LIV Golf Is Useless, and Skilled Golf Is Higher Off With out It
Hey gang, at present we’re going to interrupt down Andrew Novak’s runaway win on the VidantaWorld Mexico Open.
In fact we aren’t.
Just one subject will dominate the golf world for the remainder of the yr. LIV Golf isn’t any extra, and it positive doesn’t look like of us are going to overlook it.
That features you, pricey reader. Everybody, elevate your fingers should you’re going to remorse not with the ability to flip over to FS2 for the ultimate spherical of LIV Golf Adelaide in the course of the night time subsequent yr.
What, nobody?
I exploit Adelaide for example there once I should admit the Australia event was one among LIV’s few success tales, bringing a golf league that included a number of of its personal nationwide stars to an underserved market able to get rowdy.
However LIV making the most of the PGA Tour’s hubris and lack of creativeness earlier this decade doesn’t make this league any much less of a failure in 2026.
It filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety in September with a restructuring associate all in favour of investing $300 million right into a “LIV 2.0” — as long as a sure variety of the league’s gamers agreed to come back again.
Most of them didn’t.
Jon Rahm — whose LIV contract alone was reportedly value $300 million — would moderately play the DP World Tour subsequent yr whereas serving out a one-year PGA Tour suspension. Negotiations broke down between non-public fairness agency BC Companions and what remained of LIV, the agency backed out this week, and LIV Golf as we all know it died in a courtroom in New Jersey.
As others have famous by now, LIV introduced itself with a shout and skulked to the exit door with a whimper.
“Golf however louder.”
Yeah, OK.
Let’s be certain everybody sees this for what it was. These in control of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund swayed simply sufficient large names to desert the PGA Tour. For no matter particular person grievances Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson had towards the tour, they and everybody else went to LIV for the cash.
They withstood the discuss of sportswashing and 9/11 households and hurting the well being of the game; they spoke of the thrilling idea of extra workforce golf, and attending to play much less and see their households extra, and rising the sport. Besides Harold Varner III. I’ll at all times respect that he simply mentioned the apparent half out loud. It was for the cash.Then the Saudi cash dried up. The remaining LIV executives requested gamers to come back again, primarily based on a brand new marketing strategy that concerned workforce fairness greater than gargantuan ensures.
That workforce fairness is itself solely precious if folks consider within the product. And most everybody bailed, as a result of it wasn’t going to be the identical cash.
I wouldn’t say LIV will stop somebody like Rahm from making the Corridor of Fame sometime, however this chapter in golf historical past shall be a stain on everybody’s legacies.
Mickelson (who hasn’t tweeted since Might) is now higher remembered for his LIV turncoat period and his many different reported indiscretions than something he ever achieved on the golf course.
Dustin Johnson made his spouse look foolish, coasting to forgettable finishes and simple paychecks after she insisted on an episode of “Full Swing” that he was nonetheless pushed to compete. Arlo White and David Feherty debased themselves to be well-paid, snarky mouthpieces for a failing league, trying particularly unhealthy once they waved away the preliminary reporting of Saudi Arabia’s plan to withdraw funding again in April.
And by the best way, everybody who ran a LIV bot account on Twitter/X, congratulations on losing 5 years of your life!
The DP World Tour will get higher from this, gaining an inflow of LIV’s finest gamers like Rahm as I wrote the opposite week. The PGA Tour is actually on higher footing than 5 years in the past, as a result of LIV’s incursion finally led to new management, extra prize cash and a extra attention-grabbing schedule on the horizon.
In actual fact, the skilled golf ecosystem appears stronger on the entire now. All it took was for LIV to be a disruptor for a number of years, then go away. Its absence in 2027 shall be extra precious to the game than no matter “LIV 2.0” would have delivered to the desk.
Doesn’t that say all of it?
