LIV Golf Shuts Down, Leaving Asian Tour Pros To Count The Cost
The Saudi-backed league is liquidating after failed bankruptcy talks, a collapse already being felt by journeyman professionals on tours below golf's top table.
LIV Golf is shutting down after failing to reach a bankruptcy reorganisation agreement with creditors, bringing an abrupt end to the Saudi-backed project that spent five years trying to challenge the PGA Tour, Yahoo Sports reported.
The league was launched in 2021 under the leadership of Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which pumped in more than $5 billion before announcing in April 2026 that it was ending its funding.
LIV had proposed a recapitalisation with BC Partners Advisors through Chapter 11 proceedings in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey, but the league said in a statement that "the relevant parties were ultimately unable to reach a consensual resolution of certain outstanding terms of the transaction."
LIV Golf now intends to liquidate its assets and wind down operations, though it said "the company will remain open to, and continue to consider, any value-maximizing alternatives with third parties that may arise."
LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neil said: "Building a global platform designed to bring new, younger, and more diverse fans to the sport of golf has been the round of a lifetime for all of us. LIV Golf was fun, demanding, inspiring, at times challenging — but always rewarding. … We created memories that I hope will inspire a new generation of fans to follow, play, and fall in love with this great game."
The league's 14-event global calendar, spanning the US, Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America, had been broadcast domestically through a multiyear Fox Sports rights deal struck in January 2025.
The fallout from the PIF's retreat has already reshaped the Asian Tour, according to Golf Monthly, which reported that the circuit has been forced to pivot after LIV and the Saudi fund withdrew backing just four years after a $300 million investment had transformed it.
Asian Tour chief executive Cho Minn Thant told Golf Monthly the after-effects for the circuit have been "devastating".
Among the casualties is the $5 million Saudi International, the tour's flagship event under the LIV-aligned International Series, which has been cancelled because of conflicts in the region. Asian Tour Q-School has also been scrapped now that the International Series schedule no longer exists.
Those decisions are being felt most acutely away from golf's elite, where 47-year-old Californian Berry Henson has spent years grinding through mini-tours after turning professional out of the University of San Diego and self-funding $30,000 to launch his career.
Henson, known to followers as 'The Hensonator', has since won the 2011 Philippine Open, qualified for a US Open, advanced through Q-School, worked as an Uber driver between seasons and played in more than 200 Asian Tour events, Golf Monthly reported.
With the Saudi International gone and Q-School cancelled, Henson's only remaining event this season is the Philippine Open, the title he already holds from 2011.
The contrast with the top of the sport remains stark. Scottie Scheffler has passed $130 million in career PGA Tour earnings to move ahead of Tiger Woods, while Jon Rahm ranked seventh on Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes with $107 million, figures Golf Monthly cited as evidence of how unevenly the Saudi-era money has spread through the game.
LIV Golf's liquidation leaves the Asian Tour to continue rebuilding its schedule without PIF backing, with Henson and his fellow journeymen now turning their attention to the Philippine Open as the final stop of a disrupted season.