President Donald Trump played golf with Brandel Chamblee around 18 months ago, and LIV Golf was apparently the main topic of conversation.
Chamblee is renowned for his critical view of LIV Golf and everything that the Saudi-backed league stands for.
Meanwhile, President Trump isn’t necessarily a backer of LIV, but he is said to be keen for the PGA Tour to agree some kind of merger with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, or ‘PIF’.
Back in May, President Trump is believed to have told Saudi Arabia’s autocratic leader Mohammed bin Salman that any potential deal with LIV Golf would be leaned heavily in the PGA Tour’s favour.
LIV Golf are said to be in talks with two PGA Tour golfers right now – players who have recently won tournaments.
They will undoubtedly keep trying to poach PGA Tour players, but is their business model a sustainable one, according to Chamblee and, indeed, Trump?
Brandel Chamblee reveals what President Trump told him about LIV Golf
LIV have lost over $1 billion since its inception in 2022.
A businessman like Donald Trump obviously realizes that is not a sustainable way to operate.
However, does it actually matter to the Saudis? It seems not. In fact, they have a very good reason to keep throwing money at LIV Golf.
Chamblee was speaking on the Trey Wingo podcast about what the future may hold for LIV, and he lifted the lid on something President Trump told him recently about the Saudi-backed outfit during a round of golf.
He said: “A year and a half, maybe two years ago, I played with President Trump and the whole day we talked about LIV. One thing he said to me, he said, ‘I know you and I disagree on LIV, but let me tell you why LIV is going to stick around’. He goes, ‘First of all, Yasir (Al-Rumayyan), the gentleman who runs PIF, first of all, he loves golf more than you and I do’. And he said, ‘second of all, they have 32 trillion dollars worth of money in oil underneath that sand’. And he said, ‘they absolutely need to diversify their economy for very specific geo-strategic and also long-term political reasons, so they’re not going to abandon LIV, they’re going to stick around and figure it out’.
“Maybe they improvise and make changes, maybe they make the changes they need to be competitive with the PGA Tour.
“Now, maybe this would be having a Q-School, trying to develop their own stars, funding women’s golf all over, which would be trying to create some organic way of developing golf in Saudi Arabia, which would be changing the policies in their country which are so medieval so the west wouldn’t have to be so aghast that they’re funding the game of golf.“
Brandel Chamblee predicts if LIV Golf will be around in four years’ time
Chamblee may be incredibly anti-LIV in his views but, at the same time, he is a realist.
He responded when asked whether he thinks LIV, as an entity, will still be here in four years’ time.
The former PGA Tour player said: “I think it will probably hang around, I do.
“They’ll hang in there, I think they will stay and stick around. It’s very important for them to diversify their economy and golf is a perfect vehicle to get tourism. They’ve seen the success that other countries have had with golf.
“I don’t think they’re going to go away.“
The key point to note here is that LIV’s backer, essentially PIF, have limitless funds, so it doesn’t really matter to them if they continue to lose money.
LIV Golf are clearly not going anywhere, and even Chamblee can admit that. The real question that needs to be asked is whether they will ever be able to offer a product which proves to be attractive to both sponsors and the world’s very best players.
The jury is still very much out in that regard.
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