LIV Golf’s Saudi backing is pulled — and breakaway tour is running out of time
Saudi Arabia is ending it's $5 billion investment in LIV Golf, leaving the rebel league and it's players facing a bleak future.
It began quietly with a phone call Greg Norman made to a two-time major champion and an offer so large it was almost impossible to say no. It disrupted golf and sent shock waves through sports. Now, it faces an end with unpaid vendors, a postponed tournament in New Orleans and a Saudi sovereign wealth fund that has decided golf is no longer worth the money.
LIV Golf might be done. On Thursday, the The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia formally announced the withdrawal from LIV Golf at the end of 2026, according to The Express. "The substantial investment required by LIV Golf over a longer term is no longer consistent with the current phase of PIF’s investment strategy," the PIF said in a statement.
LIV responded by announcing an internal reorganization in a desperate bid to stay alive, looking for multiple, long-term investors to replace the PIF money. The rumblings of the lack of funding had grown louder in recent days. The PIF, which has poured more than $5 billion into the breakaway tour since its 2022 launch, is withdrawing its backing after this season.
That will end the most disruptive and divisive chapter in professional golf history. The Iran War ’s devastation of Saudi oil infrastructure accelerated a strategic reckoning at PIF that was already underway. What was seen as an international vanity project, LIV was bleeding an estimated $400 million a year, according to Bloomberg News, with no television revenue and no path to profitability for years.