I Caddied for Greg Norman Once. Here's What Went Wrong With LIV Golf.
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Around 1999 — I couldn't tell you the exact date — I caddied for Greg Norman at Ballybunion. He was in Ireland playing a few different courses, as he was designing the layout for the course in Doonbeg. He played well, drove the ball like he was the best driver of the ball in the world. He was relaxed in the way that very confident people sometimes are. And he moved through every decision fast — no second-guessing, no hesitation.
I thought about that round a lot when LIV Golf launched in 2022.
What's Actually Happening
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has confirmed it will end its funding of LIV Golf after the 2026 season. This isn't a rumour or a negotiating position. The PIF statement was unambiguous: "the substantial investment required by LIV Golf over a longer term is no longer consistent with the current phase of PIF's investment strategy."
The numbers behind that statement are ugly. LIV lost close to $500 million in 2024 under its UK entity alone — on top of roughly $400 million in 2023 and $250 million in the two years before that. Over a billion in losses across four years of operation. Greg Norman left as CEO in late 2025. The new man, Scott O'Neil, is now doing what Jon Rahm diplomatically described as "a lot of hard work" to find new investors.
The viewership figures are the part that tells the real story. LIV averaged 338,000 viewers per broadcast on Fox last year. The PGA Tour, over the same period, averaged 2.66 million. That's not a gap you close with better marketing. That's a structural problem.
A Small Business Owner's Sympathy
Here's the thing. I run a small business. Nothing at LIV's scale — Low Chaser sells golf grips, not $200 million player contracts. But some of what went wrong at LIV is uncomfortably familiar.
Spending heavily at the start feels like investment, not loss. When you're building something, there's a logic to front-loading cost. You need to attract the right people, you need to create the product, you need to make enough noise to be taken seriously. In the early months, money going out the door can feel productive — it's building something. The problem is that "we'll make it back later" is a sentence that can follow you further than you expect.
Just because something is enjoyable doesn't mean it's commercially viable. LIV built events that were genuinely fun. The shotgun starts, the team format, the shorter rounds — as a casual golf fan, some of that was interesting. The production was slick. The venues were decent. But "interesting" and "people will watch in large numbers" are not the same thing, and in professional sports, the television deal is everything. If the viewers don't show up, the sponsors don't follow. If the sponsors don't follow, you're back to the funder — and no funder stays patient indefinitely.
You can't buy legitimacy. This is the one that got LIV in the end. They spent heavily enough to attract genuine marquee names. But what mattered most — world ranking points, a clear path to the majors, the sense that a LIV result meant something in the broader story of professional golf — you couldn't purchase. And without that, the casual viewer had no real reason to tune in.
Where I Stand
I'm not neutral on this. I want The Open, the majors, and the traditional structure of professional golf to remain the pinnacle of the sport. The game is better when the best players compete against each other in events where everything is at stake.
LIV disrupted that, and I think the disruption was mostly harmful. The splintered world rankings, the prolonged merger negotiations that went nowhere, the friction in Ryder Cup team dynamics. None of that made golf better.
But.
LIV forced the PGA Tour to examine what it was actually offering players. Prize funds increased significantly in the years after LIV launched. The conversation about player equity moved forward in a way it hadn't been moving before. Those aren't small things. And it's worth saying plainly: the players who left for LIV made a rational financial decision. Judging them for taking the money requires ignoring that the other side could have offered something closer to it years earlier.
What Comes Next
LIV will either find new investors and continue in some reduced form, or it won't. A full PGA Tour merger seems increasingly unlikely. Some players will return to the main tours if the league folds, and the majors eligibility question will have to be resolved.
Norman, for his part, is watching from outside now. He built something that genuinely changed professional golf — just not in the way he planned. He operated with the same certainty I remember from that round at Ballybunion: total conviction, no hesitation, full commitment.
In golf, that approach produces great champions.
In business, it turns out you also need the numbers to work.
Low Chaser Golf makes grips and headcovers for players who love the game — whatever tour they happen to be watching.