Laurie Canter has confirmed that Bryson DeChambeau is the player making the biggest push to secure new investment for LIV Golf with the league’s future in doubt beyond this year.
DeChambeau is LIV’s biggest star. And perhaps no player has seen a bigger rise in their stock since joining the league than the 32-year-old.
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However, that does not mean that he is guaranteed to stay on LIV beyond this season. DeChambeau’s contract expires at the end of the year. And of course, there are serious doubts over what the future holds for LIV.
The role Bryson DeChambeau is playing in trying to save LIV Golf
The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia plan to withdraw their financial support after the final four events of the year. In fact, there has been speculation over whether LIV will even return after The Open Championship.
But it seems that DeChambeau is doing absolutely everything he can to save the league.
Speaking on the Sky Sports Golf Podcast, Laurie Canter was asked about the role that the Crushers captain is playing behind the scenes.
“I’d say from the player’s side, he’s been the driving force in it. He’s wanting to meet other players, present visions. I know he’s been a huge part of the planning process. So I think that’s absolutely right. Yeah, he’s fully on board with it,” he said.
“I think he’s seen the impact, I don’t want to kind of cast this aspersion that widely, because I think as a general rule, American golfers haven’t travelled that well, and then he actually consistently has. He came and played Dubai on the DP World Tour in the early days, and now he’s gone with LIV and gone around the world, and I think actually through the YouTube stuff, he can see how global and how wide he can throw the game with his platform, and he’s probably in a quite a unique position to do that because he’s willing to give a lot more of himself than, frankly, other people are.
“To your point there, he does believe in it because he personally sees the impact he’s having. So yeah, I think to your point, he is all in on it and I know he’s kind of on calls and stuff daily, which again, that probably wouldn’t work for most other golfers to have that kind of distraction going on.”
How LIV Golf is likely to look from next season
There is so much uncertainty surrounding LIV right now. Those associated with the league have downplayed and dismissed many of the rumours.
However, a lot of the reporting has proven to be accurate. With that, the only thing that is for certain is that the days of LIV as we currently know it are numbered.
Canter was asked on the podcast about whether he expects LIV to still be around next year with a different look to it.
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“That I think is definitely what the outcome is looking like. You’ve got within the LIV schedule this year, for example, going to an event like Australia, I’d been my previous time on LIV and I go this year, there’s an African event, there’s a genuine market and those events are fantastic,” he said.
“So I think it’s going to be for the executives and the players as a whole to kind of to look at the feasibility of the best events, take the best version of it to markets that want LIV and want the product and build it out and make that work within the kind of auspices of, I’m going to say, a new version of LIV. I think if done well and correctly, it’s actually a really exciting prospect.
“I guess until those kind of things are nailed down, it’s difficult to kind of plan further. So we’re just trusting Scott and Katie and the team there to do their best for those investor meetings.”
It is going to be fascinating to see how LIV looks after this year. Clearly, there are a lot of players relying on the league to find a way out of its current predicament.
But if the PIF could not make LIV a success with the billions that they spent, it is going to be extremely difficult for anyone else to do so.
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