{"id":866367,"date":"2026-08-21T16:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T16:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/866367\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T16:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T16:08:11","slug":"liv-golf-what-does-the-future-hold-without-saudi-arabian-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/866367\/","title":{"rendered":"LIV Golf: What does the future hold without Saudi Arabian investment?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If there are no players, there is no LIV 2.0. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">So the next few weeks will be critical in providing the specific details players say they&#8217;re currently lacking to make decisions over their future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When asked if there was a critical mass of players needed to sign up for the future before a transaction could be done, O&#8217;Neil said: &#8220;The entirety of our focus is to get to this transaction and get through it. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Without the players, that becomes very difficult. I have a good level of confidence in my conversation that we&#8217;ll have a critical mass of the right players to move this league forward.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Northern Ireland&#8217;s Graeme McDowell, who joined LIV in 2022, told BBC Sport the mood among the players was &#8220;subdued&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There are 57 players out here on LIV and there are 57 different mindsets,&#8221; said the 2010 US Open champion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Some guys have some exemptions in other tours, some have nowhere to go [if LIV folds].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said he would be &#8220;taking a step back&#8221; to work out his future after the Indianapolis event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If LIV 2.0 goes ahead, we&#8217;ll look at the schedule and how it all plays out, and see if that suits me and my lifestyle,&#8221; McDowell added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I have an opportunity to go back to the European Tour and play there as well. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Whether the two of those can happen simultaneously, whether I can only do one or the other, there are questions like that we don&#8217;t know the answers to. Until I get that, it&#8217;s very difficult to make any decisions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When asked by BBC Sport about his future, Smith, who joined LIV just after winning The Open in 2022, said there would be a &#8220;little bit of time to think about that once the season is done&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Would he like to stick with LIV? &#8220;I really love LIV,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It has done wonders for my family, for golf in Australia, my friends, the people that we&#8217;ve got to meet around the world. It would be a shame for it to be done, but we&#8217;ll see what happens.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Other players did not feel comfortable speaking on the record.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">One senior player said there is an &#8220;emotional&#8221; feeling among the group as they await clarity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Another told BBC Sport &#8220;it&#8217;s been great&#8221;, before quickly adding &#8220;it is great&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was made clear Jon Rahm &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/golf\/articles\/c4g48x9d08vo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">whose future is the source of considerable speculation<\/a> &#8211; would not speak to media aside from his tournament obligations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">American Bryson DeChambeau declined an interview request from BBC Sport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But after Thursday&#8217;s first round, he said: &#8220;We definitely have a lot against us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If it works, it works, awesome. If it doesn&#8217;t, we&#8217;ll figure things out. Time will move on, and I would say that time heals things. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I hope people can see that we actually bring value to the game of golf. My wish is that people give us one more shot and be open minded.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If there are no players, there is no LIV 2.0. So the next few weeks will be critical&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-866367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866367","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=866367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}