The last few months couldn’t have gone much worse for LIV Golf.
The tour knew when they declared bankruptcy that they were going to lose a number of key players. Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and others were essentially out the door by the time the 2026 season had drawn to a close. But few could have imagined what actually transpired.
At their first opportunity, player after player jumped ship to return to the PGA Tour, from big names like Sergio Garcia, to players who were never expected to walk like Bryson DeChambeau’s teammate Charles Howell III.
Things looked bleak for LIV, who didn’t seem to have any path forward. But the latest decision made by the PGA Tour does give them a small sliver of hope.
PGA Tour’s Champions Tour decision that gives LIV Golf hope
The PGA Tour recently made the controversial decision to eliminate their Champions Tour pension program that has existed for 42 years. The fund was cut from $10M to $8M in 2025 and has now been cut to $0.
Reports say that this decision was purely financial on the PGA Tour’s end, as this will save them around $10 million annually.
This did not go down well with the players. Three-time senior tour winner Billy Andrade called the decision “criminal”, and he wasn’t the only one to voice his frustrations.
This gives LIV Golf some hope of moving forward. Some of the players leaving LIV Golf are doing so with the hope of eventually playing on the PGA Tour Champions when they are older than 50, Sergio Garcia among them. Without this pension program, this suddenly becomes a less attractive prospect.
So could players like Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood think again about pursuing this path? Potentially. So while LIV can no longer attract the superstar players in their prime, they could swoop in and become an alternative to the Champions Tour.
Would this be enough to save the tour? That’s unlikely unless there was a mass exodus of disgruntled senior players on the Champions Tour signing with LIV Golf. But this is the first time in months that the bankrupt league can present players with a real reason to sign up for LIV 2.0.