LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil sought to quell speculation about the league’s financial future Wednesday evening with a memo to his staff that said the 2026 season will continue as planned without interruption and “at full throttle”.
The memo followed a long day of reports suggesting Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund was on the verge of cutting its financial backing of the upstart league.
The newsletter Money in Sport reported in February that LIV Golf already had spent $5.3bn (£3.9bn) and was projected to surpass $6bn (£4.42bn) by the end of the year.
“I want to be crystal clear: Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” O’Neil said.
“While the media landscape is often filled with speculation, our reality is defined by the work we do on the grass. We are heading into the heart of our 2026 schedule with the full energy of an organization that is bigger, louder, and more influential than ever before.”
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With speculation suggesting Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund might be withdrawing their financial support to LIV Golf, relive the organisation’s rocky relationship with the rest of the golfing world.
Left unclear was how long the funding would last for LIV Golf, which launched in June 2022 by paying roughly $1bn (£737m) in signing bonuses to some of the PGA Tour’s biggest names, such as Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm.
Prize money for individuals and the 13 teams was raised to $30m (£22.1m) this year.
Koepka has since left LIV and was allowed to rejoin the PGA Tour this year with stipulations. Patrick Reed also left LIV and is playing a DP World Tour schedule this year. He is virtually certain to be eligible to return to the PGA Tour in 2027 through the DP World Tour points race.
Questions about LIV’s future funding were raised as the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia revealed a new five-year investment strategy.
“The 2026-30 strategy marks a natural evolution as PIF moves from a period of rapid growth and acceleration to a new phase of sustained value creation, with a strengthened focus on maximizing impact, raising the efficiency of investments, and applying the highest standards of governance, transparency and institutional excellence,” the PIF said in a release.
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Sky Sports News chief correspondent Kaveh Solhekol reveals Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund might be withdrawing their financial support to LIV Golf
The plan was developed before the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the PIF governor who loves golf and was behind LIV Golf, told the London-based Financial Times, “Of course the war would add more pressure to reposition some priorities.”
LIV players at Chapultepec Golf Club for LIV Golf Mexico that starts Thursday did not have answers as speculation ran rampant throughout the day.
One player said Al-Rumayyan met with players the first week of March in Hong Kong and said funding for LIV was set through 2032. The player spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. The player also said O’Neil arrived in Mexico City Wednesday and was to meet with the players.
LIV Golf promoted the Mexico event Wednesday evening on social media with the message: “Slow news day? We are ON.”
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With LIV Golf’s future in doubt, Paul McGinley believes the PGA Tour needs to reward the players who stayed loyal to them.
LIV has played five events this year, in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Africa. It celebrated an inspirational victory at its biggest event in Australia when Anthony Kim won after the American had been away for 12 years while battling drug and alcohol addiction.
DeChambeau won the last two events in playoffs, and this week tries to become the first LIV player to win three in a row.
DeChambeau, a two-time U.S. Open champion, missed the cut in the Masters last week. LIV’s focus has been on a global reach, with its first U.S. tournament not scheduled until May 7-10 at Trump National in northern Virginia.
“The life of a startup movement is often defined by these moments of pressure,” O’Neil said. “We signed up for this because we believe in disrupting the status quo.
“We have faced headwinds since the jump, and we’ve answered every time with resilience and grace. Now, we answer by doing what we do best: putting on the most compelling show in sports.”
He ended his note to the staff by saying: “We are pioneers, and while the road isn’t always smooth, the destination is worth every mile. Let’s go out and show the world why LIV Golf is the future of the game.”
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Brooks Koepka reviewed his first day back on the PGA Tour after his departure from LIV Golf.
Why might PIF withdraw LIV support?
Sky Sports News chief correspondent Kaveh Solhekol:
“I think Saudi Arabia is having a little bit of a rethink about how much money it invests in sport.
“The Public Investment Fund, which is a sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, invests the money that Saudi Arabia makes from selling oil in order to diversify and grow the economy.
“PIF announced their new investment strategy for the next five years and also told the areas they were going to focus on. There were seven areas and in this new strategy sport is not explicitly mentioned but, having spoken to people in Saudi Arabia in the past, they would say that sport goes under tourism and also entertainment.
“So I don’t think they are totally ignoring sport, but I think it is fair to say they are having a rethink and they are repositioning their priorities.
“I think the way they see it is ‘business is business’ and they want a return on their investment. Something like LIV, for instance, they have invested $5bn so far and it’s expected that were they to continue funding LIV it would still lose money for the next five to 10 years.
“So I think, going forward, Saudi Arabia and PIF are still going to back and invest in football, Formula 1, golf, boxing, tennis but they will do so with much more of a business rationale. Deals have got to make sense for them. They don’t want to be just seen as people who are there to throw money at everyone and any sports person who wants to come to Saudi Arabia.
“There is a war going on in the Middle East as well, economies all round the world have been affected by it, especially those in the Gulf region, so I think going forward Saudi Arabia is just saying to the world ‘look, we are going to carry on investing in sport but we are going to be very, very sensible about the way we do things’.”
Can Rory McIlroy enjoy more major success in 2026? Watch the PGA Championship (May 14-17), US Open (June 18-21) and The Open (July 16-19) all exclusively live on Sky Sports. Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract.
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