers to squash competitors and affect distributors, media firms and others to keep away from working with LIV Golf. The PGA Tour countersued LIV Golf, accusing it of interfering with its contracts with gamers.
The authorized drama took a shocking flip of occasions in June 2023 when the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour signed a framework settlement to type an alliance and transfer ahead in a bigger business enterprise. The circuits stated the settlement ended all pending litigation between the events. LIV Golf was ready to speculate as a lot as $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, the tour’s new for-profit entity.
Monahan was harshly criticized for secretly negotiating the deal and leaving PGA Tour members at nighttime. The deal was additionally scrutinized by the U.S. Senate Everlasting Subcommittee, which held a three-hour listening to in July 2023 to scrutinize the deliberate merger. Senators raised considerations about “sportswashing,” antitrust points and Saudi affect within the U.S.
The PGA Tour and the PIF labored for greater than a yr to finalize the deal, together with assembly on the White Home with President Donald Trump, however a merger was by no means accomplished. The PGA Tour then reached a cope with Strategic Sports activities Group, a consortium of billionaire sports activities group homeowners, to infuse as much as $3 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises.
LIV Golf was dealt a few blows earlier than this season when Koepka, a five-time main champion, requested to be launched from his contract to return to the PGA Tour. Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, additionally did not renew his deal and plans to return to the PGA Tour this fall.
Koepka got here again to the PGA Tour as a part of its new Returning Member Program, which allowed LIV golfers who’ve been away from the tour for at the least two years — and who gained the Gamers Championship or one of many 4 majors (the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and Open Championship) since 2022 — to return below sure circumstances and with extreme monetary penalties.
DeChambeau, Rahm and Smith had been additionally eligible to return however elected to stick with LIV Golf. The window for them to return expired Feb. 2. On the time, PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, who changed Monahan, described this system as a “one-time, outlined window and isn’t a precedent for future conditions.”
In February, O’Neil — who changed Norman in January 2025 — was in a position to safe LIV Golf’s inclusion within the Official World Golf Rating, which is awarding world-ranking factors to the top-10 finishers and ties in its occasions.
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