LIV Golf's final scorecard: Biggest winners and losers from its collapse - USA Today

LIV Golf is done, ending one of the most tumultuous eras in golf history.

The Saudi-backed league helped reshape the sport's landscape, luring away PGA Tour stars for lucrative guaranteed contracts and creating a divide among the best golfers in the world for the past five years. But without the continued financial backing of a sovereign wealth fund, few players were willing to buy into LIV Golf's vision.

The fallout has already begun after months of speculation about LIV Golf's uncertain future. Some golfers and golf entities emerged stronger from the disruption LIV Golf caused. Others are left to reckon with damaged reputations, diminished leverage and the failed promises of a league that ultimately collapsed under the weight of its own faulty ambition.

Here are the biggest winners and losers from LIV Golf's demise.

The PGA Tour survived an existential threat after losing some of the sport's biggest stars to LIV Golf. It emerges with a new business model and scheduling format largely conceived in response to that challenge. After years of court battles, public infighting and a failed merger attempt, the PGA Tour ultimately outlasted its rival while addressing many of the concerns that helped LIV Golf gain traction in the first place.

Just as importantly, the PGA Tour has regained leverage over the world's best players. With no competing league capable of offering massive guaranteed contracts, former LIV golfers can return only on the PGA Tour's terms. That's the outcome the tour sought when golf's civil war began more than five years ago.

McIlroy's role as the most outspoken LIV Golf critic took a heavy toll on him at times, but his loyalty to the PGA Tour will be remembered fondly in the sport's history books. McIlroy turned down overtures from LIV Golf, calling it "a money grab" from the get go, and strengthened his legacy within the sport by sticking with the PGA Tour.

While several of the game's biggest stars accepted guaranteed contracts and left, McIlroy became the face of the resistance to LIV Golf's challenge. His stance drew criticism from players on both sides of golf's divide and placed him in an uncomfortable leadership role he later admitted he never wanted. But with LIV Golf now dead, McIlroy's central argument was ultimately vindicated and his bet on the PGA Tour proved to be the right one.

Perhaps no entity stands to gain more immediately from LIV Golf's demise than the DP World Tour. It is expected to become the primary landing spot for many former LIV golfers during the 2027 season. Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton are among the stars who have indicated they would play a DP World Tour schedule in 2027 if required to serve a one-year suspension before returning to the PGA Tour, as current policy dictates. Next month in South Africa, Bryson DeChambeau is also set make his first DP World Tour start in six years. DP World Tour fields are about to be enhanced for the foreseeable future without the direct competition from LIV Golf.

For years, LIV Golf competed directly with the DP World Tour for players, sponsorship money and attention and created more uncertainly about its place in golf's ecosystem. Now the DP World Tour appears positioned to benefit from an influx of talent and renewed relevance as a pathway back to the PGA Tour. Its fields, television product and overall stature should receive an immediate boost.

Koepka is the only golfer to this point who jumped from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf to then return without having to serve a one-year suspension. Koepka was reinstated ahead of the 2026 season through the PGA Tour's temporary Returning Member Program, which Rahm, DeChambeau and Cameron Smith were all eligible for as well. Koepka appears to have gotten out right on time.

The penalties were steep, including the potential loss of $50-85 million in PGA Tour equity earnings, but they might prove worthwhile now. Rahm said earlier this week he would take the deal Koepka got now if the PGA Tour were to offer it again. While many former LIV stars now face uncertainty about when and how they can return to the PGA Tour, Koepka's status is already settled.

Talor Gooch made nearly $75 million. Branden Grace earned more than $40 million. Anirban Lahiri won more than $35 million. Though some former PGA Tour stars might spend years debating whether the LIV Golf money was worth the impact on their legacies, the league's biggest winners might be the players who never would have commanded that kind of payday otherwise. LIV Golf created demand for golfers on the fringes of the PGA Tour or past their prime, and handed out contracts and prize money that transformed their financial futures.

DeChambeau remained one of LIV Golf's most vocal supporters until the very end, repeatedly expressing confidence in the league's future even as questions mounted about its long-term viability. Now, the league that helped reshape his career is gone, leaving uncertainty about what comes next for one of golf's biggest stars.

Though DeChambeau can still compete in all four majors in 2027 thanks to existing exemptions and maintains a massive following through his popular YouTube channel, LIV's collapse significantly alters his leverage within the sport. DeChambeau is no longer in a position to dictate terms if he wants to compete regularly against the world's best players. The future he envisioned no longer exists.

Team golf has long been a concept professional golf has tried to turn into something bigger, but only the Ryder Cup has really broken through with fans. LIV Golf might have set that cause back years, if not decades, as its teams, brands and format never gained meaningful traction. The reality is nobody – not the golfers, not the sponsors and not the general public – ever really bought into LIV's team golf concept. Turning team golf into a year-round product will be a tough sell moving forward.

Rahm won three LIV Golf individual titles after leaving the PGA Tour, but his LIV tenure is likely to be remembered more for what it cost than what it accomplished. After initially insisting he would not leave for LIV's money, Rahm reversed course in a move that prolonged golf's divide and stunned many within the sport.

The two-time major champion also failed to produce the same level of success in golf's biggest tournaments that defined the first part of his career. During what should have been the heart of his prime, Rahm spent three seasons primarily outside the sport's traditional structure. Rahm's decision to go to LIV is likely to affect his golf legacy for years to come unless he can rediscover the major championship form that made him one of the game's most feared competitors.

Mickelson's reputation in professional golf has been forever altered, and not just because he initially provided LIV Golf legitimacy as its most vocal proponent and defender when players were hesitant to join. His gambling and personal controversies had already complicated his legacy, but LIV turned him into an unwelcomed disruptor.

Mickelson's role in upending the sport's structure helped pave the way for every golfer to make more money, yet the divide it created within the sport came with consequences that now threaten to overshadow his considerable on-course accomplishments. A six-time major champion who once ranked among golf's most beloved figures should be spending the twilight of his career being celebrated as a legend. Instead, Mickelson has become a pariah within the sport.

How former LIV Golf members rejoin the PGA Tour is sure to become a contentious issue, particularly among PGA Tour golfers who declined to leave for LIV Golf. Many want former LIV golfers to be penalized and forced to earn their way back rather than be granted an expedited return. But LIV Golf's demise also creates a new problem for those same players: more competition.

Whether former LIV stars serve suspensions or not, many are eventually expected to return to the PGA Tour ecosystem. That means more golfers competing for a finite number of spots in PGA Tour Championship Series events beginning in 2028, and fewer opportunities for players fighting to maintain status. For the PGA Tour's middle class, LIV Golf's demise might now come with unintended consequences.

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