At the bottom of the CEO’s “nothing to see here” email, somewhat undercutting the rest of his rallying cry, was something in between a typo and a Freudian slip.
“Let’s go out and show the world why LIV Golf is the future of the game,” wrote the breakaway golf league’s chief executive, Scott O’Neil.
“It matters. You mattered. Now, let’s go win.”
The sneaky addition of the past tense — “you mattered” — does little to douse the flames that have surrounded LIV Golf in the past 24 hours.
O’Neil’s email, sent to LIV staff and obtained by Reuters and other outlets, was at first glance a strong rebuttal to the rampant speculation that the league was soon set to meet a sudden and inglorious demise.
Packed with executive-speak buzzwords — “full throttle”, “disrupting the status quo”, “we are pioneers”, “bigger, louder, and more influential than ever before” — O’Neil sought to reassure stakeholders that the event in Mexico, scheduled to begin this week, would continue as planned and that it was full steam ahead for the rest of the 2026 season.
Scott O’Neil sent an email to LIV staff promising business as usual. (Getty Images: Thananuwat Srirasant)
This belated response came after rumblings and eventually reporting emerged suggesting that the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) was planning to cut its funding to LIV Golf, effectively leaving the league dead in the water.
Initial rumours suggested even the event in Mexico was in jeopardy, while more thorough reports from trusted outlets like the Financial Times and the New York Times did not place such an abrupt time frame on the matter. The consensus, though, was the same throughout: the Saudis want out, and that spells disaster for LIV.
Through that lens, it is what O’Neil did not say in his email that is more important than what he did.
The LIV bosses have publicly and frequently stated that the league was fully financially supported by the PIF until 2032. That has been the consistent and triumphant party line. In O’Neil’s email, nothing beyond the nine events remaining this season was guaranteed or even mentioned.
O’Neil also referenced these as being “moments of pressure” for LIV, some way short of a total rebuttal to the suggestion that trouble is afoot.
An indication of what the road ahead looks like will come when the PIF clarifies its plans for the future, but there is an expectation that it is looking to change tack and move away from the costly business of international sport.
LIV Golf alone has cost the Saudis literal billions, bleeding money at every step in the journey, and the outbreak of war and global financial strain likely mean a shift in direction.
Rising Australian Elvis Smylie joined LIV at the start of this season. (Getty Images: Francois Nel)
Reading between the lines, perhaps LIV Golf has been assured of funding for the rest of 2026, but no further. It seems unlikely the plug would be pulled so abruptly mid-season, just as it seems unlikely all the reporting from reputable outlets both inside and outside sport would all be wildly wrong.
Even if that were to be the case, that the PIF was to abandon LIV within the year, the fallout would be seismic.
LIV Golf as an entity would then be left scrambling to pick up the financial pieces while hunting for a new backer, one that would have absolutely no chance of matching the PIF dollar for dollar.
If it succeeded in securing some, but almost certainly much less money, the league could, in theory, continue in a heavily bastardised manner. If it did not succeed, that would be the end of LIV Golf.
The futures of some of the game’s biggest and best players would become a sweepstakes.
Earlier this year, the PGA Tour offered up a brief amnesty window for a select few LIV players to return immediately, albeit with significant financial sanctions attached. Only Brooks Koepka took the PGA Tour up on that deal.
Would the Tour be quite so generous a second time around? Patrick Reed is currently serving his one-year ban before returning to the PGA Tour, having left LIV Golf, offering a road map for what a return could be like for someone like Jon Rahm.
Brooks Koepka left LIV Golf and returned to the PGA Tour earlier this year. (Getty Images: David Cannon)
But would Bryson DeChambeau really want to return to the weekly grind of the PGA Tour now that his YouTube channel seems to be scratching his golfing itch and providing him the love and attention he has always craved?
Would Cameron Smith, who has struggled competitively but thrived as a champion, benefactor and ambassador for Australian golf since making the switch, find in the PGA Tour what he is looking for in a LIV-less world?
And what of the hopes of a globalised and unified world of golf? Surely the rampant and overwhelming success of LIV Adelaide can be a starting point for something meaningful, even if the league itself is no more?
As ever with LIV Golf, we are left with more questions than answers. When the time comes, and on current indications, there is little doubt it is indeed coming, the LIV Golf post-mortem will be wide-ranging and multi-layered.
But we are not at that point yet. “Full throttle” it is then, teeing it up in Mexico and beyond, sustained by vim and vigour and billions upon billions of Saudi dollars, for now but perhaps not for long.