LIV Golf to lose investment from Saudi Arabia, fund says

Alot of them got paid from LIV more than they could expect by grinding it out on the PGA tour.  PGA have a "one time" opportunity this year for Brooks Koepka to return, but I would be surprised if they don't find a way to bring at least Rahm back. Old guys like Sergio, Phil are probably done.

They let Brooks Koepke come back a few years ago but with a fine that cost him around $50+ million to rejoin. I don't blame the PGA - these players tried to kill the tour. The golfers of the PGA surely won't welcome any of them back -- the people who left took huge bribes and now that it didn't work the 54 players on the LIV tour would be trying to take a livelihood of one of the 125 loyal players who stayed on the active tour. From what I understand Phil Mickelson has been told not to bother. He's not getting his PGA card back.

The reporting is that the players who went to LIV have contracts to sort out before they could possibly return, but that there’s also some bad blood and the PGA isn’t exactly clamoring to rescue these guys and bring them back. All that being said, money talks and I suspect there will be something worked out so the big names that left come back to the PGA.

It’s actually unprecedented. The LIV guys made so much they likely don’t need to play for money. Maybe a whole business will be born of paying these guys to come play a round with your group. Corporate outings, charity tournaments, celebrity Pro-Am kind of events. Maybe a few go abroad to find non PGA tours to play for money in. It’s also weird to me that the PGA announced, with much egg on some PGA golfer and supporters’ faces, a plan to merge with LIV. Followed by…nothing. No updates, progress reports, or milestone updates. Did that agreement just not have any meaning? No clause for specific performance? Really weird in the world of M&A to reach an announcement milestone after so much public criticism and attention, then just go dark and not even announce a formal cancellation with some pablum excuse like “market developments”. Would love for leaders from both sides to explain that one.

I’m not up to date but they had entered into merger talks at one point as a result of settling litigation. I assume PGA will likely ramp those back up to close this sordid chapter.

They’ll most likely pay a fine and be welcomed back in like Koepka was.

They didn’t have contracts with PGA. That’s why they left. The PGA card essentially is a guarantee into the clubhouse but they have to fly their way their and their caddy’s way there and they have to pay their own sleeping accommodations. They also didn’t get anything from the tour if they showed up and had a bad Thursday and Friday and missed the cut for Saturday and Sunday. LIV came in with PIF funding and gave them guaranteed contracts in the form of prepayments for performance. They also paid for travel expenses and housing. It really want a good deal for the players as long as you don’t look at where the money came from. It also prompted PGA to make better financial arrangements for the players in guaranteed payouts for certain tournaments for showing up. Increasing prize pools for majors and higher tier tournaments. Nothing in the way of guaranteed contracts but an improvement.

It made zero money and they could have at least burned the billions they spent and enjoyed the warmth from the fire.

I actually think it made the Kingdom look worse, which is quite an achievement.

The Saudi golf venture failed but they may have not actually intended to profit on LIV golf. They offered to buy the PGA, and were rejected. Then they poured money into an upstart competitor and made another overture to PGA. I'm not sure the point was actually for LIV to make money, it may have been a strategy to pressure PGA. PGA would have been a profitable investment even if they had to burn money on LIV to get it. But, the whole thing is based on a misunderstanding of the culture of golf; it is a sacred bastion of WASP culture.

Depends how you perceive losing several billion dollars

saudi arabia is pulling back from all nonlocal and nonessential investments due to the war

It was setup to launder money

It's golf.

They set billions of dollars on fire with the idiotic The Line megaproject that will never happen. They also are financing like 35% of the $100B Warner Brothers purchase for Paramount.

The projects have had time and they're starting to realize a lot of people promised the Crown Prince the moon but we're never going to get even close. The Line is going to be too expensive and impossible to build, the mountain ski resort in SA was never going to be feasible, and now this. They're just realizing yes people are a thing and they never have your best interest at heart

It might be related to some other news about certain events and a need for money at home to rebuild. Also events like these were an indirect bribe to a certain individual, which has not yielded positive returns. You can figure it out.

