Winners and Losers from LIV Golf 1.0

LIV Golf 1.0 is over. Players are dropping from the LIV 2.0 project like flies. Jon Rahm is the biggest domino to fall, so as LIV Golf as we know it ends with a whimper, Joseph LaMagna and Kevin Van Valkenburg decided to run down the list of the league’s winners and losers.

Winners

Joaquin Niemann: The Chilean won nine times on LIV (with an Australian Open sandwiched in), made close to $100 million in on-course earnings, is still ranked inside the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, and is about to turn 28 years old. He locked down generational wealth, missed very few majors, and is still near the beginning of his prime. Whether LIV’s competitive environment — or lack thereof — was best for Niemann’s long-term development is debatable, but it’s hard to argue that the timing of his move didn’t work out extremely well for him. –Joseph LaMagna

Luke Donald: Before LIV came along, his legacy (if he had one) was as a former world No. 1 who never came close to winning a major. Now, he’ll likely be remembered as the greatest Ryder Cup captain in European history. He can thank Henrik Stenson for every $50,000 speaking gig he gets for the next 25 years. –Kevin Van Valkenburg

Cameron Smith: Has anybody ever sold higher? LIV bought the tippy top of Smith’s stock. He won the 2022 Open Championship, cashed in, and immediately returned to being a solid — albeit unspectacular — professional golfer. There is legitimately no better feeling than selling at the absolute top, even if the asset you’re selling is yourself. Good for him. –JLM

Seat Fillers Chase Koepka and Peter Uihlein: A couple guys who, despite being adjacent to golf royalty, might have been out of the professional game if not for LIV. Instead, they got paid to be pawns in a game of chess. That’s a win! –KVV

Golf fans: I’m pretty sure LIV got us Brian Rolapp, and the early returns suggest he might be the greatest upgrade of all time. He doesn’t even have to do anything particularly special and would still be a massive upgrade to his predecessor at the PGA Tour. Rolapp’s tenure is young, but I suspect the Tour replaced Nathan Peterman with Patrick Mahomes, so to speak, and that would never have happened otherwise. Thank you, LIV 1.0. –JLM

Fast Typists: When the collapse of LIV 1.0 was being widely reported on by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Financial Times, Arlo White and David Feherty took to the airwaves to decry the state of journalism, insisting that all was well with LIV and that journalism was in a sorry state because of “fast typists” trying to “will LIV out of existence.” Unfortunately for White and Feherty, those reports proved to be accurate. LIV nearly ended during its Mexico event and needed one final influx of cash from the PIF just to reach the end of the season. –KVV

Anthony Kim: Without LIV, it is very unlikely we would ever have seen Anthony Kim play professional golf again. And we almost certainly would not have seen him win a tournament, as he did in Adelaide at the beginning of this year in what was genuinely an awesome performance. Kim had become a Bigfoot-like figure, his infrequent sightings stirring a golf world nostalgic for the electricity of a young AK. Even if it was fleeting, we got to experience his magic once again. –JLM

The Concept of Whataboutism: Did you know the United States once dropped not one but TWO nuclear bombs on Japan? Well, that means you can not object to Saudi Arabia using a golf league to sportswash its human rights reputation. As Bryson said when asked about Saudi Arabia’s alleged involvement in 9/11 on CNN: “Nobody’s perfect,” he said. “I think we move forward from that.” –KVV

Brandel Chamblee: Look, Brandel stood on business. From LIV’s inception, he spoke with his chest about how ridiculous the entire enterprise was and how it was never actually about golf. Chamblee wasn’t the only person criticizing LIV from top to bottom, but very few people had his conviction or appetite to put their distaste for the league on the record over and over again. With few, if any exceptions, Brandel never wavered. –JLM

Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne: LIV may not have realized it at the time, but when the league agreed to drop legal claims against the PGA Tour with prejudice (meaning the lawsuits could not be taken up again), it gave the Tour the oxygen it needed to not only survive, but win the war. Herlihy in particular gave the Tour a big win with his legal maneuvering, and he did the majority of his work pro bono. If the real story of golf’s civil war is ever written, Herlihy deserves an entire chapter. –KVV

Scott O’Neil: Unless maybe you had worked for the Philadelphia 76ers, did you know who this guy was before LIV? Had you heard him speak? –JLM

Drink Delivery Robots: Who knew these even existed prior to LIV? Rest in Peace, Media Drink Delivery Robot, it feels like we hardly knew you. –KVV

Cape Manufacturers: Before LIV was sticking it to vendors, they were really invested in making capes a thing for kids at golf tournaments, particularly precocious fans of the HyFlyers. I have to think someone, somewhere got rich printing HyFlyers logos on cheap synthetic capes. –KVV

Talor Gooch: I’m not sure anyone on Earth has learned more about building a team over the last four years than Talor Gooch. Per an excellent LIV article published last December, Gooch carefully studied the habits and mindsets of great team-builders to prepare for his opportunity to lead one himself. Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, and even the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander bestowed invaluable knowledge upon Gooch. After golf, I wouldn’t be surprised to see franchises across dozens of sports call Gooch’s number when there is a front office vacancy. How many years are left on Sam Presti’s contract with the Thunder? –JLM

