Saudi Arabia to pull LIV Golf funding after 2026 season

These guys will be forever be the Houston Astros of golf.

JR44 wrote:

These guys will be forever be the Houston Astros of golf.

Yeah, it's so damn dumb to take care of your family for generations when provided the opportunity. Shame on them. lol The amount of self-righteousness on this board with so many hypocritical takes is pretty entertaining, though.

My question is what did the Saudis expect to get out of this venture? Prestige for a few oil sheiks? Because financial returns were never on the table for this vanity project. Maybe they thought they'd somehow destroy the PGA and take over golf?

But the majors are PGA events and outside of those the world mostly doesn't care about golf, especially the TV viewing world which is the only way golf makes any money.

The PGA would never abandon those events and LIV replacing them with the Desert Money Open would never attract an audience that cared.

Waterboy wrote:

Yeah, it's so damn dumb to take care of your family for generations when provided the opportunity. Shame on them. lol The amount of self-righteousness on this board with so many hypocritical takes is pretty entertaining, though.

Lol! Nice projection there coming from you. Yeah, cause guys like Rahm, Koepka, Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia who had made tens of millions of dollars on the PGA didn't already have enough money to take care of their families and future families! The PGA made them and were the ones who provided them forever financial stability. The majority of PGA stars stayed loyal to the PGA recognizing why they were in the position they are currently in.

Waterboy wrote:

Yeah, it's so damn dumb to take care of your family for generations when provided the opportunity. Shame on them. lol The amount of self-righteousness on this board with so many hypocritical takes is pretty entertaining, though.

Easy now...

Nobody's saying the money was wrong. But "I'd have taken the check too" and "there are no real consequences to how this played out" aren't the same argument. You can understand the decision and still think the era leaves a complicated footnote. That's not self-righteousness, that's just people having opinions.

JR44 wrote:

Lol! Nice projection there coming from you. Yeah, cause guys like Rahm, Koepka, Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia who had made tens of millions of dollars on the PGA didn't already have enough money to take care of their families and future families! The PGA made them and were the ones who provided them forever financial stability. The majority of PGA stars stayed loyal to the PGA recognizing why they were in the position they are currently in.

It’s not your choice to make for them because you don’t have the skills to do so. They did and their decision is theirs. The PGA only paid them because they’re the best and earned it. They weren’t doing it out of generosity or for the human good. They’re into revenue generation and they had a short term competitor that paid the stars more than they did. If people want to pay stupid money, there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking advantage of it.

A couple questions….

In 2021 when LIV started, Phil Mickelson was only behind Tiger in career earnings @ $96M. Phil SIGNED up with LIV for $200M.

Q: Would you sign for double 30 yrs of your efforts, with a stroke of a pen?

30% of LIV golfers are American. 70%, rest of world.

Q: why the ‘angst’ of this focused on Americans?

Saudis primarily accused of ‘sport-washing’ their image, via LIV golf.

Q: Is it Islamophobic to deny them the sincerity of this gesture?

Conservatively, American golfers have pocketed 1B in total earnings/signings, in sum total (from LIV)

Q: Do we give back (to the Saudis) the income tax we collected from those income earnings?

Waterboy wrote:

It’s not your choice to make for them because you don’t have the skills to do so. They did and their decision is theirs. The PGA only paid them because they’re the best and earned it. They weren’t doing it out of generosity or for the human good. They’re into revenue generation and they had a short term competitor that paid the stars more than they did. If people want to pay stupid money, there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking advantage of it.

Actions have consequences, no different than you or I leaving our employers for a better paycheck and then when that opportunity dries up trying to get our old gig back, we will likely have a bit of a stained resume for chasing the bigger money, but it was our choice to make, just as its others right to judge the decision and see it differently than you might have seen it.

Imagine you own a company and a bunch of your best employees leave for a startup....you and your remaining employees are going to be cool with it since they are enabling your new competitor to challenge your collective livelihoods? Doubt it.

JimmyinSD wrote:

Actions have consequences, no different than you or I leaving our employers for a better paycheck and then when that opportunity dries up trying to get our old gig back, we will likely have a bit of a stained resume for chasing the bigger money, but it was our choice to make, just as its others right to judge the decision and see it differently than you might have seen it.
Imagine you own a company and a bunch of your best employees leave for a startup....you and your remaining employees are going to be cool with it since they are enabling your new competitor to challenge your collective livelihoods? Doubt it.

"I'm not celebrating it, but I know that it was a rival league to take down the PGA Tour – and I didn't want that to happen. PGA Tour is ours, the LIV Tour is not."

– DP on Saudi Arabia pulling funding for LIV Golf. pic.twitter.com/kH2pWptHBh

— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) April 30, 2026

Mike Olson wrote:

Nobody's saying the money was wrong. But "I'd have taken the check too" and "there are no real consequences to how this played out" aren't the same argument. You can understand the decision and still think the era leaves a complicated footnote. That's not self-righteousness, that's just people having opinions.

C'mon Mike, we're just a bunch of hypocritical, self righteous jerks! 😜 Its all the about the bag, baby!🤔 I'm sure Lefty enjoyed the hell out of some of those international casinos....well, the casinos sure did anyway.

StickierBuns wrote:

https://x.com/dpshow/status/2049887753874133148

I viewed it as rich kids wanting to rub elbows with their heros.. nothing more. They hired their golf heros away from the PGA so they could parade them around like show ponies to their friends. I kind of doubt that they ever really wanted to have a true competitive league agains the PGA. just a passing fad for the princes.