Before he was LIV Golf’s CEO, Scott O’Neil ran Merlin Entertainments, operator of the Legoland resorts and Peppa Pig theme parks. A background that had nothing to do with tour golf and everything to do with keeping a fragile business alive on entertainment value. That skill is being tested now more than ever. And strangely enough, former PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has already provided him with a precedent, ripe with things he must avoid.
Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard traced LIV Golf’s existence back to a single miscalculation by former PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. He believes LIV CEO Scott O’Neil is now walking down the same path with the rebrand. The discussion surfaced on the Golf Channel podcast with Rex and Lav, hours after O’Neil confirmed a new investor package to keep the league running past 2026.
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“The biggest mistake that maybe Jay Monahan, the commissioner at the time, made was having a lot of faith in his players and believing they would remain loyal to the PGA Tour. That was quickly proven not to be the case. These players are only going to be committed and loyal as the prize money and purses allow them to be.”
In June 2022, with Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia already gone and Brooks Koepka about to follow, Jay Monahan told reporters at the Travelers Championship that he wasn’t naive. He knew “the only weapons here are dollar bills,” and the Tour couldn’t match them. Then he dismissed LIV as “an irrational threat” anyway, and bet the rest of the field would stay for reasons money couldn’t buy.
But Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka signed within days. Jon Rahm held out the longest, telling reporters in mid-2023 he didn’t even want a loyalty bonus, before joining LIV himself that December.
Now, Hoggard sees the same bet being played in reverse.
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“I think if Scott O’Neal makes a similar mistake, he’s going to get a similar answer that these players are only going to be as committed and as loyal as the price tag and the purses will allow them to be.”
O’Neil this week confirmed LIV has secured a lead investor worth a reported $250 to $300 million to fund the league past 2026, with players set to become majority equity holders. But the tradeoff is steep: 2027 purses are expected to fall from this year’s $30 million to as low as $15 million, and the schedule will shrink from 14 events to roughly 10.
Asked directly whether stars would stay for less money, O’Neil pointed to Bryson DeChambeau, whose contract expires this year, saying he’d “love them to come along for the ride and journey because they carry maybe more weight than anybody in the game.”
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