LIV Golf's days may be numbered. When LIV Golf crashed headfirst into the PGA Tour, its intention was clear: The renegade league was out to crush golf’s establishment. Fronted by the massive egos of Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman, backed by a massive pile of Saudi Arabian cash, LIV was only too happy to run roughshod over anything, or anyone, it saw in its way. Five years into the bodacious experiment, however, it’s LIV that is flat on its back. The once worrisome notion that golf’s professional product was doomed for permanent fracture is forgotten, fading like the bruises sustained by a game that loves to pride itself on gentlemanly rules and honor but has spent the past few years slinging mud. The sides traded many public blows, and ultimately, LIV staggered. Mickelson disappeared in a haze of personal embarrassment. Norman was jettisoned in favor of new CEO Scott O’Neil. Early headlining defectors Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed tucked their tails, paid their fines, and headed back to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, respectively. Jon Rahm, another major championship winner, is rumored to be next. The wheels are coming off. While the PGA Tour soars overhead, in the midst of its lucrative, season-ending FedEx Cup playoff series, LIV is limping to the finish line. Its next event in Indianapolis will now be its last of the year, with recent reports that a season-ending team event scheduled for the end of August in Michigan has been canceled. An earlier tournament stop in New Orleans was already "postponed" into oblivion. And yet it continues to put on its brave face and delusional smile. There was O’Neil during the last tournament, held at President Trump’s New Jersey course, announcing he’d landed a new investor to keep the league going. He wouldn’t name it, couldn’t provide any financial details, and didn’t bother mentioning that the agreement was only a term sheet, which is more like an agreement to talk than an agreement to pay. And there was Bryson DeChambeau, the last LIV man standing, so eager to be the star of his own show that he never veers from the company line. "What I can tell you is that the investor, from the conversations I’ve had, has a new and fresh vision on this product. It won’t be changing too much, but it’ll be changing in the right ways," DeChambeau said in New Jersey. "If we’re able to get the players all aligned — which I feel like it’ll happen in some capacity; I think it’ll happen — this is going to be a product that will be a force for good in the game, in the ecosystem." Be careful, or next he’ll try to sell you a bridge. No matter what DeChambeau gets from LIV (a free agent at season’s end, there are reports of player equity in the league itself) or LIV gets from him (he is the tour’s lone remaining big-time star, with a social media following that dwarfs even the PGA Tour’s official accounts), his impassioned pleas to stick around while the tour magically proves itself a force for the greater cause of global golf come across more like used car salesman than true believer. The depth of the tour’s problems erupted into the public domain back in May, when the Saudi Public Investment Fund withdrew its funding. No matter how much it tried to convince us otherwise, LIV never had anything more substantial than money to offer in its attempt to become a player on the world stage. But as a recent breakdown by The Athletic reminded us, the Money in Sport newsletter had LIV spending more than $100 million per month, amounting to $590.1 million in losses without even including US-based operations, which are not profitable, either. The misguided belief Saudi Arabia could sportswash its way into golf as it had done with soccer or auto racing was blunted by a game rooted in tradition and history. You can’t manufacture those, just as you can’t buy respect or credibility. Maybe LIV continues in some fashion, but if Rahm is truly on his way out, it won’t be easy. Not as the DP World Tour is no longer willing to allow players to play both its tour and LIV. Not as Ryder Cup eligibility continues to hang in the balance. Not as a potential bankruptcy filing looms and existing contracts may end up paying pennies on the dollar. Not as the conversation around it continues to be about anything but the golf. For now, the delusion continues. "I’ve spoken a little bit in the past about what this next generation of LIV Golf might look like," O’Neil said this past week, when announcing the mystery investor (reported to be British investment firm BC Partners). "What I will tell you is we really are doubling down on this whole notion of complete not compete, and how do we take the incredible aspects from this last five years and this journey we’ve had and how do we move into an era of cooperation? How do we continue to open pathways for our players, for all players around the world? "Man, it’s a really exciting day, the chance to get to steward a league where it’s majority owned by players, which has never been done before in the history of sports, is more than special." Once upon a time, LIV was "Golf, but Louder." As its noise faded, the slogan evolved toward survival, changed to "Long LIV Golf." Time to change it again, especially for those golfers who traded legacy for cash on the barrel: "They’ll Never LIV this down." Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her @Globe_Tara.
