DETROIT ― LIV Golf says it will keep going into 2027, even if it pulls out of Michigan to end 2026.
Per an announcement from LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil on Wednesday, Aug. 5, LIV has found a lead investor that will keep the tour operational into 2027, though O’Neil didn’t reveal who the investor was or how much money they planned to invest.
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“We anticipate finalizing terms in the coming weeks, with a goal of entering a transaction in September,” a LIV statement read.
Still, O’Neil did not commit to the 2026 season finishing with the team championship at The Cardinal at Saint John’s in Plymouth, scheduled for Aug. 27-30 – just three weeks away. Many experts speculate the Michigan tournament will not proceed as planned, though it still remains on the LIV schedule as of Wednesday.
“This is a very fluid situation,” he reportedly said. “We are all working tirelessly to do everything we can to deliver the events of the season. Some of this stuff is completely out of our control. Some of this stuff is not. … We just don’t have any update or certainty.”
The announcement from O’Neil during a news conference at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, ahead of this week’s LIV tournament, follows months of speculation of the tour’s imminent shutdown after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the tour’s main financial backer, pulled its funding.
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O’Neil’s announcement of the league’s continuation in 2027 included other details such as a 10-tournament schedule and LIV becoming majority player owned.
LIV Golf controversially began in 2022 as a rival league to the PGA Tour, attracting star golfers away from the Tour with multi-million dollar contracts and a new format, including team golf each week.
Saudi’s PIF spent hundreds of millions on big-name golfers such as Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm to steal them from the PGA Tour with exclusivity deals, though Koepka and Patrick Reed left LIV this year to work their way back onto the PGA Tour.
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LIV came to The Cardinal last year, with Rahm, Tyrell Hatton, Caleb Surratt and Tom McKibbin winning a playoff for Legion XIII over DeChambeau’s Crushers GC team. Each player on the winning team received $1.4 million of the $50 million purse.
Should LIV exit the Mitten State, it would be the second pro golf tournament to leave Michigan in 2026, with the PGA Tour’s Rocket Classic just ending its eight-year run at Detroit Golf Club on Aug. 2. The PGA Tour has expressed its interest to return to the Detroit metro at some point in the future.
The Cardinal, which opened in 2024 and was named the top public course in Wayne County in 2025 by the Free Press, is still open for public play until the week of the LIV tournament, per its tee sheet.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: LIV event in Michigan in 3 weeks still unclear despite agreement with new investor
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