LIV Golf has spent 3 years throwing Saudi money at the game's biggest names, but the checks are apparently starting to bounce. Multiple reports this week say some LIV players are still owed hundreds of millions of dollars that were supposed to be paid out over the life of their contracts, and Jon Rahm is reportedly getting hit the hardest.
Rahm signed with LIV in December 2023 for a deal reportedly worth north of $300 million, the richest contract in the sport's short, chaotic history. According to reporting from golf insider @acaseofthegolf1, LIV golfers could collectively be owed in excess of $250 million combined, with Rahm alone allegedly still owed as much as $150 million of his original deal. That's not a rounding error — that's half the pot potentially tied up in one player's contract.
The timing lines up with a league that's been wobbling for months. Reports indicate the Public Investment Fund is expected to pull back its backing after this season, LIV is chasing outside investment somewhere between $250 million and $350 million just to keep the lights on, and layoff notices reportedly went out to staff and contractors this week, with terminations set for early September. Bankruptcy filings and a scaled-down 'LIV 2.0' have both been floated as the likely endgame, with unpaid contracts potentially getting converted into equity instead of cash.
All of that context is why the all-player meeting scheduled for today at Trump Bedminster matters. This isn't a routine tour-logistics huddle — it's players who bet their careers on guaranteed money trying to figure out if that guarantee still means anything before this week's event even tees off.
Not everyone at Bedminster is stressing about the balance sheet, though. While the money talk swirls, one Barstool account flagged that the men's locker room at the club is genuinely elite — great bar, great staff, immaculate setup for a round of 18.
lost in all this Trump discourse is that the men's locker room at Bedminster is top tier. The bar in there and staff are excellent. Immaculate atmosphere going into playing 18
The bigger picture here is a league that lured stars away from the PGA Tour with money it may not actually have. If Rahm and others end up eating a chunk of $150 million in owed money, or getting handed equity in a league that might not exist in its current form past 2027, it's going to reshape how the next wave of free agents thinks about jumping ship. For now, all eyes are on what actually gets said behind closed doors at Bedminster.