Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund confirmed Wednesday it will no longer finance LIV Golf, according to the Wall Street Journal. The league will notify its players and staff by Thursday.
Reports of PIF pulling its funding have been rampant for weeks. The Telegraph reported LIV officials were summoned to an emergency meeting in New York last week, and a tournament scheduled for June in Louisiana was postponed. In a statement issued to Field Level Media, the league said it planned to move the tournament to the fall to avoid “the peak summer heat and the crowded global sports calendar.”
Last Wednesday, ESPN obtained an email LIV CEO Scott O’Neil sent to staff claiming the 2026 season will continue “exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle.” He made no mention of LIV’s future beyond 2026, however.
Founded in 2021, LIV Golf made its debut in June 2022 and used lavish, guaranteed contracts to lure dozens of stars like Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau away from the PGA. PIF has provided LIV with more than $5 billion, but the league has reportedly lost millions of dollars per year. Earlier this month, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, PIF’s governor and LIV’s main financial backer, shared a plan for the kingdom to cut back on international investments and focus on more domestic projects.
DeChambeau, Cameron Smith and Rahm reportedly turned down the opportunity to return to the PGA Tour earlier this year. According to MSN.com, some LIV players have reached out to the DP World Tour.
“At the moment, we’re in the mode of just listening because we don’t know any more than anyone else does”, DP World Tour chief executive Guy Kinnings told MSN. “But we’ll listen and we’ll make sure that we’re fully informed before we make the decisions that we need to do. But for sure, there are people who are concerned and we will be having conversations with them at the right time.”
PIF and the PGA Tour signed a Framework Agreement on June 6, 2023, throwing out the lawsuit LIV filed that accused the PGA of being a monopoly. But a deal to work together never came to fruition, despite the efforts of U.S. President Donald Trump.
LIV has seven more events scheduled for this year, including May 7-10 at Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C.
–Field Level Media
