With the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund withdrawing financial backing from LIV Golf after the 2026 season, everyone is wondering what’s next. What’s next for the breakaway league? And what’s next for its marquee players, namely Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm.
This week at LIV Virginia, Rahm said he didn’t “see a way out” of his current contract with LIV, which goes for several more years. As for DeChambeau, whose contract ends after the 2026 season, he told several outlets, including ESPN and Sports Illustrated, that he’s prepared to focus on growing his YouTube channel while playing in the tournaments that “want him” should LIV go away. DeChambeau admitted that his team has spoken with the PGA Tour but would not divulge the nature of the talks. The two-time U.S. Open champion told Skratch it would ultimately be up to the PGA Tour members to decide if they want him to come back.
Golf Channel’s Gary Williams joined the latest episode of the Subpar podcast to discuss where LIV goes from here and whether or not he thinks DeChambeau is serious about focusing on YouTube and playing the four majors.
“No, not in full,” Williams told co-hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz. “He’s being him. He’s also the guy who, when he was ascending, got maniacal about long drives and started participating in long drive contests. Which people were going, that is going to be debilitating to you actually putting scores in a box. No, he will not do that.”
Williams noted it would be “disappointing” if DeChambeau chose to prioritize YouTube over competitive professional golf since he is currently in the middle of his major championship window.
“It’s funny that he’s suggesting [focusing on YouTube],” Williams said. “If he does do that, it’s disappointing in this respect — I give him immense respect for this: he has figured out Augusta National to a degree, where he had almost no idea how to solve that Rubik’s Cube. He contends in almost every major. … He is always going to be a factor at a U.S. Open. He’s likely always going to be a factor at a PGA. He is as much of a sure thing to be on the first couple of pages of a leaderboard at a major championship. I give him credit for that. But he’s not going to do that, and if he does do that, he won’t continue to contend in major championships. That’ll be too bad because major championship prime windows are not as long as people think they are.”
When Brooks Koepka left LIV Golf to return to the PGA Tour last December, DeChambeau had all the leverage in contract negotiations with LIV and the PIF. Now that the PIF is out of the equation, Williams sees the PGA Tour as the only option for DeChambeau. The leverage he once had is gone.
“But what’s happened to him, my analogy in terms of what he thought he had to play with was, the Yankees and the Dodgers are both bidding for him and now the Dodgers are no longer interested,” Williams said. “That’s the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. So are the Yankees, the PGA Tour, going to bid against themselves? No, they are not.”
To hear more from Williams on LIV’s future, DeChambeau’s value to the PGA Tour and more, check out the YouTube video below.
