LIV Golf Is Dead, and Professional Golf Is Better Off Without It

Hey gang, today we’re going to break down Andrew Novak’s runaway win at the VidantaWorld Mexico Open.

Of course we aren’t.

Only one topic will dominate the golf world for the rest of the year. LIV Golf is no more, and it sure doesn’t seem like folks are going to miss it.

That includes you, dear reader. Everyone, raise your hands if you’re going to regret not being able to flip over to FS2 for the final round of LIV Golf Adelaide in the middle of the night next year.

What, no one?

I use Adelaide as an example there when I ought to admit the Australia tournament was one of LIV’s few success stories, bringing a golf league that included several of its own national stars to an underserved market ready to get rowdy.

But LIV taking advantage of the PGA Tour’s hubris and lack of imagination earlier this decade does not make this league any less of a failure in 2026.

It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September with a restructuring partner interested in investing $300 million into a “LIV 2.0” -- so long as a certain number of the league’s players agreed to come back.

Most of them didn’t.

Jon Rahm -- whose LIV contract alone was reportedly worth $300 million -- would rather play the DP World Tour next year while serving out a one-year PGA Tour suspension. Negotiations broke down between private equity firm BC Partners and what remained of LIV, the firm backed out this week, and LIV Golf as we know it died in a courtroom in New Jersey.

As others have noted by now, LIV announced itself with a shout and skulked to the exit door with a whimper.

“Golf but louder.”

Yeah, OK.

Let’s make sure everyone sees this for what it was. Those in charge of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund swayed just enough big names to abandon the PGA Tour. For whatever individual grievances Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson had against the tour, they and everyone else went to LIV for the money.

They withstood the talk of sportswashing and 9/11 families and hurting the health of the sport; they spoke of the exciting concept of more team golf, and getting to play less and see their families more, and growing the game. Except Harold Varner III. I’ll always respect that he just said the obvious part out loud. It was for the money.Then the Saudi money dried up. The remaining LIV executives asked players to come back, based on a new business plan that involved team equity more than gargantuan guarantees.

That team equity is itself only valuable if people believe in the product. And most everyone bailed, because it wasn’t going to be the same money.

I wouldn’t say LIV will prevent someone like Rahm from making the Hall of Fame someday, but this chapter in golf history will be a stain on everyone’s legacies.

Mickelson (who hasn’t tweeted since May) is now better remembered for his LIV turncoat era and his many other reported indiscretions than anything he ever achieved on the golf course.

Dustin Johnson made his wife look silly, coasting to forgettable finishes and easy paychecks after she insisted on an episode of “Full Swing” that he was still driven to compete. Arlo White and David Feherty debased themselves to be well-paid, snarky mouthpieces for a failing league, looking especially bad when they waved away the initial reporting of Saudi Arabia’s plan to withdraw funding back in April.

And by the way, everyone who ran a LIV bot account on Twitter/X, congratulations on wasting five years of your life!

The DP World Tour will get better from this, gaining an influx of LIV’s best players like Rahm as I wrote the other week. The PGA Tour is certainly on better footing than five years ago, because LIV’s incursion eventually led to new leadership, more prize money and a more interesting schedule on the horizon.

In fact, the professional golf ecosystem seems stronger on the whole now. All it took was for LIV to be a disruptor for a few years, then go away. Its absence in 2027 will be more valuable to the sport than whatever “LIV 2.0” would have brought to the table. 

Doesn’t that say it all?