LIV and let die: Rival league tells bankruptcy court it will wind down operations

LIV Golf is shuttering after five years that fractured the sport's landscape with promise of Saudi riches, announcing Thursday in bankruptcy court it plans to wind down operations instead of launching a new version because it didn't have enough support.

“The debtors are not currently proceeding with the LIV 2.0 plan,” attorney Matthew Williams of Gibson Dunn said in a hearing in New Jersey. “Instead, the debtors are toggling to a value-maximizing wind-down in their business."

LIV Golf, which launched in June 2022 by offering nine-figure signing bonuses to lure top names away from the PGA Tour, lost Saudi Arabia funding in April after spending more than $5 billion.

It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept. 8 and thought it had a lifeline in BC Partners Credit, which pledged a $300 million investment to pivot to a more financially sustainable “LIV 2.0.” But players like Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia, Tyrrell Hatton and Louis Oosthuizen, weren't interested.

“BC Partners Credit supported a transaction that aligned the interests of players and investors, offering a credible path toward building a sustainable future for LIV Golf," BC Partners said in a statement. “While there was great support for the league, we are disappointed that mutually acceptable terms could not be reached among the various stakeholders.”

Instead of planning for a new version for 2027, LIV enters a liquidation phase.

Rahm already agreed to forfeit all claims against LIV — said to be worth some $100 million — to get out of his contract. He is back to playing the European tour, with hopes there will be a path back to the PGA Tour. The tour currently has a one-year ban dating to players' last LIV appearance.

LIV Golf paid $15.6 million to retain seven of its executives , including $6.375 million to CEO Scott O’Neil, in the months between the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and LIV filing for bankruptcy. Those payments are not unusual for a company trying to emerge from bankruptcy. The question now is whether those payments can be voided since LIV isn't going forward.

“Building a global platform designed to bring new, younger, and more diverse fans to the sport of golf has been the round of a lifetime for all of us," said Scott O'Neil, the CEO of LIV who took over from Greg Norman at the start of 2025.

“LIV Golf was fun, demanding, inspiring, at times challenging — but always rewarding.”

LIV suffered a number of setbacks this year, none bigger than losing its source of its money when PIF changed its investment strategy and said it would no longer pay for the league at the conclusion of its fifth season.

The Asian Tour, which received financial support from LIV for an International Series, decided in July to renew an alliance with the PGA Tour and the commercially known DP World Tour in Europe.

And as the league was trying to pivot to LIV 2.0, European tour CEO Guy Kinnings last month said anyone signing up for LIV need not apply for membership on the European tour, which put European players at risk of having no part in the Ryder Cup.

Kinnings said in an interview with The Scotsman newspaper earlier this week, "But we also have to protect the tour against an entity who spent, so we are told, over $7 billion, with one of their aims being to ‘destroy the DP World Tour.’”

LIV was originally run by Norman, who tried unsuccessfully to start a world tour in 1994 only to have it quashed by Arnold Palmer and the PGA Tour. Norman had Saudi money at his disposal, and promoted LIV as “Golf, but louder” with its blaring music, 54-hole shotgun starts and $25 million in prize funds — individual and team — at each event.

But it had no broadcast deal the first year, meaning it had to cover production costs. It got the CW Network in 2023, and eventually got Fox Sports to sign on in 2025.

Key to a new version of LIV was a “critical mass” of players to stick around, and BC Partners extended the Oct. 25 deadline. This was more about names than numbers, ultimately, and it couldn't reach agreement with enough players.

“Ultimately, despite everyone’s best efforts, we just couldn’t get to the level of combined financial and player support necessary for a viable LIV 2.0 within the required timeline," Williams said.

In the end, LIV held 62 tournaments on every continent golf is played except for South America. It had a feel-good moment in Australia this year when Anthony Kim returned from a 12-year hiatus of addiction to win again. Bryson DeChambeau shot a 58. Joaquin Niemann won seven times.

They are part of a short history, and now have to find a way back.

Brooks Koepka was the first to return. The five-time major champion got out of his LIV deal with one year remaining, and the PGA Tour created a path — with financial penalties — to return. Patrick Reed chose not to extend his deal in January and now is poised to return to the PGA Tour next year through his performance in Europe.

Rahm had said on Tuesday he would be willing to pay the same price as Koepka, though it was unlikely that same deal would be offered.

See AP’s full golf coverage here