LIV Golf chief executive Scott O’Neill questions future event viability Golf News

LIV Golf chief executive Scott O’Neill declined to be drawn on whether the remaining 2026 league events would go ahead as he outlined a scramble for post-Saudi investment.

O’Neill is seeking $300m from outside backers after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced plans to withdraw the fund at the end of the year, having invested more than £4bn from 2022.

“I’ve had five formal meetings so far,” O’Neill said CNBC. “I got another 18 this week and about the same next week.

“What’s been really interesting is how you slice it. Is it a partner, maybe a big private equity firm, coming in for the whole $300m, or do you have 10 or 12 investors at $50m or $25m?”

Securing this funding for the 46-day gap between LIV’s last event in Spain and its next stop in the UK at JCB Golf and Country Club on July 23, he admits, is critical.

“What we don’t have is a lot of time,” he added. “We’re urgently talking to people who are interested there. We love the pool, but we have to get it done by summer.”

The cancellation of LIV’s New Orleans event created a break in the schedule, and when asked if the final four stops in the UK, New York, Indianapolis and Michigan would move forward, O’Neill again dodged the question.

“If you invest in this business, what I can guarantee is one heck of a return,” he said.

O’Neil added that any new model will look distinctly different, built around tighter cost controls and a more durable structure.

“We’re cutting the cost side dramatically, and the revenue momentum we’ve had — we’ve already grown $100 million a year — means our business momentum is really good,” he said.

“It’s about bringing costs under control, rethinking how business can and should be, and engaging players as partners as true equity partners in this business.”