The first week of this month was tricky for Yasir Al-Rumayyan, a man whose vast power can sway nations but offers no guarantees against the whims of golf.
It started with nine-figure losses in a certain set of financial accounts and ended with a three-day slog against the gales in Scotland, where he indulged his greatest passion by contesting the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
For the governor of the $1trillion Saudi sovereign wealth fund, whose sidelines include the chairmanships of Newcastle United[1] and the LIV Golf rebel circuit, that meant taking a spot in the tournament’s pro-am alongside Patrick Reed, one of the more maligned golfers on his payroll.
Playing together, this collaboration of outsiders finished 108th out of 168 teams at St Andrews.
But golf is nothing if not a test of one’s ability to smile at bad bounces and Al-Rumayyan was still upbeat by the end of the week – he walked on stage at a party for the tournament’s high rollers and belted out a few verses to Sweet Caroline.
He was having a proper go at it, cutting loose in a world where, for all the carnage he has funded since the inception of his LIV-branded asteroid in 2021, he desperately wants to be accepted.
LIV boss Yasir Al-Rumayyan struggles with conditions at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews, where he partnered with Patrick Reed
Reed and Al-Rumayyan finished 108th out of 168 pairings at St Andrews
But the good times have never seemed overwhelmingly good for his creation, and that is a view hardened by the numbers on a different kind of scorecard from the same week.
Accounts for LIV Golf Ltd, which represents the breakaway league’s business outside the United States, were filed at Companies House in the UK on October 1. Their contents were alarming, considering they showed 2024 was the entity’s best year for revenues, taking in £64.9million, but still they recorded a £461.8m deficit.
It is an astonishing shortfall that doesn’t even factor for LIV’s dealings in the US, where they staged half of their 14 tournaments last year.
Spanning both markets, the overall outlay from Saudi Arabia across four seasons (counting the 2025 campaign) is an estimated £4billion, but the total returns on that outlay are undisclosed.
So are the overall losses, but the recent accounts tell us the UK-based operation alone has lost £1.1billion between its incorporation on October 26, 2021 and the close of business in 2024.
We will go shortly to the progress made on the breakaway circuit. But as of now, LIV remains an entity that has no access to world ranking points, leaving only the narrow portals to the majors for its stars, and is also contending against expiring player contracts at a time when money is pouring through the cracks.
As LIV slip ever deeper into the red, volume and urgency is added to questions that have existed at every step of the way: what comes next? And is it even remotely sustainable?
Daily Mail Sport has spoken to informed sources on all sides of the divide in efforts to establish an answer.
The UK-based arm of LIV golf lost £1.1billion between the very first event at St Albans in the summer of 2022 and the close of business in 2024
Keeping part-time YouTube influencer Bryson DeChambeau on their books is vital to the health of LIV
Much of the heat has gone out of golf’s frenzied civil war since LIV’s backers, the Saudi Public Investment Fund led by Al-Rumayyan, signed a framework agreement for a merger with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour in June 2023. The shock of the announcement was immense.
But subsequent progress towards that reunification has been glacial, with the glib truth being that Donald Trump was able to influence a level of peace in Gaza more effectively than he could between rival golf tours.
The US President boasted it would take him 15 minutes to fix upon re-election, but ever since Al-Rumayyan left the White House unsatisfied on February 20, following a meeting with a PGA Tour delegation featuring Tiger Woods, optimism has been replaced by silence and boredom. ‘No agreement is anywhere close,’ said a prominent source from one of the traditional tours last week.
The perception remains that the PGA Tour, once terrified by legal costs and the exodus of star names from Phil Mickelson to Bryson DeChambeau, no longer needs the deal.
The injection of $3bn in 2024 from Strategic Sports Group, a consortium fronted by Liverpool owner John W Henry, has been the biggest factor in the PGA Tour feeling sure of its position. But the failure of LIV to sign a marquee name since the poaching of Jon Rahm (acquired for around £400m) and Tyrrell Hatton (around £40m) either side of Christmas in 2023 has also fed the PGA Tour’s confidence that LIV’s free-spending approach has been curtailed by the Saudis. They appear to think LIV can be starved out.
That has left LIV in a curious position, nurturing a roster of supreme, expensive and ageing talent but apparently low on ammunition. Furthermore, they now have to look inward to keep what they have.
Of their first wave of star arrivals, it is known that two-time major winner Dustin Johnson, for one, is out of contract this winter. Next year, the cohort of expiring deals will swell to include DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka.
On that front, LIV sources believe ‘everyone they want to keep will stay’, and their standing is strengthened by the wider political mess. Because where else would they be welcomed in the current climate?
Jon Rahm’s defection to LIV was a huge coup for the Saudi-backed rebel league
But no star name has moved over since Tyrrell Hatton made the switch shortly after Rahm in early 2024
But as yet there have been no confirmations of deals being signed. That being said, Daily Mail Sport understands Johnson was in New York for meetings with LIV bosses last week. His representatives did not respond to our request for comment, but there is confidence at LIV that the 41-year-old will stick around.
