LIV Golf has begun laying off employees as the Saudi-backed league winds down its original funding model and pivots toward a restructured circuit with a new, still-unnamed lead investor.
The league told staff this week that many of their jobs would end in the first week of September, just days after LIV's 2026 season wrapped up early at The Club at Chatham Hills in Westfield, Indiana, on Aug. 23. The Saudi Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth vehicle that bankrolled the breakaway tour from its launch, had announced earlier this year that it would stop funding LIV Golf once the 2026 season concluded. That moment has now arrived, and the organizational consequences are landing fast.
A LIV Golf spokesperson framed the cuts as part of a planned transition, OutKick reported:
"The funding commitment announced by PIF earlier this year will reach its conclusion. As a result, we are scaling back operations as we transition to the next chapter of LIV Golf and work toward making LIV 2.0 a reality."
The spokesperson added that the league is "grateful to our employees for their hard work and dedication in building LIV Golf" and pledged to support affected workers through the transition. LIV did not disclose how many employees received notices, and no details about severance or benefits have been made public.
LIV's 2026 campaign did not go out on its own terms. The Team Championship, scheduled for Michigan, was canceled earlier in August, cutting the season short by a week. The Indianapolis event became the de facto finale.
CEO Scott O'Neil had tried to project stability before the curtain fell. On Aug. 5, ahead of a LIV event at Trump National Bedminster in New Jersey, O'Neil announced that the league had secured a new lead investor for the next phase of the operation.
O'Neil said at the time:
"LIV Golf has an agreement in place with a lead investor, signed by the investor and approved by the Board, to anchor the transaction and play a key role in supporting the path forward for the League's next era, driven by and for the players."
The identity of that investor remains undisclosed. So does the timeline for closing the deal.
The reported plan for 2027 envisions a leaner operation: 10 total events, split evenly between the United States and international venues. Players competing under the LIV 2.0 banner would hold a majority equity stake in the league, a structural shift from the original PIF-funded model, where Saudi money covered purses, overhead, and player guarantees with little apparent concern for profitability.
Whether that equity model attracts or retains top talent is an open question. PGA Tour golfer Sam Burns has said he would welcome back LIV stars like Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, a sign that the door between the rival circuits may not be permanently shut. But for the workers who built LIV's infrastructure, the operations staff, the event coordinators, the behind-the-scenes employees, that door is closing in September.
LIV's pivot from a sovereign-wealth spending project to a player-owned, investor-backed league is an admission that the original model was never built to sustain itself. The PIF wrote enormous checks. Now someone else has to make the math work, and the first people paying the price are the employees who kept the lights on.