Losers

Greg Norman: It turns out, a 30-year grudge against your old employer can only take you so far when it comes to putting together a golf league. Norman will walk away convinced he changed the sport, that he empowered players, and that he breathed life into neglected markets. And there is some truth there. But it’s hard not to wonder how things might have gone if someone less polarizing had been in charge of LIV. Burning through $6 billion while behaving over and over again like you’re the victim required a cognitive dissonance not many could have pulled off. Seems unlikely he’ll be remembered fondly, even by some LIV players, whom he promised many things he could not — and did not — ultimately deliver. –KVV

Yasir Al-Rumayyan: I don’t know about you, but I think this guy got off pretty easy for blowing up the sport with a bunch of bad ideas, then walking away and leaving everyone else to deal with the wreckage. Also, remember when he was originally listed in the 2023 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship under the name “Andrew Waterman?” Call me old-fashioned, but I feel like if everything you’re doing is above board and well-intentioned for the sport, you don’t need to play golf under a pseudonym. For whatever reason, though, Yasir dodged a lot of the shrapnel that people like Graeme McDowell and Jon Rahm took. Because he’s rich and sincerely loves golf? Oh, sorry, Yasir. I didn’t realize you love golf. I take it all back. –JLM

The grifters who pretended LIV was a serious product: Want to argue it was a good broadcast? Sure! They showed a lot of shots, had some strong tech, and employed a legitimately talented booth. Want to celebrate that LIV created competition for the PGA Tour in the marketplace? I’m with you! But acting like the scorecards and the teams mattered at all was beyond embarrassing. Pathetic, really. The most shameless people you know did it. And when the next iteration arrives, some will surely be shameless enough to do it all over again. –JLM

Phil Mickelson: Phil Mickelson recruited 2025 NCAA champion Michael La Sasso to join his team, was completely absent for nearly the entirety of the 2026 season, and somehow that’s the absolute least of Mickelson’s concerns this year. –JLM

Scott O’Neil: Now you know who this guy is. And you’ve heard him speak. –JLM

Flash Mobs: The moment might be over for this peculiar art form. LIV London offered one last gasp of magic (or put the nail in the viral trend’s coffin). –KVV

Bryson DeChambeau: Is Bryson a professional golfer? A content creator? Both? His personal brand has never been bigger, and his pockets have never been deeper, but DeChambeau was also the loudest and most ardent supporter of an experiment that failed in spectacular fashion. I do wonder if he looks around at what’s happened over the last few years, and at what lies ahead, and considers the whole thing a success. Financially? Sure. But reputationally? Professionally? He’s taken some Ls. –JLM

Deranged Golf Fans Like Us: I was texting with PJ Clark about how much I’m going to miss watching LIV Golf late at night. “Where else can you hear Sabrina Carpenter blaring on FS2 at 2:37 a.m. while Martin Kaymer hits a tee shot?” he responded. Presumably, future generations will never know the sensation of coming home from a bar and realizing LIV South Korea is on. You can have a couple martinis, hop in a self-driving car or taxi home, and Sergio Garcia is throwing a tantrum in Asia in high definition. Our forefathers and foremothers couldn’t even watch every hole of the Masters. You really don’t know what you have until it’s gone. –JLM

Neutrals

Rory McIlroy: Won two Masters (and completed the career Grand Slam) during this era, which seems like a big win. But how much mental energy did he have to expend as the frontman for the PGA Tour’s confounding messaging? Would have been nice to have some of that in reserve at St. Andrews and Pinehurst and LACC. Rory gained a lot of haters, but also got through this era with his integrity and his principles. –KVV

Dustin Johnson: DJ kind of just took the money and rode off into the sunset. He wasn’t brash or a jerk about it, nor did he lie through his teeth about his motives. He didn’t sue the Tour. He resigned his membership, got paid, and went on his merry way. It’s disappointing to watch a golfer as talented as Johnson fade into obsolescence faster than his age dictated, but maybe his game would’ve declined at a similar rate regardless of where he was playing. Either way, getting super rich — at the expense of his competitiveness or not — was his prerogative. I doubt he has any trouble sleeping at night. –JLM

Henrik Stenson: May go down as the only European Ryder Cup captain to lose his job before the event happened. On the other hand, he got paid well, and he likely would have been a terrible Ryder Cup captain. LIV saved him from potentially clowning himself. –KVV

Jay Monahan: Did he handle the biggest crisis the PGA Tour has ever faced particularly well? No. Was it smart to invoke the 9/11 Families on television? Again, no. Was he a dynamic leader? Absolutely not. However, the record will show that Monahan did dramatically increase purses and hold onto most of his best players. His legacy will be mixed, but better than you might have imagined two years ago. –KVV

Ari Fleischer: Showed up on Day 1 as a spokesman for LIV in London, ready to debase himself for the very government (Saudi Arabia) he once decried from the White House Briefing Room. On the flip side, he had no shame left to surrender, so it was just another payday for this professional-grade weasel. –KVV

Brendan Steele: Eh, I don’t know. Why not? –JLM