{"id":814705,"date":"2026-10-26T19:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T19:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/814705\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T19:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T19:44:11","slug":"liv-golf-former-us-open-champion-graeme-mcdowell-confirms-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/814705\/","title":{"rendered":"LIV Golf: Former US Open champion Graeme McDowell confirms exit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Northern Ireland&#8217;s Graeme McDowell has become the latest major champion to confirm his departure from LIV Golf. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 2010 US Open winner, 47, announced on Monday he has &#8220;decided not to pursue&#8221; LIV 2.0, the new version of the breakaway tour which is due to start in 2027.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Major winners Jon Rahm and Louis Oosthuizen have also confirmed their departures, while McDowell&#8217;s fellow countryman Tom McKibbin said he was exiting LIV to return to the DP World Tour last week. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England&#8217;s Tyrrell Hatton and Ian Poulter have also left the competition. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Saudi&#8217;s Public Investment Fund withdrew its backing from LIV in April &#8211; having pumped in more than $5bn (\u00a33.8bn) &#8211; leading to the league filing for bankruptcy protection in the United States last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It has secured a possible $300m (\u00a3224m) in financing from BC Partners Credit to try to move forward with &#8216;LIV 2.0&#8217;, but only a handful of players have so far committed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former world number four McDowell joined LIV when it launched as a lucrative Saudi Arabia-backed project in 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 11-time DP World Tour winner&#8217;s best finish on LIV was a tie for second in Virginia in June 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve decided not to pursue LIV 2.0,&#8221; said four-time Ryder Cup player McDowell. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m grateful for the opportunity I&#8217;ve had over the last four years and want to thank everyone who has been part of that journey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I look forward to the next chapter in my career.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Earlier this year, McDowell told BBC Sport NI he had held <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/golf\/articles\/cvgxejz8m2lo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;really positive&#8221; talks<\/a> about returning to the DP World Tour next season, adding he was &#8220;lucky to have that option&#8221;. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland&#8217;s Graeme McDowell has become the latest major champion to confirm his departure from LIV Golf. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-814705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}