The future of LIV Golf is hanging on the edge like Tiger Woods’ famous chip-in at the 16th hole during the 2005 Masters. But after boldly defending the renegade golf league’s resilience and sustainability, it appears that LIV analyst David Feherty now may not be so sure.
After initial reports a couple weeks ago stated that the Saudi Arabian government would potentially be pulling funding after the 2026 season, LIV Golf announcers Arlo White and Feherty took to their broadcast to toe the company line. White and Feherty both left established and respected media careers behind (White as an NBC Premier Leauge soccer announcer and Feherty as a beloved PGA Tour announcer) to take the Saudi money and run.
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And the pairing earned their paychecks by brushing off reports about LIV’s impending crisis. A flustered White said that reports of LIV’s demise were “greatly exaggerated” and said, “It must be exhausting trying to will the LIV Golf league out of existence.”
Feherty condemned reports as “absolute nonsense” by saying, “This generation has spawned a bunch of fast typists that consider themselves to be experts. Evidently they’re not.”
Much to Feherty’s chagrin, the experts were in fact right.
The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund officially abandoned LIV Golf this week as the league established a new independent board structure to attempt to survive without the billions pumped in by their benefactors who have decided that they have lit enough money on fire trying to disrupt the professional golf scene. The tour is now in a full-fledged crisis with the cancellation of an event in New Orleans and reports of LIV players already trying to navigate an uphill path back to the PGA Tour.
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Feherty seems to be singing a different tune now that the news he protested has come to fruition.
Matt Chivers at National Club Golfer got in touch with David Feherty, who now says that he was “in the dark” about what was really happening behind the scenes with LIV Golf during the whirlwind event in Mexico when news first broke about the funding situation.
If it’s true that Feherty went live on the air for LIV Golf to defend the league while not having any real awareness of what was happening with critical Saudi funding that could decide their actual survival, it’s a remarkable admission. Either LIV failed in properly preparing its broadcasters for how to properly address the matter, or its broadcasters figured they would go down with the ship no matter what and didn’t bother to discover the truth.
When LIV signed David Feherty in 2022, the popular golf commentator said frankly it was because of the money. It was a huge deal because of Feherty’s popularity and name recognition in the golf world. He brought legitimacy to the startup just like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson did.
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LIV Golf may indeed survive into 2027, but if it does it will be a vastly different looking tour and likely one that is much smaller and no longer carries the aspirations or salaries it once did. Maybe by then someone at LIV Golf will tell one of their paid spokesmen what is actually going on. Or they will ask David Feherty to turn the lights off on his way out.
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