The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund's £3.8bn investment in LIV Golf has significantly impacted the sport, making many players wealthy. However, LIV's future is now uncertain as Saudi Arabia withdraws support and a new board seeks funding to continue beyond 2026.
Key points
Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund invested £3.8bn in LIV Golf
LIV Golf changed the pro golf landscape significantly
Many players became wealthy due to the investment
LIV Golf's future is uncertain after Saudi Arabia's withdrawal
A new board is seeking funding for the league beyond 2026
Mentioned in this story
Saudi Arabian Public Investment FundLIV GolfRahmDeChambeauPGA Tour
As it headed for the LIV exit door, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund claimed that it "forever changed the game of golf".
And there can be little argument that PIF's £3.8bn investment over nearly five years turned the pro game upside down. It also made many players, on both sides of golf's great divide, very wealthy men.
The numbers involved are extraordinary and prompted the PGA Tour to find funding to stem an exit flow of talent that was attracted to the breakaway tour and threatened the future of the golfing establishment.
But now, LIV's future has never been less certain.
With Saudi Arabia walking away, a new board is scrambling to find funds to sustain the league beyond this 2026 season.
Questions surround the futures of some of the biggest names in the sport. Jon Rahm signed with LIV in December 2023 for a reported $300m (£222m).
In two completed seasons, he has earned nearly $92.5m (£68.4m) in prize money. But for all that financial security, his golfing future is unclear.
The Spaniard is banned from the PGA Tour for at least a year after refusing to take the deal that Brooks Koepka accepted in January, under a hastily drawn up returning member programme.
Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith, two other recent major winners, also turned down that offer, but Rahm is also in dispute with Europe's DP World Tour.
The former Masters and US Open champion declined to pay fines and take a settlement that would have involved him playing a minimum of six events on the European tour.
As it stands, he is not a member in good standing and therefore ineligible for Europe's Ryder Cup team. He has two years of his LIV contract to run, but the pin positions are shifting on how that might look next year.
DeChambeau's LIV contract is up at the end of this season and he was looking to a sign a lucrative new deal. As the game's most unique character and with a substantial influencer following, the two-time US Open winner is a crucial figure.
The task of new LIV directors Gene Davis and Jon Zinman is to raise investment to replace the Saudi billions. That would be less difficult with DeChambeau on board. But the 32-year-old American's signature will not come cheap.
Can they afford him? Could they afford to be without him?
Would DeChambeau want to rejoin the PGA Tour, renowned as the toughest of all golf circuits? Or does he go it alone as a YouTubing content creator, who plays only majors to keep competitive juices flowing?
That is an unlikely scenario, but one being discussed in golfing quarters - DeChambeau rarely conforms to the norm. Other LIV golfers will also be wondering what the future holds.
Q&A
What was the financial impact of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund on LIV Golf?
The Public Investment Fund invested £3.8bn over nearly five years, significantly changing the pro golf landscape and enriching many players.
Why is LIV Golf's future uncertain now?
LIV Golf's future is uncertain due to Saudi Arabia's withdrawal of support and the new board's struggle to secure funding beyond the 2026 season.
How has the PGA Tour responded to the rise of LIV Golf?
The PGA Tour sought additional funding to prevent talent from leaving for LIV Golf, which posed a threat to its future.
Who are the notable players affected by the LIV Golf investment?
Many prominent players, including Rahm and DeChambeau, have benefited financially from the LIV Golf investment.
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"It's wild," a LIV player messaged after learning of the withdrawal of Saudi funding.
Eight LIV players have joint membership with the DP World Tour after accepting the six-tournament deal rejected by Rahm.
Tyrrell Hatton, Laurie Canter, Tom McKibbin, David Puig, Adrian Meronk, Thomas Detry, Victor Perez and Elvis Smylie have permission to play LIV events without further sanction.
Expect them to play more DP World Tour events than they might have initially envisaged. They will want to win enough money to shore up future playing privileges on the "old world" circuit.
Asked how the latest LIV developments are being watched at DP World Tour HQ, a highly placed figure said: "Interestedly."
Some of the breakaway tour's highest earners may well say similar.
Aside from the Asian Tour's International Series, there appears little other option for a player such as Joaquin Niemann, the Chilean who has amassed $72m (£53m) earnings from his 52 LIV appearances.
Niemann has not shown such form in the majors despite being a dominant figure in LIV competitions. The same can be said of Talor Gooch, an American who never played in the Ryder Cup, but who has netted $64.5m (£47.5m) in LIV prize money.
Richard BlandImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Richard Bland has earned nearly $20m (£14.8m) playing LIV golf
For some players, moving to LIV made perfect sense. Veteran Englishman Richard Bland cashed in on the romance of his one DP World Tour victory, the 2021 British Masters, which effectively earned him an invitation to play LIV tournaments.
He did not receive a signing-on fee, but in 55 tournaments has netted nearly $20m (£14.8m).
In all, 105 players have so far competed on the LIV circuit. The lowest earners have been Englishman Oliver Fisher and Thailand's Ratchanon Chantananuwat, who each picked up $136,000 (£100,000) from their lone appearances.
When LIV began in 2022, it attracted some of golf's biggest names with huge signing-on fees. Phil Mickelson did not dispute reports that he was given $200m (£147m) to defect from the PGA Tour.
Smith, Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed (now back on the DP World Tour) and the then European Ryder Cup captain Henrik Stenson were other expensive recruits.
"If LIV takes five players a year for five years, they can gut us," PGA Tour board member Jimmy Dunne told a senate committee in July 2023. The American circuit was rattled.
Initially, they struck a "framework agreement" with the Saudi PIF to try to heal the divide. That halted expensive and potentially, for both sides, revelatory legal proceedings.
But the faltering agreement foundered when the PGA Tour valued LIV at just $500m as Donald Trump tried to broker a peace deal in the White House at the start of his second term as US president in early 2025.
The Saudis felt the valuation was derisory and walked out of the talks. By then, the PGA Tour was much more bullish.
It was turning itself into a for-profit company with its players qualifying for potentially lucrative equity. The tour also won backing from the powerful Strategic Sports Group, which ploughed in an initial $1.5bn investment.
But with profit now the primary motive and a need to hammer down costs, the move has not been without pain. The PGA Tour is cutting 4% of its workforce with 56 job losses.
Prize money has gone through the roof, though. The Cadillac Championship, starting on Thursday, is one of several $20m Signature Events,, external with $3.6m going to the winner.
Those are LIV numbers. Such has been the inflationary effect of what seemed a bottomless pit of money coming into professional golf.
Donald Trump in the follow-through of a golf shotImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,
United States President Donald Trump has previously said he was a fan of the LIV tour
Trump once told us he loved LIV. Why? "Unlimited money," he said from a buggy at his Doral course, which was staging LIV's team championship.
Now it is the PGA Tour which is located at the Miami venue, reflecting how things have changed in their favour.
LIV introduced 54-hole shotgun start team competitions and felt that would shake up pro golf like never before.
By their fourth season, they had to concede that 72 holes was a better duration. They remained wedded to the smaller TV window of a simultaneous start for all of their competitors.
But continuing weak television figures and rights fees show this has yet to be a hit with armchair fans.
The new LIV set-up still hopes to sell the team concept, raise funding with the kind of investment that has made cricket's IPL such a success. For that to have any chance of succeeding, though, it needs its biggest names to stick around.
Will they?
That depends on what the rest of the golfing world has to offer, and on what terms.
