LIV Golf is finished. At a bankruptcy court hearing, attorneys for the Saudi-backed breakaway league confirmed it will abandon plans for a scaled-down "LIV Golf 2.0" relaunch and instead wind down entirely, according to CBS Sports and ESPN. The liquidation process is expected to begin as soon as Monday, with the league's remaining assets sold off.

The end came fast once it started. LIV voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September, saying restructuring would let it survive in a smaller form after Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund — which had pumped an estimated $5 billion into the league over roughly five years — said earlier this year it would pull its funding after the 2026 season. BC Partners, a British investment firm, stepped in with a pledge of up to $300 million to carry LIV through the restructuring and into a leaner 2027 campaign.

The money ran out when the players didn't come

That lifeline depended on LIV locking down enough player commitments for 2027 to make a smaller league viable. It couldn't get them. According to the reporting, BC Partners withdrew its pledge once it became clear the roster commitments weren't materializing, leaving the league without a path to keep operating in any form.

Nearly every marquee name LIV signed away from the PGA Tour during its five-year run had already left or was in the process of leaving before Thursday's announcement, including Jon Rahm, who reached a high-profile separation agreement with the league, as well as Tyrrell Hatton and Sergio Garcia. Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau reportedly declined an invitation to depart alongside other departing stars, but the PGA Tour has made clear that the Returning Member Program it created for players coming back from LIV will not be extended to them.

LIV SAID IT WOULD REMAIN OPEN TO ANY VALUE-MAXIMIZING ALTERNATIVES WITH THIRD PARTIES THROUGHOUT THE WIND-DOWN PROCESS.

What it leaves behind

LIV launched in 2022 promising guaranteed money, a team format and a direct challenge to the PGA Tour's decades-long hold on men's professional golf, and it briefly succeeded in fracturing the sport, triggering lawsuits, a short-lived framework agreement toward a PGA Tour merger, and years of acrimony over Saudi involvement in the game. Its collapse leaves open questions about what happens to the players still under guaranteed contracts, which court filings suggest will end as part of the wind-down, and whether any of LIV's team-golf format survives in another form.

Court filings reviewed by outlets covering the bankruptcy list current and former players, including Rahm and DeChambeau, among the league's largest creditors, with some owed payouts reportedly being offered settlements worth only a fraction of what they are contractually due. The PGA Tour, which has spent three years positioning itself as the sport's stable alternative, did not immediately comment on LIV's wind-down.