LIV Golf’s demise may not be imminent, but the Saudi-backed rebel golf league seems to be on borrowed time.
In a week full of chaos and rumors that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is set to end its investment, CEO Scott O’Neil said the 2026 season is secure — but anything beyond that seems questionable.
“The reality is that you’re funded through the season, and then you work like crazy as a business to create a business and a business plan to keep us going,” O’Neil said in an interview with TNT Sports UK — one the outlet posted and then took down from its X account.
“But that’s not different from any other private equity-funded business in the history of mankind.”
LIV Golf and its executives has seemingly been scrambling this week, with a reported “emergency summit” of its top brass in New York as the tour kicked off its Mexico City tournament.
O’Neil’s comments come two days after his email to staffers became public, in which he heavily pushed back on reports that the league is set to fold, seemingly at any moment.
“I want to be crystal clear: Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” O’Neil wrote in the email shared by multiple outlets. “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.
“The life of a startup movement is often defined by these moments of pressure. 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.”
That show has not come without some big snags.
The first day of play in Mexico City was marred by a live-streamed broadcast that went dark shortly after players teed off, which LIV Golf blamed on “local power outages.”
LIV and the PIF are also facing a lawsuit filed by Premier Golf and its parent company, World Golf Group Limited, that claims it was the first implementation of a breakaway golf league concept.
Since its inception in 2021, LIV Golf has struggled to gain a foothold, thanks in part due to shorter, 54-hole tournaments that up until recently did not reward players with World Golf Rankings points, and an initial lack of a TV deal. Accusations of Saudi Arabia using LIV as a means “sportswashing” its image have been rampant.
Despite nine-figure paydays, rumors of high-profile players have often been rumored to be considering jumping ship to return to the PGA Tour — after a merger announcement between the two tours hasn’t come to fruition — something done by the likes of Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed this year.
After Mexico City, LIV has eight tournaments scheduled, wrapping up in Michigan on Aug. 30. If the rebel league does make it to that point, there’s no telling what comes next — and O’Neil seems to know that already.