What currently seems unlikely is a scenario where large bonuses are paid to those minded to stay. The DeChambeau situation will be particularly interesting, given he has won a second major and become golf’s foremost online influencer since defecting in 2022. His value to LIV has risen, with the added factor that he is personally close to Al-Rumayyan and is among the minority of stars who joined in his prime. Keeping him is both essential and highly probable.
As for new arrivals viewed as needle-moving, there have been no big beasts since Hatton in January 2024. While Rory McIlroy was left personally disappointed by the departure of Northern Irishman Tom McKibbin earlier this year, it didn’t send out shockwaves. Likewise the signing of Josele Ballester, a talented Spaniard best known for urinating in Rae’s Creek during the Masters this year. Most of the newer recruits have been lower-profile golfers promoted from feeder leagues in Asia.
One LIV target suggested to Daily Mail Sport by multiple agents spanning all tours was world No 45 Min Woo Lee, who won on the PGA Tour this year. The Australian’s manager, Brent Hamilton, insisted to us on Monday that ‘there is no validity in the rumours – he is happy on the PGA Tour’.
England’s Marco Penge, who won the Spanish Open at the weekend, is also the subject of range chatter but is evidently focused on taking a PGA Tour card next season. Quieter rumours around Europe’s Ryder Cup twins, Rasmus and Nicolai Hojgaard, are considered highly unlikely by our sources.
Naturally, all dynamics could change if Al-Rumayyan reconnects the money tap. But presently he appears trapped in a race against time and in possession of depreciating assets – Mickelson is 55, Lee Westwood is 52 and Ian Poulter turns 50 in January.
It has long been the assumption, or possibly the hope, among golf’s traditional bodies that even the Saudis will have a limit in their indulgence of Al-Rumayyan’s passion project – their efforts in golf have been hugely expensive and failed to deliver the breakthrough achieved for less in football.
To speak to those at LIV is to hear of an evolving concept that retains its support from up above. With the flammable Greg Norman gone as commissioner and replaced this year by Scott O’Neil, a long-time sports executive of sharper business acumen, there have been legitimate signs of an improving product.
Tom McKibbin of Northern Ireland is a recent defector but he is hardly a box-office name
Rory McIlroy has been vocal in his opposition to LIV and was upset when McKibbin moved to the rebel tour
Multi-year deals with HSBC and a mainstream broadcaster in the US, Fox Sports, also suggest growth and some investor faith. Crowds of 102,000 across the three days of their Adelaide event in February would be worthy of envy from both the PGA and DP World Tours.
The counterpoint would be those dire finances. One well-connected source told Daily Mail Sport that the LIV event in Singapore in March cost almost $50m to stage and drew a four-figure crowd. ‘Not a viable business model,’ they deduced.
If there is one avenue of great intrigue it comes from a potential collaboration away from the PGA Tour.
The hierarchy of the DP World Tour, or the European Tour in old money, has been tethered to the PGA Tour by a strategic alliance since 2021, when the LIV threat first appeared.
Many, including Westwood and Sergio Garcia from LIV, have accused the European set-up of subservience in that arrangement and from such sentiments has risen a hypothetical scenario that has been bandied about by onlookers for the better part of two years: what if the DP World Tour and the Saudis got into bed together when that strategic alliance reaches its break clause in 2027?
The European hierarchy have spoken openly about conversations with the Saudis and LIV, and insist all onus is placed on a three-way co-existence that would not displease the PGA Tour.
On that front, Daily Mail Sport has learned about a meeting in May, where O’Neil allegedly briefed a number of LIV golfers at their event in South Korea about a closer collaboration with the Europeans and indicated confidence of a development. At face value, that would indicate dialogue was more advanced than previously known.
But most sources are highly sceptical about any possible side-deal between the DP World Tour and the Saudis, particularly one that would agitate the PGA Tour. Referring to that gathering in South Korea, one experienced insider said: ‘Scott does say a lot of things and not all of them happen…’
HyFlyers team captain Phil Mickelson (second right) with team-mates James Piot (right), Cameron Tringale (left) and Brendan Steele… but how long can LIV keep writing the cheques?
American Dustin Johnson is out of contract this winter but sources at LIV are confident the former world No1 will re-sign
That nothing has materialised can leave one to draw their own conclusions, especially at a point when the DP World Tour is fighting its own skirmishes against LIV.
Currently, LIV golfers often play in DP events (there is no such bridge to the PGA Tour), but there has been great rancour about heavy, recurring fines levied against members who defected, which is a matter still being fought via a legal appeal from Hatton and Rahm and could result in two European heavyweights missing the next Ryder Cup.
Like so much in the mess of the past four years, that issue is unresolved.
Meanwhile, the imperative only grows on Al-Rumayyan to channel his favourite lyrics by touching hands on a deal – any deal – that makes all the trouble worthwhile.
References
- ^ Newcastle United (www.dailymail.co.uk)