Over $5 billion pumped in, and Saudi Arabia is now walking away. That’s the brutal arithmetic behind the latest LIV Golf crisis — a funding withdrawal confirmed for the end of the 2026 season that throws the entire project into serious doubt.
Saudi Arabia pulls the plug : what PIF’s exit really means
The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia has been the financial engine behind LIV Golf since the tour launched in 2021. Total Saudi investment surpassed $5bn (£3.8bn) when a fresh capital injection of $267m (£229m) was added earlier this year. Now, PIF has signalled it won’t keep writing those cheques beyond the current season. The shift aligns with the fund’s newly announced strategy, which prioritises more sustainable and commercially viable investments — a pointed contrast to a tour bleeding cash at every turn.
The numbers are damning. Net losses outside the US reached $462m in 2024 alone, pushing total losses since 2021 past $1.1bn in non-US markets. Factor in the vast sums funnelled into the American operation, and overall losses likely run to several billion dollars across the lifetime of the project. PIF also recently sold a 70% stake in Saudi Pro League club Al-Hilal — another sign the fund is tightening its grip on speculative sports ventures.
Saudi Arabia’s broader sports strategy isn’t dead, far from it. The kingdom still hosts Formula 1, boxing, tennis, and football events, and will stage the 2034 FIFA World Cup. But the LIV Golf experiment is increasingly looking like an outlier — one that consumed extraordinary resources without delivering a sustainable commercial model. The Saudi Snooker Masters, for context, was cancelled just two years into a 10-year deal. LIV may follow a similar pattern.
LIV Golf’s scramble for survival : new investors and scaled-back ambitions
With PIF stepping back, LIV Golf is openly on the market. The series is described as “totally up for sale”, and executives are in what they call constructive talks with potential investors. Two new figures — Davis and Zinman — have been brought in at leadership level : Davis as a corporate governance and strategic advisory professional, Zinman for his expertise in financial and operational restructuring. Neither name comes from the golf world, which tells you everything about the current priority : keeping the lights on.
Here’s what LIV is telling prospective buyers to sweeten the pitch :
- The tour is projected to earn $100m more in 2026 than in the previous season
- Ten of the 14 LIV teams are expected to turn a profit this year
- The league retains a global footprint with events in South Korea, Spain and Britain
- The team-based model and 72-hole format introduced in 2026 offer a differentiated product in the golf market
Those figures haven’t convinced anyone yet. Internally, officials acknowledge the tour will almost certainly need to be significantly scaled back, with far fewer than the current 14 events on the schedule. LIV has already postponed its June event in New Orleans, leaving a gap in the US calendar from 10 May until 6 August, when the tour visits Trump Bedminster in New Jersey. The Virginia event at Trump National Golf Club, near Washington DC, is scheduled for 7 May.
| Financial metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total PIF investment in LIV Golf | >$5bn (£3.8bn) |
| Fresh capital injected in 2026 | $267m (£229m) |
| Net losses outside US (2024) | $462m (£340m) |
| Cumulative non-US losses since 2021 | >$1.1bn (£810m) |
| Projected revenue increase in 2026 | +$100m vs 2025 |
The players caught in the crossfire
Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith are the headline names who bet their careers on LIV Golf. In February 2026, Rahm, Smith and DeChambeau each declined a one-time opportunity to rejoin the PGA Tour through its Returning Member Programme, which was available to players who had won a major or The Players Championship since 2022. Brooks Koepka was the only player to take that exit route, reportedly paying fines of around £63m to smooth his return.
Now, with the funding crisis public, some LIV players are understood to have quietly contacted both the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour to explore options. Whether a return path would be reopened — and on what terms — remains entirely unclear. DeChambeau, speaking after the Mexico City event, was characteristically direct : “As long as LIV is here, I would figure out a way for it to make sense.” That’s loyalty, but it’s also pragmatism — he’s invested too much personally to walk away without a fight.
Team captains and staff have been briefed on the search for new funding. LIV CEO Scott O’Neil told players the 2026 season would continue as planned and uninterrupted — a statement notably silent on what comes after December. Frankly, that silence is the loudest signal of all. The players deserve clarity, and right now, nobody at the top of LIV can genuinely provide it.
The most actionable thing any LIV player can do today is get legal advice on their contracts and open every door available — because the window on the PGA Tour side may not stay open indefinitely, and the tour they signed up to compete on may look very different by this time next year.
