LIV Golf is shutting down. What happens now to Bryson DeChambeau? - USA Today
Bryson DeChambeau is owed $5.77 million by a golf league that is going out of business.
LIV's Golf lawyers told a federal bankruptcy judge in Trenton, New Jersey on Thursday that the league won't relaunch in 2027. It's winding down instead.
"The debtors are not currently proceeding with the LIV 2.0 plan," Matthew Williams, an attorney for LIV, said in court.
That leaves the league's biggest star with nowhere to play.
LIV – initially funded by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund – spent more than $5 billion after launching in 2022. In April the fund said it was done paying after this season. LIV filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September and pinned its future on a smaller league backed by up to $300 million from private investment firm BC Partners Credit.
The Financial Times reported Wednesday that BC was walking away. The Athletic reported the firm didn't believe LIV had enough players.
DeChambeau was one of the players it didn't have.
He spent the fall talking up LIV 2.0 harder than anyone. On the "Figuring Out" podcast, he said his Crushers GC team generated $8 million last year in EBITDA, which is earnings before interest, taxes and some accounting costs.
Then the deadline came, and he didn't sign. Sports Business Journal reported that DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann all passed. Four players publicly committed: Richard Bland, Cameron Triangle, Brendan Steele and Ben Campbell.
He was going to be one anyway. His LIV contract ran through 2026.
A bankruptcy judge has since approved LIV's rejection of that deal and 18 others. Rejection is the legal step that frees a bankruptcy company from contracts it can't afford to keep.
Getting paid is a separate filling. Filings show LIV owes $500 million to $1 billion to at least 1,000 creditors. DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Johnson hold the biggest unsecured claims, each more than $5 million.
In April, The Telegraph reported DeChambeau was seeking as much as $500 million to stay with LIV.
Now, he's in line for $5,77 million.
There's an interesting business wrinkle too. BC Partners Credit invested in GSE Worldwide, DeChambeau's agency, in 2024. GSE has said BC is only a lender and that the agency had no part in the LIV talks.
He had a door in January, but he didn't walk through it.
The PGA Tour built a Returning Member Program for the four LIV players who had won a major or The Players from 2022 to 2025. Brooks Koepka took it. He agreed to a $5 million charitable donation and five years without PGA Tour equity grants. The Tour estimated that would cost him $50 million to $85 million in potential earnings.
DeChambeau, Rahm and Smith stayed with LIV.
The window on that program closed Feb. 2. Two months later, there were reports that DeChambeau was discussing a possible return to the PGA Tour at the Masters.
PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has said repeatedly the return program isn't coming back. His condition for any talks is that a player show he's free of his LIV obligations. As of Thursday, DeChambeau's contract with LIV is dead.
That still doesn't give him Patrick Reed's route.
Reed played the 2026 season on the DP World Tour and is seeking reinstatement for 2027 through the PGA Tour's past-champion category. The Tour said he could play as a non-member starting Aug. 25 because he resigned his membership in 2022 before breaking any Tour rule.
DeChambeau never resigned. The Tour declined to renew his membership for the 2022-23 season, along with Phil Mickelson's and those of other LIV players who hadn't quit.
DeChambeau, No. 38 in the world rankings, is in the field for the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City, South Africa from Dec. 3-6. It will be his first regular DP World Tour start in nearly six years. The Telegraph reported his management has asked about more starts in 2027.
In October, the European-based tour said it would deny 2027 membership to anyone who signed with LIV 2.0.
There's no LIV 2.0 left to sign with. The deadline to apply for membership is Nov. 16.
The majors aren't a problem. His 2024 U.S. Open win keeps him in that championship through 2034 and in the other three through 2029,
He also has about 2.7 million YouTube subscribers. In January, he called a schedule built around YouTube and the majors "an incredibly viable option."
The Ryder Cup door is open, too. The PGA of America, which runs the U.S. team, has never barred LIV players. DeChambeau played for America at Bethpage Black in 2025.
What he has said he wants is the PGA Tour. This spring, he told Skratch that call belongs to the players he left behind.
"It's really if the players want me back," he said.
