LIV Golf liquidates after rescue financing collapses
Saudi state fund spent more than five billion dollars before calling the league a strategic misfit, PGA Tour rejected a 1.5-billion offer because keeping LIV alive was the condition
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Bryson DeChambeau with Donald Trump during the pro-am prior to the LIV Golf Invitational at Trump National in 2022. Photograph: Jonathan Ferrey/LIV Golf/via Getty Images
theguardian.com
LIV Golf will liquidate after a last-ditch financing deal fell apart, the breakaway circuit announced on Thursday. The league had lined up $300m in potential financing from BC Partners to stage tournaments in 2027 but scrapped the plan after a number of notable players declined to commit to the league.
"In light of the current circumstances, we believe shifting toward an orderly wind-down is the most responsible path forward for the League at this time," Gene Davis and Jon Zinman of LIV Golf's board special committee said in a statement.
The circuit has run on Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund since it launched in June 2022, luring major champions with lucrative contracts and guaranteed paydays. The fund poured more than $5bn into the venture, then announced in late April that the league no longer fitted its investment strategy and would withdraw after the 2026 season. Former world No 1 Jon Rahm and other leading players announced their departures after LIV filed for bankruptcy protection in September.
The PGA Tour, for its part, refused to let members compete in LIV events and suspended the defectors — among them Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson — then absorbed the antitrust lawsuit in which the players accused it of using monopoly power to penalise independent contractors. When the Tour and the Saudi fund announced a framework deal in June 2023 to form one commercial entity and end the litigation, talks stalled, and the Tour enlisted Donald Trump, an avid golfer whose courses had hosted multiple LIV events, as broker. It ultimately rejected the fund's offer of $1.5bn, which came on condition that LIV Golf remain intact and fund governor Yasir al-Rumayyan co-chair the board of PGA Tour Enterprises.
Critics had described LIV as a vehicle for Saudi Arabia to deflect criticism of its human rights record, which the Saudi government denies. Chief executive Scott O'Neil, when the funding withdrawal was announced, called building the league "the round of a lifetime for all of us."
Throughout the wind-down, the league says, it remains open to any value-maximising alternatives with third parties that may arise.