Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund plans to stop financial support for LIV Golf after this season, according to reports.
The upstart golf league that features major champions like Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm will share the core tenets of its strategic path forward on Thursday, Bloomberg and Reuters reported. The plan may include new board members, leadership as well as invitations to secure long-term financial partners.
The league has already been engaging with investment banks to find suitors, and hired Citibank to sell stakes in teams earlier this year, Bloomberg reported.
According to Reuters, LIV Golf players and staff were made aware over the past two weeks that the PIF, which has poured more than $5 billion into the league, had decided to end its investment after the current season.
The move would bring a jarring end to the breakaway league that fractured professional golf and fundamentally altered the sport’s economics by luring stars away from the PGA Tour with giant contracts. Despite substantial investment, the league has struggled with low attendance and poor television viewership.
The PIF had recently signalled its priorities had changed, saying its strategy for the next four years would have a major domestic focus. The importance of funding a golf league dropped even further in importance following the war between the US and Iran that saw Gulf nations bear the brunt of the Islamic Republic’s attacks.
Over the past year, the PIF, which has about $1 trillion in assets under management, has had financial struggles and switched to treating its sports holdings as investments that need to make a return like other sectors within the fund.
That had the PIF prepared to cut LIV’s funding, but it was seeking alternatives, Bloomberg reported earlier, according to people familiar with the situation.
Two-time major champion DeChambeau stated his commitment to LIV Golf despite rumours the league could fold after 2026 in an interview with Flushing It Golf that was published last week.
"As long as LIV is here, I would figure out a way for it to make sense," said DeChambeau, one of golf's biggest draws and whose contract with LIV expires after this year.
In recent months, LIV has lost some notable names like five-time major winner Brooks Koepka and former Masters champion Patrick Reed. Koepka rejoined the PGA Tour as part of a limited Returning Member Program while Reed plans to return to PGA Tour competition later this year and reinstate his membership for the 2027 season.
Earlier this week, Louisiana state officials said a LIV Golf event scheduled for New Orleans in June had been postponed with the league exploring a potential fall event instead.
LIV declined to comment, and the PIF could not be reached for one. The LIV season is scheduled to run through August.
