GOLF’s weekly Tour Confidential roundtable breaks down the game’s biggest headlines. In this special edition we’ll dig into LIV Golf’s collapse, where it all went wrong and what’s next.
LIV Golf, the breakaway league that turned the sport on its head five years ago, is no more, a future we learned in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Thursday in New Jersey. In short, LIV was unable to get enough player support to secure a financial commitment from BC Partners. While this news isn’t a complete shock, are you surprised the end has officially arrived? Or at what moment did you think this was going to become the reality?
Sean Zak, senior writer: I think once Jon Rahm decided he wasn’t going to be part of the league’s future, it was a massive domino that led to this point. So no, not surprised. Mostly just trying to take note of all the things that will likely remain unexplained — like Rahm’s total contract value — for years and years to come.
Nick Piastowski, senior editor: It would have been surprising … last November. But then, yeah, as Zak notes above, you could see things leading to this. Koepka’s departure. PIF’s departure. Other player departures. Bankruptcy. It also would have been a bit shocking to see this happening in December of 2023, when Rahm signed. Then again, as we start to look back, the chances of LIV surviving at all were probably small.
Dylan Dethier, senior writer: This is the only outcome that makes sense. I was sort of befuddled by the entire existence of LIV 2.0. If the first version of the league flamed out in bankruptcy and bad vibes, why have a go at a scaled-down second attempt? I hope we hear more about just how close this was to happening — or if it was all basically a ploy to make a few more people a few more bucks on the way out the door.
A big question now is what will happen to former LIV players. If you’re PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, what’s your move?
Zak: I’m letting all those players earn their way back into the PGA Tour fold by other means, like the DP World Tour or Q-school. The Tour is in GREAT financial shape. It is about to go to market with a new competitive format for (it hopes) increased TV money. The DP World Tour can benefit from a bunch of ex-LIV players competing on its 2027 slate, but the DPWT is not doing well financially. It needs a Ryder Cup year (and those monetary windfalls) as much as it ever has. So the PGA Tour is doing really well and doesn’t need to go out of its way to stir the pot with members. The best players will find their way back.
Piastowski: I agree with that. But I do wonder: If the PGA Tour touts itself as a fan-first league, and its fans want all of the best players under one roof, do you tell the fans to wait a year?
Dethier: Yeah, I think you do. Because Jon Rahm (2023 Masters) and Bryson DeChambeau (2024 U.S. Open) have each won recent majors. You can suspend them a year and still allow them back into the Tour’s 2028 Championship Series via five-year major exemption without ruffling feathers internally. You just don’t really need anyone else. Sure, you’d like to see Tyrrell Hatton and Joaquin Niemann re-qualify via the DP World Tour. You could find a path back for Dustin Johnson via lifetime membership. But the Tour should be glad Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed came back a year early — it makes this chapter that much easier.
Who won LIV Golf? And who lost it?
Zak: The media business had a helluva story to cover for those five-plus years, I’ll say that. Donald Trump seemed to fare well during the LIV years, getting elite pro golf back at his courses. Rahm made a ton of money, though he also suffered some reputational harm. Conversely, I think Rory McIlroy’s indignation toward it will age well over time. He seems like a winner in the end. Then there’s the DP World Tour, which will benefit from upholding its hardline rules by hosting stronger tournaments throughout its 2027 slate. Oh, and Brian Rolapp probably won the LIV Golf era, too.
Piastowski: LIV did give us media types some things to write about, hey? It also jump-started the PGA Tour. I think the LIV era also opened more eyes to playing globally, and by all indications, that looks like it will continue. But man, there had to be another way to get here besides doling out billions and billions of dollars. Or maybe not.
Dethier: If your measuring stick is money, LIV spawned plenty of winners in the professional golf community. Beyond that? I dunno, but I’ll take a shot. The PGA Tour was in need of a shake-up; perhaps it emerged a winner. In terms of LIV players, Bryson DeChambeau has fared well in the LIV era, in part because he’s played less frequently and leaned more fully into his YouTube career, which he seems to enjoy. Anthony Kim stands out as LIV’s greatest-ever storyline. The golf communities LIV reached in Australia and South Africa have each been outspoken about the good times they had; hopefully that’ll inspire more big-time events in those markets. But I’ll give you a proper winner: Luke Donald. Without LIV, he never ends up the winning Ryder Cup captain in 2023 — not to mention in 2025. He’s become a legend of the game. By the end of 2027 he may be hands down the greatest Ryder Cup captain in history. That never happens without LIV. Who lost LIV Golf? I would say anybody who was forced to shill for a league that was, in the end, as hollow and flimsy as its critics suspected from the start.
While some LIV defectors have already announced they’ll join the DP World Tour next season, we’re still unsure of what will happen to what was LIV’s most high-profile asset, Bryson DeChambeau. What do you think Bryson does next?
Zak: DeChambeau is a pretty stubborn cat and I’m just so curious if he’s stubborn enough to just play the majors in 2027. I would be endlessly fascinated by that move.
Piastowski: Let’s go with he just barn-storms the world. His own personal tour.
Dethier: I could see him vlogging his way through a handful of DP World Tour events, pairing those with the majors and then playing next year’s Internet Invitational as Ryder Cup prep.
What unanswered question do you wish you had the answer to right now?
Zak: I want to know just how much money these small businesses unpaid by LIV will ultimately receive as a part of this wind down.
Piastowski: How close were the PGA Tour and LIV to actually merging?
Dethier: How would things have gone differently — for Phil, for LIV, for players thinking of signing on — had his scary “m—–f—-” comments not gone to print that first year? There are dozens of sliding-door moments from the league’s half-decade of life, but that’s certainly one of them. (Another: If the U.S. never goes to war with Iran, what does LIV look like in 2027?)
Ultimately, how do you think LIV Golf will be remembered?
Zak: LIV will be remembered as a fateful case study of 1) player empowerment, and 2) geopolitics entering sport. Numerous sports leagues have made decisions about Saudi investment in the years since, and each time it seems they make better decisions than the bodacious, lavish way LIV existed. Mostly because of how LIV stumbled out the blocks, struggled to gain footing and ultimately flamed out. It was about player leverage in the greatest era of empowerment pro sports has ever seen. And it all ended so unsatisfactorily for basically all involved.
Piastowski: That it woke up an established pro sports league by nearly killing it.
Dethier: I suspect we’ll remember it as a glitzy, explosive failure. We’ll remember the excess and extravagance of those first events and we’ll remember just how bleak it seemed by the end. And we’ll remember the 4Aces. Everybody knows the Aces.
