Rory McIlroy<\/a> in a share of third place.<\/p>\nO\u2019Neil, in an email seen by Reuters, told players: \u201cOur season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the media landscape is often filled with speculation, our reality is defined by the work we do on the grass. We are heading into the heart of our 2026 schedule with the full energy of an organisation that is bigger, louder and more influential than ever before,\u201d O\u2019Neil said.<\/p>\n
You know how these rumours are. There are always a lot of them. I can\u2019t tell you anything more than what we already know<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0Sergio Garcia<\/p>\n
\u201cThe life of a startup movement is often defined by these moments of pressure. We signed up for this because we believe in disrupting the status quo. We have faced headwinds since the jump, and we\u2019ve answered every time with resilience and grace. Now, we answer by doing what we do best: putting on the most compelling show in sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sixth LIV event of the season tees off on Thursday at Club de Golf Chapultepec in Mexico. O\u2019Neil was on site on Wednesday as the pro-am was being played.<\/p>\n
Former Masters champion Sergio Garcia, who signed with LIV Golf in 2022, was among the players who spoke to media in Mexico and was asked to comment on the reports that financial support to the circuit was on the verge of being cut.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t heard anything other than what Yasir (Al-Rumayyan, LIV Golf chair) told us at the beginning of the year, that he\u2019s behind us, that they have a long-term project,\u201d said Garcia. \u201cYou know how these rumours are. There are always a lot of them. I can\u2019t tell you anything more than what we already know.\u201d<\/p>\n
LIV Golf, which launched in 2022, is bankrolled by the Saudi Arabia PIF and critics have decried it as a vehicle for the country to attempt to improve its reputation in the face of criticism of its human rights record.<\/p>\n
Through big money contracts and lucrative purses, LIV managed to lure some of golf\u2019s biggest names, including major champions Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm.<\/p>\n
In recent months LIV has lost notable names including five-time major winner Brooks Koepka and former Masters champion Patrick Reed<\/p>\n
After a year of acrimony, the PGA Tour, PIF and Europe-based DP World Tour announced a framework agreement in June 2023 to house their commercial operations in a new entity and set December 31 of that year as a deadline to reach a definitive agreement.<\/p>\n
That announcement brought an end to legal battles between the parties but raised concerns in Washington from lawmakers who are mistrustful of Saudi Arabia and critical of the country\u2019s human rights record.<\/p>\n
The sides extended the deadline and as talks with the PIF dragged on, outside investor interest in the PGA Tour heated up by way of Strategic Sports Group, which invested an initial $1.5bn (R25.41bn) into the for-profit entity PGA Tour Enterprises.<\/p>\n
The divide has even captured the attention of US President Donald Trump, an avid golfer who was part of two meetings on the matter at the White House in February 2025 when there was optimism the schism between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour would be resolved.<\/p>\n
In recent months LIV has lost notable names including five-time major winner Brooks Koepka and former Masters champion Patrick Reed.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, LIV Golf Adelaide set a record as the highest-attended golf tournament in Australian history, with more than 115,000 spectators, and in March more than 100,000 fans attended the circuit\u2019s tournament in South Africa<\/a>, making it the country\u2019s highest-ever attended golf event.<\/p>\nReuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LIV Golf\u2019s 2026 season will proceed as scheduled with the full backing of Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,32480,622,6674,184483,13341,229258,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-607578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-garcia","11":"tag-golf","12":"tag-liv-golf","13":"tag-pif","14":"tag-saudi-arabia","15":"tag-scott-oneill","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}