LIV Golf Tells Bankruptcy Court It Is Dropping LIV 2.0 and Winding Down

Since BC Partners Credit pulled its proposed $300 million financing earlier this week, LIV Golf's bankruptcy has moved from a hearing-day cliffhanger to a formal end. On Thursday, Nov. 5, the league's lawyer told a New Jersey bankruptcy court that the relaunch is dead.

"The debtors are not currently proceeding with the LIV 2.0 plan," said Matthew Williams of Gibson Dunn. "Instead, the debtors are toggling to a value-maximizing wind-down in their business."

That is lawyer-speak for liquidation. The league that launched in June 2022 with nine-figure signing bonuses will not field a 2027 season.

How the relaunch fell apart

The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which bankrolled LIV, said in April it would stop paying for the league after the 2026 season. By then it had spent more than $5 billion.

LIV filed for Chapter 11 on Sept. 8. It pitched a smaller "LIV 2.0" built around team competition and player equity, backed by BC Partners Credit.

The players did not sign on. Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia, Tyrrell Hatton and Louis Oosthuizen all said they would not stay. Young players David Puig and Tom McKibbin also left.

BC Partners issued a statement after the collapse. "BC Partners Credit supported a transaction that aligned the interests of players and investors, offering a credible path toward building a sustainable future for LIV Golf," it said. "While there was great support for the league, we are disappointed that mutually acceptable terms could not be reached among the various stakeholders."

The outside pressure was heavy too. The Asian Tour, which had received LIV money for its International Series, renewed its alliance with the PGA Tour and the European tour in July.

Last month, European tour CEO Guy Kinnings said anyone who signed with LIV 2.0 need not apply for DP World Tour membership. That would have left those players ineligible for the Ryder Cup.

Kinnings told The Scotsman the tour had to protect itself against "an entity who spent, so we are told, over $7 billion, with one of their aims being to 'destroy the DP World Tour.'"

The money still on the table

LIV paid $15.6 million to retain seven executives, including $6.375 million to CEO Scott O'Neil. Those payments came in the months between the PIF decision and the bankruptcy filing.

Such retention payments are not unusual for a company trying to emerge from bankruptcy. But the company is no longer trying to emerge. The open question is whether they can be voided now that LIV is liquidating.

Rahm has already agreed to forfeit his claims against LIV, said to be worth about $100 million, to get out of his contract. He is playing the European tour and hopes for a route back to the PGA Tour, which currently has a one-year ban running from players' last LIV appearance.

Other players and vendors holding claims against the estate will now line up behind the wind-down. The court has not yet released a creditor recovery estimate.

Players left without a league

Brooks Koepka left his LIV deal with a year remaining and took the PGA Tour's route back, which carried financial penalties. Patrick Reed declined to extend his LIV deal and is positioned to return to the PGA Tour next year through his play in Europe.

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp created a return exemption for major winners of the LIV era: Koepka, Cam Smith, Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau. Only Koepka accepted it. According to Golf Digest, Rolapp has said that door is closed and the tour's membership plans to hold him to it.

DeChambeau had been LIV's loudest booster for the next version. Breitbart reported he said he had as many as 30 golfers lined up to join LIV 2.0 had it gone ahead. Golf Digest reports he never signed the deal, after a signing deadline was extended more than once.

He is now scheduled to play the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa next month, his first regular DP World Tour appearance in almost six seasons.

The last LIV event was in August in Indianapolis. Michael La Sasso won it, then failed to get through the second stage of European tour Q-school last week.

What comes next

The bankruptcy court still has to work through the liquidation, and the executive retention payments are the first piece of cash the estate may try to claw back. The PGA Tour, meanwhile, has no rival for the first time since 2022. Its new competitive system starts in 2028, and DeChambeau's status is the first test of how it uses that position.