Trump Draws Cheers at LIV Golf's Bedminster Stop as Tour Hunts for New Money

President Donald Trump spent Saturday, August 8, cruising his own golf course in a cart, and the crowd loved it.

LIV Golf's New York event, a $30 million-purse tournament, is being held this weekend at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey. It's the third time the Saudi-backed tour has set up shop at one of Trump's properties. According to the New York Post, spectators erupted in cheers as the president made his rounds along the course.

Trump landed at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday, according to The Mirror, then took a motorcade to Bedminster before switching to his signature golf cart for the weekend. He showed up for the third round of the tournament and kept the applause going as he waved to fans.

None of this is surprising. Trump gets cheered at UFC fights and college football games. He gets booed at Knicks playoff games. At his own golf club, hosting a tour he's publicly championed, cheers were the safe bet.

LIV's Real Problem Isn't the Crowd Size

The cheering is the easy part of this story. In April, the Saudi Public Investment Fund, LIV Golf's sole financial backer since the tour launched in 2022, announced it would stop funding the league. PIF wasn't one investor among several. It was the only one.

That left a real question hanging over LIV: does it even exist past 2026?

This week, LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neil said the tour has lined up a replacement. "LIV Golf has an agreement in place with a lead investor, signed by the investor and approved by the Board, to anchor the transaction and play a key role in supporting the path forward for the League's next era, driven by and for the players," O'Neil said.

Notice what that statement doesn't include: a name. The identity of the new investor has not been publicly disclosed, according to both Fox News and news.meaww. There's no dollar figure attached, no timeline for closing, no confirmation the deal survives due diligence. It's a signed agreement with a board sign-off, not a completed transaction.

LIV has made big financial promises before. The tour lured players like Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson with contracts reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars combined, all funded by a Saudi sovereign wealth fund with essentially unlimited patience for losses. An unnamed replacement backer taking on that same burn rate is a very different proposition, and reasonable people should want proof before assuming LIV's survival is settled.

Bedminster's Other History

The Mirror's coverage adds a detail the other outlets skip entirely: Bedminster isn't just a golf course. It's also where Trump's first wife, Ivana Trump, is buried. She died in July 2022 at age 73 and was laid to rest near the first tee in a gold casket, not far from where Saturday's crowds gathered. Trump attended her funeral mass at St. Vincent Ferrer on Manhattan's Upper East Side and called it "a very sad day, but at the same time a celebration of a wonderful and beautiful life."

The Mirror also notes, separately, that Trump recently claimed to have won both the club's Senior and Super Senior Championships with a score of 70, a claim golf writers and analysts have publicly disputed, along with accusations that his caddie has kicked balls closer to the pin. Those claims are unrelated to Saturday's LIV event but are part of the same running commentary around Trump's golf habits.

What's Actually Unresolved

The tournament itself will wrap up this weekend. The bigger question—LIV Golf's financial future—will not be resolved by a crowd cheering for the president on a Saturday afternoon.

O'Neil's statement confirms a signed agreement exists. It does not confirm the deal has closed, how much money is involved, or who's writing the check. Until LIV names its new investor and discloses terms, the tour's survival past 2026 remains an open question, not a settled one.