LIVE and Let Die II

As I predicted in an earlier article (Coastal Breeze News May 7, 2026 edition), the death of LIV Golf – as we have known it – has inevitably arrived.

Can you imagine a business model so poor that even the Saudis pull the funding? A business model that a nation with trillions of dollars at its disposal finally looked at and said, “enough”?

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund poured more than $5 billion into LIV Golf before announcing that it would no longer finance the league beyond the 2026 season. LIV has since laid off most of its workforce and is searching for new investors. There is talk of a smaller, reinvented “LIV 2.0,” but whatever may emerge will bear little resemblance to the extravagantly funded tour that attempted to reinvent professional golf.

Tradition is an integral part of professional golf. It is woven into the very fabric of the game, and golf fans made that resoundingly clear.

We recognize that there are two kinds of golf: professional golf and the everyday game millions of us play for recreation. The atmosphere is different. The expectations are different. Even the attire is appropriately more professional.

LIV – Roman numerals for 54 – tried to make professional golf resemble the game amateurs play at their clubs: team competitions, 54-hole events, shotgun starts, shorts, and plenty of noise. Its entire identity seemed to be built around appearing as unlike the PGA Tour as possible.

With a seemingly unlimited bankroll, LIV offered tens – and in some cases hundreds – of millions of dollars to lure prominent players away from the PGA Tour. Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Cameron Smith, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, and others accepted the offers. Money talks. We cannot entirely blame them. That kind of money is enormously tempting, and human nature is what it is.

But there was always a question hanging over the whole enterprise: what happens when the money stops?

Now we know.

The Saudi Public Investment Fund pulled the plug, leaving many of LIV’s players in an uncertain position. Some may find other places to play, and a smaller version of LIV may survive under different ownership. But for many of those who left established tours, there is presently no clear road back.

Earlier this year, PGA Tour CEP Brian Rolapp briefly opened that road through a one-time Returning Member Program. It applied to four prominent players: Koepka, DeChambeau, Rahm, and Smith.

Only Koepka walked through the door.

The opportunity came with a price. Koepka accepted a $5 million charitable contribution, forfeited across the PGA Tour’s equity program for five years, and faced other competitive and financial restrictions. DeChambeau, Rahm, and Smith declined the offer before the deadline.

Then – boom – the door closed.

Rolapp has since made it clear that the PGA Tour has no current plan to revive the program. His message is unmistakable: the Tour has rules, membership has value, and decisions have consequences.

Or, stated less delicately: you went for the money, and now you may have to pay the piper.

Those who chose LIV’s enormous guarantees over the history, structure and traditions of established professional golf may ultimately have shortened their own careers. They gambled that LIV’s money would continue indefinitely. It did not.

On a personal note, I understand Rolapp’s position. The players who remained loyal to the PGA Tour should not be pushed aside simply because former members suddenly want to return. Loyalty must count for something.

Still, I hope a reasonable path back can eventually be found for the very best players.

Professional golf is strongest when the finest players in the world compete against one another regularly – not merely four times a year in the major championships.

LIV Golf proved that money can buy players. It can buy television time, extravagant purses, publicity, and disruption.

What it could not buy was tradition, loyalty, or the sustained interest of the golfing public.

In the end, those things proved to be worth more than even the Saudis were willing to spend.