The Open Championship 2022 was the pinnacle of civil war pro golf. At least, the first one. The PGA Tour was scrambling to retain talent as LIV Golf, then backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, worked to attract big names to its side in an effort to weaken the PGA Tour.
Rory McIlroy, then the main spokesman for the PGA Tour, shared the lead at St. Andrews after 54 holes with Viktor Hovland. After a summer of LIV hitting off the course, a win for McIlroy at the House of Golf would be a symbolic victory in the early days of the LIV struggle. But Cam Smith caught and passed McIlroy on Sunday. Naturally, as then-commissioner Greg Norman and LIV Golf chased the big winners, Smith, then the No. 2 player in the world, became their main target. Despite McIlroy and others on the PGA Tour hoping to keep the Australian star on their side, Smith bolted for LIV Golf a month later.
It was another early loss for the PGA Tour, but recent bankruptcy filings for LIV Golf show that the Tour almost lost another big name in the wake of the 2022 Open Championship: Cameron Young.
The young man had a breakout season in 2022. The long-hitting Wake Forest star finished top-five at the PGA Championship, and then runner-up at the Open behind Smith. It was well known that LIV was trying to convince Young then, but recent filings show Young has signed an intent-to-play deal with LIV that summer, only to back out.
At the Tour Championship in August, Young admitted he had been “interested” in a move to LIV, but never said how close it was. In the end, he said there were things that mattered to him that only playing on the PGA Tour could provide.
“Frankly, I decided to stay,” Young said at the time. “So, I don’t know, it’s a really difficult situation because it’s not really something that anyone wanted to happen. I think it wasn’t meant to be this hostile between the two. Frankly, in the whole process with (LIV), I was very interested. I think they have a lot of good ideas and do some cool things.
“With some of the changes that are coming (to the PGA Tour), it’s kind of what really helped me decide to stay and pursue those goals that I have for myself, like making a Presidents Cup team and a Ryder Cup team and winning a major when everything is uncertain if you go. It’s a hard place for me because, you know, I’m very young factors.”
The youngster has been on the PGA Tour and, after a slight decline in the game, has re-emerged as a star in the last 12 months. He won the Players Championship and the Cadillac, becoming a stalwart in the United States team.
More recent filings have revealed more of Young’s commitment to LIV.
How the rebel league works its way through bankruptcy court in hopes of launching LIV 2.0, recent court documents show that LIV Golf paid $15.6 million in retention fees to executives before filing for Chapter 11. CEO Scott O’Neil received a $6.375 million retention bonus on June 24. He received a bonus of 2.7 million in February. According to the records, O’Neil was paid more than $13.6 million from September 12, 2025 to August 28, 2026. The filings also show that Norman received more than $9.4 million when he left the league in September 2025.
These revelations come after a year in which LIV Golf has failed to pay numerous contractors for past workwhich leads to many causes. Fresh Tape Media is seeking $1.23 million, Mobii Systems owes $1.1 million and Fantasy Interactive filed nearly $1 million in unpaid invoices. When it filed for Chapter 11, LIV Golf listed between $500 million and $1 billion in liabilities and between $100 million and $500 million in assets. The players were listed as the biggest creditors in the initial filing, with Jon Rahm ($7.5 million in overdue payments) and Bryson DeChambeau ($5.7 million) topping the list.
Friday, Tyrrell Hatton and Ian Poulter announced did not participate in LIV 2.0, joining Rahm and others in bolting the rebel league. Sunday is the deadline for players to commit to LIV 2.0, although the final decision on whether or not the league has enough players to restart will be left to BC Partners Global, which has signed a restructuring agreement to finance up to $300 million for LIV 2.0.
Only four players have publicly committed to LIV 2.0. DeChambeau has been LIV’s biggest champion, but he’s been quiet for a long time. It is expected to still be on board with LIV 2.0, but We will soon find out what matters to him and if he has it, if he commits, it is enough to get LIV 2.0 without Rahm, Hatton and others.
LIV’s lawyers told New Jersey Bankruptcy Judge Michael B. Kaplan that they expect to find out at the end of the month whether to terminate the operations or restart the league.
