Some LIV Golf players are making contingency plans for 2027, including Thomas Pieters. But the Belgian remains hopeful…

When the bombshell first dropped in Mexico and LIV Golf players learned they were about to lose their financial backing, Thomas Pieters suggested he was “ready to retire”. Pieters sensed a “grim atmosphere” as rumors swirled over the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund’s imminent withdrawal and checked out as his frenzied colleagues began refreshing social media for updates.

At that stage, Pieters was certainly not agonizing over LIV’s perilous future. And three months on as the league returned from a long hiatus at JCB Golf & Country Club, it seemed very little has changed. Pieters is still relaxed as he awaits a final verdict from LIV’s chief executive Scott O’Neil, who is currently attempting to raise $350 million in new investment for the embattled league to continue operations in 2027.

“We get small updates from Scott,” the Belgian tells TG at LIV Golf UK, where he finished in a tie for 23rd despite playing with a fractured rib. “He says it’s difficult times for him now. But they’re very hopeful and very positive. I read it, I go, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ But then I go back to being a dad. Wherever I’ll play next year, we’ll find out.”

LIV suffered another setback last week when it emerged the Asian Tour, the league’s second tier, was changing allegiances to the PGA and DP World Tours. The league’s $40 million season finale, the Team Championships in Michigan, is also increasingly likely to be cancelled. But LIV’s latest tournament drew a solid turnout in the English Midlands, where Lucas Herbert lit up the Staffordshire countryside by closing with a final round 62 to win by six shots.

Pieters has seen enough evidence to remain hopeful LIV will exist in some capacity next season.

“I think there’s going to be some sort of LIV next year, for sure,” he says. “The market’s too big outside of America. The PGA Tour said we’re going to stay in America, and that’s their market, and I don’t think you can even compete with them. They’re so good, so big, so anything outside of America, I think there’s a big market for it.”

Ten years ago, Pieters won four points on his Ryder Cup debut, playing so well at Hazeltine that Rory McIlroy claimed that “I’ve got a partner beside me for the next 20 years”. He has not represented Europe since, but Pieters has accumulated six DP World Tour wins and two top-10 finishes in majors. Since joining LIV Golf in 2023, he has also racked up more than $15 million in prize money. Retirement at the age of 34, as Pieters mooted in Mexico, would have felt like a remarkably premature end for a player of such devastating talent.

“I still have a bit left in me,” he admits now. “My kids haven’t been to a tournament in a year and a half, but I’d like to see them be old enough to remember some of this. That would be nice. If I retire now, they have no idea what dad did.”

Pieters has decided that regardless of the outcome of LIV’s future, he will play on. He is motivated by the chance to hunt for a medal for Belgium at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, which will be played at iconic Riviera Country Club. His immediate future, however, is complicated by the fact he does not have any remaining status on the DP World Tour. Pieters would need to enter the circuit’s Q School this winter for a place to play in Europe if LIV does not survive.

But, Pieters says: “I don’t have an ego. I’ll do whatever I have to do to play.”

He added: “I’m going to try and get invites, but I don’t want to get a freebie or something. I want to earn my way back because I don’t want anybody on the DP World Tour to say, ‘Oh, he’s getting his status back.’ I want to do it the proper way if I go back. There’s still golf in me. I still think I can compete with the best, but I’ve got to prove a lot of things before I can do that, before I get back into majors.

“If LIV doesn’t exist, I have to prove my way back on the tour. I have to prove that I can win and then go on to majors. It’s kind of the consequences, right? We all came here for a reason, and if it doesn’t exist anymore, then it’s life.”

Pieters says he is also willing to play on the HotelPlanner Tour, Europe’s second tier, if and when the invites come.

“You know what? That pressure, maybe it’s going to suit me well,” he says.

Pieters is not the only LIV player seeking a potential return to their old domain. Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter have both paid fines worth up to $1 million to clear a pathway for a comeback, while Martin Kaymer revealed at JCB that he also plans to recover his DP World Tour card.

“I would be really interested in doing that if this doesn’t continue,” Kaymer said. “But even if LIV continues, I would like to also go back and play because I feel like if I’m healthy enough, I would like to give myself another chance.”