At exactly 1:05 p.m. last week at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, colorful clouds burst in the air to signal a shotgun start. Skydiving daredevils from the Frog-X team spiraled toward the ground above the first tee. AC/DC's "Back In Black" echoed off the clubhouse wall as Bryson DeChambeau ripped an iron off the tee and a hype man bellowed into the crowd. A few dozen fans cheered.
This is a LIV Golf tournament in 2026, and it is running out of time to figure out what it wants to be.
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, the near-trillion-dollar financial engine behind LIV Golf since its launch, announced in recent weeks that it will stop funding the tour at the end of this season, Yahoo Sports reported. The news came as a shock to players and officials alike. Everyone connected to the tour is now working to find either a path forward or an exit.
The physical footprint of a LIV event still reflects the era of open spending. IMAX-sized video screens line the course. A pristine speaker system pipes club, rock, and country music to every corner of the property. Cadillac Escalades idle outside the clubhouse. High-priced cocktails circulate through the fan zones. The hospitality tents and grandstands around the 18th hole at Trump National were visible from the clubhouse patio, which sits on a bluff high above the Potomac River.
The club itself is owned by the President of the United States. It is located more than 26 miles from the White House, despite the tournament's official designation as Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C.
What LIV has built in terms of player loyalty is real. The tour's break from traditional golf formats, including its team structure and shotgun starts, remains genuinely popular with the athletes who joined it. The tour is also described as working carefully with its sponsors. But connecting with American fans broadly has been harder, and without PIF money flowing past December, the conspicuous spending that defines the current LIV experience will not survive in its current form.
What does survive, and in what shape, is still an open question. A scaled-down version of the tour, with a reduced international schedule and tighter operations, has been floated as one possibility. But LIV has not publicly announced any concrete plan for the post-PIF era, and the players who built their careers around the tour's guaranteed contracts and massive production budgets are waiting for answers that have not yet come.
The next LIV events will continue on the 2026 schedule while those negotiations play out behind the scenes.
