The Break: LIV Golf's make-or-break moment

Hi everyone, welcome to The Break! I’ve written this newsletter for several years now, and it’s almost always been in a neutral, newsy voice. I’d like to change that a little. The Break will still round up the biggest stories in golf, but it’ll have a little more of my viewpoint in it. I’m still feeling out exactly what I want it to look and read like, but we’ll get there.

LIV Golf feels like it’s at a critical juncture

LIV Golf has been a real, actual golf league since 2022. It’s about to enter its fourth season in a couple of months’ time. Outside of a poorly-sourced rumor about Tony Finau going to LIV for 2025, there’s really been little talk of big names jumping to the Saudi-owned league.

Bubba Watson may have pulled back the curtain on where LIV is after he missed the cut at the PIF Saudi International, this week’s season-ending Asian Tour event.

“People want a lot of money. After we took the chance, we did all the stuff to make the league start, people think they’re owed as well,” Watson said to bunkered.

If there were a lot of money to give — and I’m sure there still is for the right person — then Watson wouldn’t have said that. He even mentioned looking for amateur players that could soon turn pro and become RangeGoats.

There seems an increasing sense among LIV-friendly social reporters that the big splash just isn’t going to happen for 2025. After several years of being conditioned to play parlor games about who will make the move, maybe that has finaly slowed down. Jon Rahm was supposed to be the bridge player, the one that forced the PGA Tour’s hand to speed up the unification process and welcome back LIV Golf players from the wilderness beyond Ponte Vedra’s moat-protected headquarters. That didn’t happen, and it doesn’t seem like a PGA Tour-PIF deal is imminent.

Tiger Woods, who has been involved at some level in these negotiations as part of the PGA Tour board, said he doesn’t know what will happen.

“I think something will get done. In what form or shape, I don't know yet,” he said Tuesday in the Bahamas.

Meanwhile, there’s the Bloomberg report that the Saudis are again trying to court the DP World Tour with some kind of cash-for-cooperation program that could see LIV Golf players get access to DPWT events in exchange for more purse subsidies and other stuff. Whether that’s legit or just a form of negotiating in public — a way of tapping the watch in cyberprint form — remains unclear.

No matter what, it feels like LIV Golf as a concept is at an inflection point.

LIV has clearly come to the belief that their best chance to succeed is as a global tour, not being one with global jaunts that is largely based in the United States. The American viewership isn’t there, even during live, US-based events. (Aligning with the DP World Tour rather than the PGA Tour, then, would make a lot of sense.)

The Saudis have spending concerns, and not just about the billions they’ve spent on LIV. They have a huge portfolio, but they also have a mandate to make investments that bring people and dollars to the Kingdom. Investments that aren’t accomplishing the mission are reportedly being scaled back.

Meanwhile, the contracts of that initial wave of LIV Golf players, most of which defected from the PGA Tour ranks, are expiring or soon enough about to expire. It seems unlikely LIV will offer exorbitant signing bonuses for these players. LIV knows the market they’ve made, and they know they’re the only buyer.

For those LIV OGs, they have to decide what to do next. Many seem happy with LIV Golf.

For the highest-profile names, they can play the 14 LIV events, the four majors, an event here and there, and they can call it a year. It’s a comfortable life. They can make millions playing in tournaments where they know they have a great chance of finishing in the top 10, even top five, and rake in a large chunk of the $20 million individual purses. Even without the possibility of a second massive windfall signing bonus, that’s not a bad deal.

For lower-profile names, they still are motivated to stick around. As an example, what’s the next move for one of the three Majesticks co-captains? Go back to the DP World Tour and get occasional bites at eight-figure purses? Crawl back to the PGA Tour for better week-to-week money but deal with cultural reintegration and the possibility that their status is, at best, temporary? Wait it out for the PGA Tour Champions? If LIV will have them, stick with LIV.

Of course, there are events that could change everything — some more likely than others.

The Saudis could say the LIV Golf purses are now $10 million (or $50 million!).

The PGA Tour and PIF could come to a deal, or maybe the DP World Tour strikes its own with the PIF and shakes up everything. They have to look out for themselves, after all.

A number of LIV Golf players don’t re-sign and go back to the PGA Tour, if they’ll have them.

Or, perhaps worst of all, the current state of affairs becomes the permanent state of affairs.

The Links

I’ve started a series about playing golf in Ireland (shout out Club Choice Ireland), and the first story is about playing County Louth and the tremendous seaside city of Malahide.

Kevin Kisner is the NBC Sports lead golf analyst moving forward, keeping in the tradition of trying to find a tell-it-as-it-is guy to sit along Dan Hicks (which I like).

My buddy Joe Burkhardt wrote a great story about the changing world of caddying.