Scott O’Neil has been warned that several LIV Golf players are weighing up their futures with the CEO failing to guarantee that the final four events of the season will take place.
There is more than a small question mark hanging over LIV Golf right now. The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia plan to withdraw their funding at the end of the season.
However, Front Office Sports reported this week that the PIF may walk away before the 2026 campaign is even over.
LIV Golf players said to be considering their future during mid-season break
It is certainly going to be a nervy wait for LIV Golf fans, with their next event not scheduled to take place until after The Open Championship.
What probably did not help was Scott O’Neil’s interview on CNBC this week. While O’Neil insisted that he is confident that the PIF will fund the rest of the season, he issued a strange response when asked if he could guarantee that the final four events would take place.
He suggested that he could guarantee anyone who invests in LIV will see a healthy return.
Speaking on the Golf Channel Podcast, Rex Hoggard claimed that he felt sorry for O’Neil as he was in a difficult spot when it came to providing assurances.
However, he believes that some players who have not yet committed to being on LIV next year are looking into their options.
“I was sympathetic to Scott O’Neil because even though he did not have answers to all of the tough questions that our colleague at CNBC asked and did a really good job on that interview, he had no answers and he was putting himself in a really difficult, impossible position, some might say,” he said.
“However, he also has to take this product to market and he has to do it quickly in the most efficient way possible because the soft deadline that they have set is right around October first. So however it is he’s going to sell this, either one big chunk to their version of whatever SSG is and private equity or he talked about the idea of maybe we do this piecemeal. Maybe we send it off in $25-$50 million chunks, whatever the case may be, he has to do it quickly and he has to do it very publicly. And I think he’s in the position now where there’s a lot of doubt even among his own players.
“And we touched on this on the Golf Today Roundtable, so I’ll go ahead and circle back around real quickly. The idea that a player like Jon Rahm is under contract or Bryson DeChambeau, who’s at least under contract for the rest of the year, yeah, they’re perfectly content to sit around till the end of the year and decide what happens then and decide what their future looks like.
“I’ve heard from multiple sources now that there are other players, younger players, who aren’t under contract, who have started to look at the landscape and trying to figure out if this does come apart, like it seems like it’s going to, and I’m not even discounting the idea that Scott O’Neil can pull something off because I do think he can, I do think there’s opportunity there that maybe someone would put buy into, but if you’re a young player right now and your main purpose, main goal right now is to get back to the PGA Tour, then you’re probably thinking to yourself, I want to start that clock sooner rather than later.
“And by that, I mean, essentially, the suspension, if you want to call it that, would be a year since your last LIV Golf event. That’s what Patrick Reed was told. That’s what he’s operating under, playing the DP World Tour, looking to finish top 10. He’ll be able to play PGA Tour events this fall. If you’re a young player on LIV Golf, you’re probably thinking to yourself, why wouldn’t I do that now? Finish up the season on the DP World Tour, where they would be welcomed back, try to earn my card back that way, and then at least mid-summer or early summer next year, I would be able to start competing again on the PGA Tour.
“I think that’s going to be a huge problem for Scott O’Neil on top of all the other problems that he already has.”
The young LIV Golf players who would boost the PGA Tour
Much may depend on how easy it will be for certain players to get out of their contracts. If LIV do manage to put on the final four events of the year, they will surely be obliged to be there.
There are a number of extremely talented young players on LIV who would be fantastic additions to either the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour.
David Puig, Josele Ballester, Elvis Smylie, and Tom McKibbin are among those with enormous potential. Smylie has already won on LIV, while Puig and McKibbin have secured notable victories elsewhere.
They may be among the players still very happy to see what happens with LIV first. But there is no question that they would all boost the PGA Tour, particularly as Brian Rolapp looks to introduce a second tier.
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