LIV players face another deadline with their futures at stake

For the second time in nine months, players who took the Saudi riches of LIV Golf are facing a tight deadline on their future. The first was a lot easier to ignore.

Brooks Koepka in January became the first LIV player to return to the PGA Tour under financial penalties that included no access to equity grants for five years. CEO Brian Rolapp then offered the same deal to Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith.

They had three weeks to decide and none took it. Why should they? The United States was not at war with Iran. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund was still pumping cash — more than $5 billion and counting — into the LIV Golf League. They were rich and getting richer.

The deadline set by the DP World Tour this week is far more daunting.

As LIV is trying to emerge from bankruptcy without Saudi funding, European tour CEO Guy Kinnings delivered a “take it or leave it” ultimatum to anyone seeking a home on his circuit — take up membership, but only if they leave the new version of LIV Golf.

“Players need to make a choice,” Kinnings said. “We have rules and regulations which are there to protect our tour and which our members must all abide by. Players who are not willing to comply with our rules and regulations should not be seeking to join our tour.”

They have three weeks to decide.

European tour membership is the best alternative because the PGA Tour bans players for one year dating to their last LIV event. Those who want European membership have to disclose where they plan to play in 2027, and if that includes LIV 2.0, there’s no need to apply.

For European-born players — Tyrrell Hatton of England, Thomas Detry of Belgium and Spaniards David Puig and Josele Ballester come to mind — no membership means no chance at playing in the Ryder Cup.

Jon Rahm already has made clear he is leaving LIV after reviewing the proposed terms of LIV 2.0. The prize funds are no longer $20 million. The schedule is 10 tournaments, leaving plenty of weeks to play elsewhere, except that the PGA Tour and now the European tour are not options. Maybe they still have their MENA Tour cards.

Scott O’Neil, the CEO at LIV Golf, has been preaching “complete, not compete,” as a way of saying tours around the world should all work together. This is a different message his predecessor, Greg Norman, had in 2022 when LIV Golf launched by spending more than $1 billion to lure away stars who couldn’t ignore the money.

“This is an opportunity to start a movement that will change the course of history by bringing new and open competition to the sport we all love,” Norman said.

Saudi-backed LIV was a threat that thrived on disruption. Bankruptcy LIV wants cooperation.

BC Partners Credit has pledged $300 million for LIV 2.0 to move forward. The amended restructuring support agreement has moved the deadline to Oct. 25 to secure a “critical mass of players sufficient to operate a bona fide professional golf league.”

That’s up to BC Partners to decide how many players — and who they are — can satisfy the requirement. And it can extend the deadline so it can move on with restructuring.

But it’s a bleak future, certainly not as appealing as it was when LIV was burning through Saudi cash to tempt players to leave. Now the carrot is equity ownership in a league coming out of bankruptcy amid concerns everyone might jump ship.

And then where do they swim? The European tour made its position clear. Rolapp, meanwhile, said in January there was no guarantee the program that brought Koepka back would be available again. He is guided by what’s best for the PGA Tour. He also answers to a membership that stayed put when so many others were chasing generational wealth.

“There are 225 guys with tour cards,” Xander Schauffele said last week in Japan. “And if you sat down and interviewed all of them, you’re going to get probably three or four boxes of how guys feel. Some guys don’t care, some guys are really ticked off, some guys want them to have a huge fine, some guys would let them back tomorrow.”

Rolapp said in August the tour is built on players earning their place, it’s a membership organization that has rules and rules only matter if they’re enforced.

The PGA Tour, trying to sort out final details of the new competition model for 2028 (where and when to play and who’s going to pay for it), also has to consider a path back for the stars it lost who undoubtedly would make the tour better.

O’Neil and Ted Goldthorpe, partner and head of BC Partners Credit, remain bullish on their path out of bankruptcy and into a future that appears as clear as haar on the East Lothian coast of Scotland.

Goldthorpe was at the Sportico Invest London conference last week when he spoke to the financial sustainability of LIV 2.0.

“A lot of the money that was spent created the ecosystem and infrastructure that exists today,” he said. “We think we can run this in a financially sustainable way because much of that spending went to getting the players, and the players are here.”

But are they staying? The clock is ticking.