LIV Golf may be facing its biggest challenge to date entering Year 5. Convincing stars to sign lucrative contracts to launch the league was one task, but after failing to live up to the lofty goals and promises it made about changing the golf landscape forever, LIV Golf now must figure out how to get its top players to sign second contracts.
Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed have already departed with the former returning to the PGA Tour this season and the latter set to do the same in 2027. While they put a dent in LIV’s star power, the two players most important to the league remaining relevant are still on board — for now.
Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm are easily the two most competitive players that carry the LIV flag into golf’s majors each year, but DeChambeau is in a contract year, and Rahm will have his deal run out in 2027.
Retaining both DeChambeau and Rahm must be LIV Golf’s top priority over the next two years. They are the two stars in their primes, and their presence legitimizes the entire operation. The problem is that those stars have divergent priorities, making it extremely difficult to keep both of them happy.
LIV Golf’s decision to move from 54-hole events to 72-hole events is the best recent illustration of the differing opinions of DeChambeau and Rahm on how the league should operate. As a result of the move, LIV Golf finally got the Official World Golf Ranking to begin awarding points it long coveted — albeit limited to top 10 finishers under the “Small Field Tournaments” categorization.
Gaining OWGR points was incredibly important to Rahm, who championed the move to 72-hole events, wanting to bring LIV Golf tournaments more in line with the rest of the sport.
“This is a win for the league and the players,” Rahm said in a statement. “LIV Golf is a player’s league. We are competitors to the core, and we want every opportunity to compete at the highest level and to perfect our craft. Moving to 72 holes is the logical next step that strengthens the competition, tests us more fully, and if the growing galleries from last season are any indication, delivers more of what the fans want.”
DeChambeau likewise toed the party line in the initial release, but he changed his tune with comments he recently made to Today’s Golfer questioning the move.
“It’s definitely changed away from what we had initially been told it was going to be,” DeChambeau says. “So there is some movement that we’ve all been, I would say, interested in, and going, ‘why that movement?’ Because we were told it was going to be this. So that’s definitely made us have some different thoughts about it.
“I’ve got a contract for this year, and we’ll go through it there and see what happens after that. Look, it’s 72 holes, it’s changed, but we’re still excited to play professionally and play for what we’re doing and go across the world. I think it’s going to be great for our [Crushers GC] team. Is it what we ultimately signed up for? No. So I think we’re supposed to be different, so I’m a little indifferent to it right now.
“Hopefully it weighs positively on me over the course of time, but you never know. I’m not sure. We didn’t sign up to play for 72.”
DeChambeau’s take stands in stark contrast to Rahm, who later called the move “absolutely massive.” Given they are the two stars LIV Golf desperately needs to keep on the roster, their lack of alignment on what’s most important for the league represents a serious dilemma for CEO Scott O’Neil.
Ever since Rahm joined, many have wondered whether he had regrets about jumping ship from the PGA Tour. Rahm signed with LIV Golf in December 2023 when the framework agreement between Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (which owns LIV) and the PGA Tour was still in play. Many believed that would bring the stars of the two tours back together sooner rather than later.
However, nearly three years after the announcement of that agreement, which stunned and angered some players on the PGA Tour, it has not yielded anything beyond an awkward TV segment and some meetings that have apparently gone nowhere.
The PGA Tour recently rejected a $1.5 billion investment offer from the PIF, offering the clearest indication yet that the Tour has decided to move in another direction.
That’s left Rahm to play out his deal and try to use his sizable influence to steer the league toward his vision. Rahm’s competitive nature has always seemed a bit at odds with LIV Golf’s more laid-back, party atmosphere, bristling at times on the course about the extracurriculars going on around him. Moving to 72-hole events provides, as Rahm stated, a fuller test — and also makes it more likely the best players win more often, as the longer the format, the more likely the cream rises to the top.
DeChambeau, meanwhile, embraces his role as golf’s biggest entertainer. That’s evident in his emergence as a YouTube star, where his wildly popular channel has further cemented his place as the golfer of the people.
One of the perks of LIV Golf for DeChambeau is the opportunity to pursue additional opportunities on the content creation side, as fewer and shorter events lead to more free time. Adding another day of tournament play to each event takes away from that flexibility, and for DeChambeau, time is money.
As DeChambeau notes, perhaps the 72-hole move will grow on him, but after offering his initial support of the move, it’s clear that the more he’s thought about it, the less he likes it. Some of that is undoubtedly a negotiation tactic. DeChambeau will be well aware of the leverage he has in contract talks with LIV Golf, as his departure would be the surest sign of impending doom for the league. If they want him to play more, he’s signaling clearly that they’ll need to pay more.
However, with reports swirling about LIV Golf potentially tightening its purse strings and not offering long-term guaranteed deals, it’s fair to wonder just how high an offer might reach simply to keep DeChambeau in the fold. If it’s not only a matter of throwing an unfathomable amount of money at DeChambeau, LIV Golf must ensure DeChambeau buys into their vision.
This is where one of LIV Golf’s initial strengths — being untethered to history and tradition — becomes a significant challenge. The lack of a strong foundation allows the league’s two stars the opportunity to pull it in different directions, trying to shape this still-fledgling circuit in their preferred image.
That’s never been more evident than in LIV’s restructuring to 72 holes. DeChambeau signed up for the disruptive tour, the one that promised to break the mold. The 54-hole element was the foundation of that — it’s literally in the name, “LIV” — but in their quest to bring in more star power, they had to open their base to those who are not only intrigued by the idea of doing something different.
Rahm’s more traditional vision has pulled LIV Golf back towards the rest of the sport, perhaps at the expense of DeChambeau’s desire to zig where others zag.
Somehow, LIV Golf must bridge that gap. Perhaps the money will ultimately be too good for either man to pass up, but they’ve already achieved generational wealth with their first deals. Now, they’ll want more influence, and it’s hard to see how LIV Golf can sell a vision for the future upon which both will agree.
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