Why we could be watching the beginning of the end for LIV Golf

You know what they say: time flies when professional golf is completely divided, and the best players are playing on separate tours.

In the four years of its existence, there have been high points for LIV Golf, very high. They recruited the likes of Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson and Cam Smith. They have a 14-event schedule operating in America and across the world, and have a mainstream TV deal with Fox Sports.

The event just gone in South Africa was a high point, too. DeChambeau and Rahm faced each other in a playoff in front of a passionate crowd at Steyn City. Two league stars tied at the top of the leaderboard with a feverish atmosphere. This mirrored LIV’s best event year-on-year in Adelaide. It was great.

You couldn’t have written a more perfect ending to an event for the Saudi-funded league. It was also an example of why the league must hold on tightly to their talent-based assets.

But taking a wider look, LIV had a disappointing start to 2026. Five-time major winner Brooks Koepka and former Masters champion Patrick Reed both left, with Koepka going back to the PGA Tour, and Reed plying his trade in Europe, for the short term at least.

Those hellbent on seeing LIV’s permanent extinction, and there are some if you spend any time online, will be smiling. Not that non-existence is on the cards, but it is not only the outgoing of personnel that is discouraging, but also what it suggests about LIV’s product.

So, why did Koepka and Reed leave, beyond the reasons they have publicly given? If we can answer this question, we can answer where LIV’s downfall starts and where it might end.

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Is LIV Golf going in the wrong direction?

Contracts come to a natural end

Koepka left LIV with one year to go on his contract. Reed left at the end of his deal, and negotiations didn’t lead to an extension with LIV. Like in any sport, the length of a contract can mark a natural end to an athlete’s ties to their club, or league, in this case. There is no reason to suggest this can’t happen with other LIV players.

Contracts are new to golf. On the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, you can play for as long as you meet the criteria to be a member. DeChambeau, arguably LIV’s biggest star, is contracted through 2026. This time next year, LIV might be sweating again, trying to secure the future of a player who might now look at Koepka and Reed and weigh up his options.

It isn’t clear when Jon Rahm’s deal with LIV runs out, with reports suggesting it could stretch until 2029. That might feel a daunting prospect to the two-time major winner, who could press his face up against the window watching more of his rebel colleagues leave in the distance.

Lack of competitive motivation

A trope often levelled at LIV Golfers is that they’ve competitively checked out, and they’ve prioritised a hefty sign-up fee from the PIF.

If you were sceptical of this theory, then you will be interested to hear what Reed said to ESPN after winning the Dubai Desert Classic and confirming his return to the PGA Tour: “After winning, I realised just how much I missed the grind and the dogfight; that’s who I am.”

This was an extremely damning pill for LIV Golf to swallow. This is a league that would have you believe the players are locked in and concentrated on winning, as if they were playing a major. Reed suggested otherwise, so you would think both he and Koepka view the PGA Tour as a more competitive prospect.

Scottie Scheffler

Off the back of the previous point about competitiveness, this one is a hunch that stems from this. I don’t believe that players such as Koepka, Reed, Rahm and DeChambeau would rather play LIV events instead of standing their games up to Scottie Scheffler.

Scheffler won his 20th PGA Tour trophy at the Amex in January, further cementing his position as the world’s best player and upping the volume of voices who compare him to Tiger Woods. He has won four majors in the time LIV has existed.

A player deserves praise if they win a LIV event, but at the end of the day, they didn’t beat Scottie and other PGA Tour stars like Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg and Xander Schauffele. Rahm had a taste of tussling with the Texan at the PGA Championship last year, but valiantly failed. There must be a part of LIV’s biggest stars that contemplate how good their game really is, while it isn’t in the same field as the man of this era. They had the opportunity to compete with him each week, but looked elsewhere.

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A new era on the PGA Tour

Jay Monahan’s mixed reign as the PGA Tour commissioner came to an end in 2025, and he was replaced by Brian Rolapp. The civil war with LIV Golf took its toll on Monahan who, at one stage, took time off to cope with the pressure of patching up the professional game which, frankly, he contributed to breaking.

Monahan and the tour never entertained the Saudis before LIV’s launch. In hindsight, who knows what even just one conversation could’ve led to, or what it could’ve prevented? While the tour coasted with the same schedule, the same tournaments and the same formula for many years, LIV burst on to the scene and shook the tour to its core.

After a year of hostility, Monahan joined PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan on US national television to announce a framework agreement/peace deal on June 6, 2023.

The framework agreement has come to nothing, though, and because of LIV’s inception, Monahan oversaw huge increases in prize money on the PGA Tour, a new Signature Event structure and an equity deal worth $3 billion with a sports investment consortium. LIV and its fanboys claimed victory and that its presence forced overdue change. They had a point, didn’t they?

But from the reactive Monahan came the proactive Rolapp. Less than a year into his tenure, there are already plans for the PGA Tour schedule being split into two divisions, maximising tournaments that matter and eliminating ones that don’t.

He wants to create a competitive product, and so the Returning Member category was made, which invited Koepka, Rahm, DeChambeau and Cameron Smith back to the PGA Tour as major winners since 2022. Koepka capitalised, while the others stayed, but Rolapp outlined which LIV players they believe improve the circuit.

Have Koepka and Reed been impressed by Rolapp? Who knows, but the new tour management evidently isn’t messing around.

What is the endgame for LIV Golf?

Now that we have seen a blueprint for players leaving to return to the PGA Tour, LIV is staring down the barrel. Just like the way some players sat back and watched their peers join LIV, to then help them plot their own defection, players thinking about going the other way can see how it’s done.

I have already written about how the departure of Rahm and DeChambeau would be catastrophic for LIV. Although they are in a strong bargaining position to squeeze a better contract from the PIF, absence might make their hearts grow so fond of the PGA Tour that a switch is inevitable.

How much more are the PIF prepared to pump in, on top of the $6 billion that these first four seasons have already cost? More and more column inches are also alluding to the sovereign wealth fund’s current priorities, given the astronomical costs of the remarkable Neom project, among other things.

It would be easy to say LIV will eventually die. They have earned world ranking points in their events, which is undoubtedly positive.

Next year, LIV will still be LIV – is my boring but likely true prediction. A doomsday prediction from the Saudi perspective is that Rahm and DeChambeau will have had enough, which could happen.

In years to come, my vague prediction would be LIV becomes of similar quality to the DP World Tour or the Asian Tour, visiting venues around the world with solid, but not outstanding fields.

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