In April, when rumors swirled that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) was set to pull funding from LIV Golf, Bryson DeChambeau pledged his allegiance to the future of a league that wasn’t guaranteed to have one.
“As long as LIV is here, I have to figure out a way to make sense,” DeChambeau he told the social media account Flushing It days before the PIF officially withdrew the funding.
A few months later, as LIV’s season ended early and prospects for LIV 2.0 remained bleak, DeChambeau he resumed his role as LIV’s biggest advocate.
“I think there’s a lot of potential going forward. It’s been an interesting ride, that’s for sure,” DeChambeau said. “Everything we went through and the hard moments we had. But it made us stronger. … As we transition from LIV 1.0 to 2.0, I have big thoughts about what could happen next year. I’d like to be more ahead of it.”
Ever the showman looking to get attention, DeChambeau then talked about LIV in the past, although he was thinking about a future with the exit of the post-Saudi league.
“If there’s one thing I could say, it’s that we’ve done something different in the game of golf, and I’m proud of that,” DeChambeau said.
That was the last time DeChambeau spoke publicly about LIV’s future. Since then, the league has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcysecured a targeted initial investment for LIV 2.0 from BC Partners Global, and saw numerous players, including Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hattonout of the league. The list of players who said “thanks but no thanks” to LIV 2.0 is much longer than the list of players who signed up. You can count those on one hand: Ben Campbell, Cameron Tringale, Richard Bland and Brendan Steele. In the other column, Rahm, Hatton, Ian Poulter, David Puig, Adrian Meronk, Tom McKibbin, Louis Oosthuizen and Abraham Ancer are among those who have confirmed they are leaving LIV Golf.
But we still don’t have the full picture, which is why Sunday is a brand date for LIV Golf and its future prospects.
The Restructuring Support Agreement (RSA) between BC Partners and LIV Golf that was filed with the courts pushed back the deadline for players to commit to LIV 2.0 to October 25. But the RSA also gave BC Partners full autonomy to decide whether LIV has won enough player engagements to do business. LIV’s lawyers said they would know at the end of October whether LIV 2.0 is a pass or if he’s closing up shop, but Sunday’s commitment deadline is expected to be a “soft” deadline as BC Partners and LIV Golf try to secure enough talent to land LIV 2.0.
That starts and ends with DeChambeau, who by all accounts worked behind the scenes to help get LIV 2.0 up and running. LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil said DeChambeau is even more “pro-LIV” than he is. Everything we’ve seen and heard from DeChambeau over the past four years suggests it’s true. While Phil Mickelson got LIV off the ground and Dustin Johnson helped give it legitimacy in the beginning, it’s DeChambeau who has been its biggest cheerleader and supporter. The league and its growing YouTube audience gave it popularity it couldn’t find on the PGA Tour. He was on display at the 2024 US Open, where he was the crowd favorite at Pinehurst in a battle with Rory McIlroy. LIV Golf has been good for Bryson DeChambeau.
But now, as the deadline of LIV 2.0 arrives, we will get the answer to the question that will determine the fate of the league. What does Bryson DeChambeau really care about?
With the massive exodus of talent, LIV 2.0, if it comes to fruition, will include DeChambeau and a list of players of much lower wattage and world ranking than the PIF-backed operation gathered with billions of dollars in a soft-power exercise at its inception. It would be DeChambeau’s show for 10 tournaments a year, and he could spend the rest of his time building his YouTube channel and trying to stay strong for the majors despite the lack of major tours. That would make him the star attraction for 10 weeks a year – the sun of a league revolves around – and give him time to focus on new challenges and new subscribers most of the year.
If this is what Bryson DeChambeau wants, then he will continue to be the frontman of Crushers GC, with all his teammates he can cobble together, and then show up in four tournaments that really matter and see if he can make the idea of ”competitive representatives” meaningless. But if the major champion twice that loved and idolized Arnold Palmer if he truly cares, as he says, about the trajectory of the game, its growth and his own legacy, then he will follow Rahm and others out the door and see what their competitive future holds post-LIV. He will come hat in hand to the established tours – even with the knowledge of what leads to his business – be willing to pay a penalty, and then join the ecosystem.
“The reality is that I’m so focused on what I can do for the game that someone who says something online or to me personally in person is not going to distract me from the mission that I have,” DeChambeau said at LIV Golf Korea. “I hope people can understand that, that my goal is bigger than winning every tournament every week. I want to win every week? 100 percent. I care about the game sometimes more than my life? Yes. Because I see what it can do for people’s lives. That’s why I care so much and I’m so passionate and I want the best for everyone.”
Pro golf’s civil war is all over. On time and with a penalty, defectors will be allowed back. Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and others have already said they are willing to put the past in the past. Most professionals benefited from the arrival of LIV and the fracture of pro golf across the two tours, but with the PIF gone and LIV facing a mass exodus of talent, the game is slowly coming back together.
When Palmer died, former PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem summarizes Palmer’s impact about sports with a few sentences in a long memory.
“More than his words, Arnold’s actions spoke to his unequivocal love of golf and the belief that no individual can be or should be greater than the game. Arnold gave of himself to support golf and its growth,” Finchem said in a statement.
Bryson DeChambeau told us he believes the same. He wanted to follow in Palmer’s footsteps and leave the game better than he found it. What seems to most golf fans to be the best thing for the game at the moment is for all the best players – DeChambeau among them – to play together as often as possible. There is a way for that to happen. Let’s find out if that’s even what Bryson DeChambeau cares about.