In order for these types of projects to work out the way they wanted it to, you gotta be invested for the long haul. It’s just really hard for an authoritarian state with natural resources to think like that because, if they did, they would also realize granting more freedoms in general at home would also yield the type of results they’re looking for, both financially and diplomatically, for a fraction of the cost. But if they figured that out, they would have done it decades ago.

trump pissed off MBS. LIV was always a grift set up to pay trump fees to have events at his courses. no doubt, when he was done being president, trump wanted to "run" LIV for fun.

They lost their leverage to fix oil prices by UAE leaving OPEC, plus America “taking” Venezuela. The fact that the straits are closed means that their primary source of income is on fire and that doesn’t seem to be changing soon. As long as the straits are closed or there is the threat of an attack to ships passing through, markets are going to look for alternatives. A lot of oil and LNG tankers are currently docked or heading to America.

They need more weapons/bribe money.

The war?

He’ll bet you he can’t.

[Chop chop... ](https://www.npr.org/2023/10/02/1202937036/jamal-khashoggi-mbs-murder-saudi-arabia-human-rights)

But can he afford the taxes?

Phil Mickelson seems to be more obsessed with some random oil company that he gambled most of his contract on and begging Trump to bail him out somehow.

I mean that's because SA is just a real life hillbillies of Beverly hills. They just happened to be located on trillions worth of Oil. It doesn't take genius to sell oil. Add to that since they are a royalty. Your birth is more important than your merit so it's just a bunch of bozos running the ship.

Spreading the money out is part of the reason they don't get scrutinised. Helps when there's soooo much of it.

Newcastle United 😂😂😂

Silver lining... at least construction workers and landscapers put food on their table

I find it hilarious that Saudi Arabia is on a mission to win hearts and minds, but instead of establishing cultural soft power of their own like South Korea, they just piggyback of established trends like sports and throw obscene amounts of money at these sports and turn them into bawdy, glitzy spectacles that ruin the image of sports in the fans' eyes. It is quite telling that despite Saudi Arabia being the home of Islam, nearly all the cultural and scientific legacies of the Islamic golden age came from other Islamic empires that took principles from Saudi Arabia and actually created something of value. 

I certainly didn't miss deshamboy and his petulant cuntiness.

I miss cam smith. Thats about it. But he's seemingly packed it in after he got his 50m

Plus it’s not like there is a market for more golf leagues anyway. It’s a great sport to play, but it’s a bore to watch if you don’t play yourself.

I kinda miss rahm. Weird guy but good player

Who's the Billie you're referencing? And I agree, it's disgusting that golf & other entertainment events are/were washing the blood money.

90M is a shitton of money. That’s awesome if true

My dude; thats literally the purpose. Golfing was a gateway for the Saudi’s to establish connections with the elite across the world. In the first Trump admin, governments literally turned to Trumps golfing buddies to establish channels with Trump. Nearly every single one of the royals in Europe, and major politicians play golf. This was all an elaborate way to spread Saudi tentacles under the guise of sports.

Hopefully they'll f1 so

Pretty much everything sports related according to their own reports. I also think the Saudi Pro League is going to go down the tubes because of this.

It’s not money laundering it’s reputation laundering

Honestly, I feel like the sportswashing, at least in this instance, backfired on them. I used to only hate them for being an absolute monarchy that murders people. But now I hate them for being an absolute monarchy that kills people and tried to destroy golf.

Why would the Saudi royal family ever need to launder money? They have absolute power over their country, people and government. The Saudi IRS isn't going to be auditing their tax returns and making them prove their trillions of dollars were legitimately earned and taxed properly.

Its worth noting there are reports that SA are ones who were pushing for the war. If there's punishment its because Trump isn't committed to properly finishing it.

Bored rich people weren't watching LIV golf. I'm not even sure who was.

To the pga

They were in negotiations to do that. The negotiations never ended up going anywhere

The end of the year. They'll piecemeal the rest of the 2026 season, but expect this to be the end.

And they really don’t give an effort in their game because they’re so rich from sponsorships. It’s so boring to watch.