Over the last several months, LIV Golf, the upstart league funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) that aimed to compete with the PGA Tour, has suffered a series of defections after the PIF pulled its funding.
Two of the league’s top players, Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann, left, along with a slew of others, after the league announced several changes, including lower purses.
Just when it seemed LIV was going to be done for good, private equity firm BC Partners announced it would pump $300 million into the league to keep it alive, and for a few months LIV talked about the future: LIV 2.0.
But today, that future is gone. BC pulled its funding, meaning LIV is officially dead.
Today is kind of a fitting day for LIV to die, because PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan is giving his final interview as “head” of the Tour later tonight, and will undoubtedly (I hope) take a good ceremonial victory lap as he walks out the door.
LIV will go down as an aberration in the history books: it split golf, grew it in some ways, created a lot of buzz, ruined the careers of many, Phil Mickelson (although his off-course issues just caught up to him), Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith, etc., but it also helped those who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour.
Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, the top two players on the Tour, and many others are considerably richer because of the money the Tour was forced to bring in to keep players from leaving – Scheffler became number one on the all-time money list after winning the Tour Championship in August.
Dustin Johnson coined the term “Long LIV Golf” during his tenure. Now, it’s not Long LIV Golf; it’s goodbye LIV Golf, and good riddance.