LIV limping on – but for how long?

Stories about LIV Golf lately have been more about what goes on in court rather than what happens on-course. That has certainly been the case in the past few weeks and is likely to be so for the next one as well. At a bankruptcy hearing last week, Robert Fitzgerald, the lawyer representing LIV, said that the organisation did not plan to reveal the names of players who would be involved in LIV 2.0 until after the coming weekend.

Sergio Garcia’s contact with LIV has been ended. Jon Rahm, Adrian Meronk and David Puig have said that the next iteration of LIV will not be for them. The futures of Cameron Smith, Joaquin Niemann, Tyrrell Hatton and (most intriguingly) Bryson DeChambeau are among those which are unclear, albeit perhaps not to themselves.

The more hardline attitude of the DP World Tour has not helped, as Fitzgerald acknowledged. “Players need to make a choice,” said Guy Kinnings, CEO of the DP World (European) Tour. “We have rules and regulations which are there to protect the Tour and which our members must all abide by. Players who are not willing to comply with our rules and regulations should not be seeking to join our Tour.” Specifically, members of the Tour heading into next season will not be permitted to play LIV events. The PGA Tour had previously already frozen them out.

There was, I felt, some unintended irony in something Fitzgerald put to the court. “Player freedom is the reason LIV Golf was created,” he said, a sentiment the circuit’s original ringmaster, Greg Norman, was fond of boring on about. It’s nonsense, of course: if you were a member of LIV Golf, you had to play in all its tournaments. Not much player freedom there. Fitzgerald added: “LIV has been vocal in its belief in free agency and that the best players should have greater flexibility to compete across the eco-system.” Now that LIV 2.0 will have significantly smaller purses to offer than its predecessor, there will be fewer players interested in participating in its particular part of that eco-system.

All the indications are that it should be apparent well before the end of the year whether a new, more modest, version of LIV will exist or not. Not all PGA Tour members will be welcoming any returnees, but speaking in India last week, Rory McIlroy was being fairly magnanimous. “I think a rising tide lifts all boats,” he said, “and I think having some [note: not all] of these players back is beneficial for the business of the Tours.”

I also quite liked his summary of the situation. “LIV had probably like, half of a good idea [Norman would not like that] that was executed pretty poorly [he would hate that]. They had a lot of capital but I think a lot of that capital was wasted in some ways.” And I think the Saudis would agree with that.

You can follow Robert Green on Twitter @robrtgreen and enjoy his other blog f-factors.com as well as his golf archive on robertgreen-golf.com

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The three-time LIV individual champion drops his claims as the league's largest unsecured creditor and forfeits his Legion XIII stake.

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