LIV Golf is still going, but its days seem numbered and probably always were

There doesn’t seem to be much life left in LIV, which even in the early days of its limitless cash and bottomless showmanship seemed inevitable.

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neill emailed his staff on Wednesday that the 2026 season will Continue as planned, uninterrupted and with full force.“This includes this weekend’s event in Mexico.

He did not address at all media reports that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is about to pull funding after declining nearly $5 billion over five years on an oil-pipeline-financed Pipe dream that would make it the world’s premier professional golf tour.

Whoever first sold PIF on this idea sold it a bill of goods. A lot of people got rich from it, primarily golfers, due to both the huge LIV salaries and eventually the PGA Tour reforms. The gravy train was always going to end, though.

Soon, of course, the losses were going to be too great, American television ratings were too small and the roots of the United States-based PGA Tour too deep to be toppled.

The initial argument was that the Saudis had vast reserves of wealth to waste. Perhaps. But what he never had, and no one has, is an endless willingness to be embarrassed, to be fooled.

Burning stacks of cash is all fun and games until someone realizes they’ve paid taylor gooch Approximately $70 million. (Good for Gooch, by the way.)

In 2023, LIV was so confident of its ultimate dominance that the firebrand CEO greg norman It was proposed that LIV golfers would hold a group celebration behind the 18th green of Augusta National if one of them won the Masters.

Golf traditionalists pushed back against the flexibility. when everyone left john rahmThen won instead on the PGA Tour. liv protested by signing itEight months later, a deal reportedly worth more than $300 million was struck.

However, just last week, LIV was little more than a whisper at Augusta.

Critics had long argued that LIV’s lack of intense competition and high-level courses would dull its stars. While LIV’s Tyrell Hatton Big names like finished T-3, Rahm (T-38) and Bryson DeChambeau (cut missed) Disappointed. Next was Cam Smith, who was signed by LIV after he was ranked world No. 2 at the Open Championships and had failed to make the cut for the sixth consecutive time.

During this time, Ex-LIV/PGA Returners patrick reed And brooks koepka Both finished T-12.

LIV made a lot of noise and caused many nervous days on the PGA Tour. It was jarring when the game’s most marketable names paraded by. At one point, some kind of merger seemed inevitable.

And LIV was, at times, a positive force. It organizes events in Asia and Africa where the sport is rarely held. Its tournaments are fan-friendly. More golf is never a bad thing.

And it led to vast improvements in how the PGA Tour deals with its players. Its lighter schedule also helped DeChambeau embrace YouTube and better express his personality.

However, for most golf fans, these were abstract concepts. They really want to tune in on a Sunday afternoon and watch the best play the best on the best courses. Tradition matters in golf. And it is difficult to buy.

LIV wasn’t just trying to compete with the PGA Tour and deliver a better product, it was trying to change the basic tastes of golf fans to deliver a slightly, but noticeable, different product. It is even more difficult to buy.

At some point, most golfers will laugh at this, perhaps in some amusing “30 for 30” that will remind future viewers that this fever dream actually happened.

54-hole tournament. Resort courses. Shorts. The gun starts. The way Augusta National disliked Norman so much that it did not extend an invitation to the Masters led him to buy a badge on the secondary market Like some old schmuck carrying a folding chair down Washington Road.

Oh, and what about team sports? Remember when he was supposed to be revolutionary?

“How I signed up with LIV,” bubba watson Once claimed with a true face, “This is my 10-year-old son [and I] Was watching golf on TV, and he knew the aces. Everyone knows the aces. They keep winning. He knew the aces. He knew the Stingers.”

In fact, almost no one knew anything about Aces or Stingers or LIV, except that it was paying big names like Watson a lot of money not to play on the PGA Tour.

However, in LIV, it was easier to pretend otherwise than admit reality. It was an epic money grab; He caught some rich people walking slowly.

LIV is still alive. Perhaps the Saudis will recommit. There may be other sources of funding as well. Anything is possible, but most of it is unlikely.

The big question now is what the PGA Tour should do with the defectors; Live and let live, or treat them like defectors who tried to destroy the tour?

Some are old and irrelevant, so it won’t matter. For others, perhaps there is a sliding scale. No, Phil MickelsonYou’ve been banned for life, but, Gooch, come back, who can blame you?

One suggestion: send them on the Korn Ferry for a year to qualify them for the Tour; A combination of humble austerity and strengthening that level of play… a week at a time in Chile or Amarillo or downstate Illinois.

After all, the LIV guys always claimed it was about “growing the game,” not champagne and charter flights.

or something like that.