LIV Golf is dead. The time of death for the rebel league came last week in a bankruptcy hearing, when LIV’s lawyers informed the court they would begin winding down toward liquidation and that LIV Golf 2.0 would not go forward as they hoped.
While the former Saudi-backed league will soon fade into golf history, the remnants of it are all over the tour it tried “to destroy.”
“They took players, they took sponsors, they turned professional golf into an arms race,” Rory McIlroy said last week in Abu Dhabi about LIV’s threat to the DP World Tour. “They were going around Augusta saying they wanted to destroy the European Tour.”
That goal failed, and now LIV’s former standard bearers will populate its former target. At this week’s DP World Tour Championship, eight former LIV golfers will tee it up. Two of them (Eugenio Chacarra and Bernd Wiesberger) left LIV while it was still burning through cash. Patrick Reed abandoned ship in January in an attempt to earn his PGA Tour card through the European circuit, which he did quite easily. The others, including Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, recently said goodbye to LIV as it entered bankruptcy and tried to sway them to buy into LIV 2.0.
This week in Dubai, three of LIV’s previous trophy defections have a chance to claim the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai title. Chacarra, who might be the biggest winner of golf’s civil war, has won three times this year and enters the final event atop the standings. Reed, who was among the initial wave of defections, has won twice and is third behind Chacarra and Rory McIlroy. Then there’s Rahm, who won last week in his first start post-LIV to vault up the standings, giving himself a chance to win this week and take the top prize.
LIV’s tentacles will be all over the DP World Tour next year as players who left LIV use it to make their way back to the PGA Tour, which has not yet decided on a path back for defectors. McIlroy believes that having LIV’s top players battle for a handful of tickets to the PGA Tour’s Championship Series will be a massive boon to the European circuit.
“It would be an amazing thing for this tour if all those guys were funneled through the DP World Tour and were made to qualify that way,” McIlroy told reporters last week in Abu Dhabi. “I think that’s the right scenario and the right decision and also makes this tour incredibly strong.
“It’s only going to be into the Championship Series. It’s only going to be a handful of cards so it’s going to be very, very competitive.”
Reed and Chacarra will head to the PGA Tour next year, but both have said they plan to play on the DP World Tour as well. Rahm, Hatton, David Puig, Adrian Meronk, Laurie Canter, Victor Perez, Tom McKibbin and Thomas Detry have DP World Tour status for next season. Sergio Garcia announced his plans to return to the DP World Tour after his LIV exit and can take up membership through the Legends career money exemption. Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Paul Casey, Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace can also join through that category if they want. Dustin Johnson and Joaquin Niemann could accept tournament invites under a new policy that will grant spots to top players left in limbo after LIV’s collapse.
“Until I get clarity on [my PGA Tour status], my plan would be to spend the year on the DP World Tour, and I’m looking forward to it,” Rahm said last week in Abu Dhabi. “Currently looking at the schedule to see how I can organize to play the events I want to play. You know, maybe have a chance to have a bit of a different year to what I have in the past.”
Three former LIV players earned their 2027 DP World Tour cards on Wednesday via DP World Tour Q School. Josele Ballester was co-medalist, while Byeong Hun-An and John Catlin also finished inside the top 15.
Then, there’s the question of Bryson DeChambeau.
LIV’s biggest champion released a statement on Sunday about the end of the league and said he’d approach whatever comes next with “humility.” The DP World Tour can offer DeChambeau membership by virtue of his 2024 U.S. Open win, but he has to commit by next week. McIlroy has admitted he’s not a “fan” of DeChambeau but knows having him in fields would be good for the DP World Tour’s health.
“I think a name like Bryson DeChambeau and everything he brings with him, good and bad, he brings eyeballs, which is a good thing for tournaments,” McIlroy said Tuesday in Dubai. “And honestly, look, I’m certainly not in his shoes, and nor would I ever want to be, but it doesn’t seem like he’s got many options. You know, if he wants to play competitive golf, it doesn’t seem like he’s got many options.”
LIV Golf is deceased. But what’s left of it is already taking over the DP World Tour. That’ll be evident this week in Dubai, where three defectors have a legitimate chance to win the tour’s season-long crown. It will be even more apparent next season, when typically sleepy DP World Tour fields are expected to be littered with past major champions and former LIV stars who will at least temporarily call the European circuit home.
Perhaps LIV Golf 2.0 didn’t die after all. It just came to the DP World Tour (team franchises and logos sold separately).
