LIV Golf liquidation and DP World Tour player influx, Digi Mart USA News: The DP World Tour is expecting an influx of players from LIV Golf next year and is ready to extend an olive branch to all the former rebels, including the face of its doomed revival, Bryson DeChambeau.
The two-time U.S. Open winner had been due to sign for LIV 2.0 next season, saying recently that the “business plan made a lot of sense” and that the reborn rebel tour would “last forever.” Instead, LIV began bankruptcy proceedings in a New Jersey court on Thursday following the withdrawal of its primary financiers, BC Partners.
In a 13-minute hearing, LIV’s lawyers announced formal plans to liquidate rather than set up a new tour, following the decision of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to withdraw its funding from next season. The PIF had spent more than $7 billion in five years setting up the rebel tour that split golf in two, before protracted talks over a merger with the PGA and DP World Tours, involving U.S.
President Donald Trump, ultimately collapsed.
“The debtors are not currently proceeding with the LIV 2.0 plan,” Matthew Williams of Gibson Dunn said in court. “Instead, the debtors are toggling to a value-maximizing wind-down in their business.”
LIV subsequently released a statement confirming its withdrawal from the sport. It said that since April 2026, the league’s leadership team, with the support of its independent directors and advisers, had run a disciplined and thorough process to identify the best path forward.
Despite extensive discussions, the relevant parties were unable to reach a consensual resolution of certain outstanding terms of the transaction contemplated by the Restructuring Support Agreement, which has been terminated.
LIV’s withdrawal, just a month after announcing BC Partners’ funding, has left its players facing uncertain futures, although many will have the option to join the DP World Tour through a variety of means, if not the PGA Tour. DeChambeau is ineligible to join the PGA Tour, where he has not played for more than four years, due to a blanket ban on LIV players that runs for 12 months from the date of their last tournament appearance on the Saudi Arabia-funded circuit.
The 33-year-old has never been a member of the DP World Tour, but as a former major winner he has an option to join that expires next year, with November 16 as the application deadline. Under DP World Tour regulations, major champions are given a five-year window to join, but 12 months is taken off for every year the option is not activated, leaving 2027 as the last season open to DeChambeau.
The major champion window has already expired for LIV players Cameron Smith and Dustin Johnson, although the DP World Tour will permit them to play at certain events under its new Invite Policy, which aims to add value to lesser tournaments. Such invitations will not be offered to premier events such as the PGA Championship at Wentworth or the Scottish Open, but a tournament victory elsewhere would allow the winner to apply for category three membership of the DP World Tour, facilitating a full return.
Other LIV players eligible for invitations include Joaquin Niemann, Thomas Pieters, Charles Howell III and Lucas Herbert. In addition, around 15 LIV players, including Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, still hold DP World Tour membership and are therefore eligible for every event.
Although Sergio García resigned his membership in 2022 to join LIV, the Spaniard’s career earnings mean he retains a category ranking and is able to reapply, which he has said he will do.
With no indication from the PGA Tour that it is willing to relax its one-year ban following LIV’s collapse, many of the rebels appear likely to play at DP World Tour events, following the example set by Patrick Reed. After leaving LIV Golf in August 2025, the American joined the DP World Tour and is currently No. 2 in the rankings, earning a PGA Tour card for next season.
While they have not commented publicly, DP World Tour officials are understood to feel that LIV’s imminent liquidation has vindicated their new hardline approach. Any player who signed up for LIV 2.0 would have been banned from the DP World Tour next year and ineligible for the 2027 Ryder Cup.
Chief executive Guy Kinnings said players must “make a choice,” a policy that led to Rahm and Hatton leaving LIV. LIV 2.0 had $300 million in funding from BC Partners, but was unable to secure enough players to service the planned 17-tournament global season.
With both main tours making clear that the era of conditional releases and “double dipping” is over, only 15 players led by DeChambeau agreed to stay on, and the Financial Times reported that only four of them signed contracts.
BC Partners claimed last month that it had 30 players committed to sign up, with another 10 still deliberating, but it was unable to agree financial terms with enough of them, as it confirmed in a statement following the court hearing. “BC Partners Credit supported a transaction that aligned the interests of players and investors, offering a credible path toward building a sustainable future for LIV Golf,” it said.
“While there was great support for the league, we are disappointed that mutually acceptable terms could not be reached among the various stakeholders.”
