LIV Golf plans to postpone their $30m event in New Orleans in June amid mounting speculation that the league’s Saudi funding is already being withdrawn.
Scott O’Neil, the CEO of the breakaway circuit, claimed last week that LIV would continue “uninterrupted and at full throttle” despite staff and players being told that funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is only guaranteed until the end of this year.
LIV was due to stage the inaugural event at Bayou Oaks at City Park in Louisiana on June 25, but a postponement is expected to be announced on Tuesday with LIV reportedly needing to change its business model.
O’Neil and his management group are seeking backing from other sources. PIF has already invested more than $5bn in the project since it launched in 2022 and with minimal returns so far, finding investors may be difficult.
In an interview with LIV’s UK broadcaster, TNT Sport, which was later deleted, O’Neil all but conceded that Saudi funding would stop at the end of this season. “The reality is you’re funded through the season and then you work like crazy to create a business and a business plan to keep us going. But that’s not different than any other private equity business in the history of mankind,” he said after LIV New Mexico two weeks ago.
Louisiana was expected to spend $7m to bring LIV to the state, with $2m going to improve the course. American news outlets are reporting LIV has agreed to return $1.2m that the state had already given them to hold the event.
LIV returns next week in Virginia at Trump National Washington DC, before visiting South Korea and Spain, but the postponement of the Louisiana event leaves a five-week gap in its schedule before heading to England for a tournament at the JCB Golf and Country Club in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire in late July.