LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil came out fighting this week in response to rumors that the league could fold.
Claims started to be made on Tuesday night that LIV Golf was under serious threat, with their Saudi backers set to pull the plug on their financial support of the league.
Rumors suggested that the LIV Golf league was about to fold imminently.
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However, Scott O’Neil went on the defensive suggesting that the future is bright for LIV.
The PGA Tour could well soon be in a position to offer a route back to the big-name LIV golfers once again.
However, The Financial Times report that Saudi Arabia’s PIF could soon cut their support for LIV Golf.
Some claims suggest that PIF will only fund LIV Golf up until the end of 2026.
In spite of all of those hugely worrying claims, though, O’Neil was in bullish mood about LIV Golf’s future when he spoke on Thursday.
Scott O’Neil contradicts himself with LIV Golf new signings claim
O’Neil sat down for an interview on Thursday out in Mexico.
The LIV CEO was asked how he plans to recruit the very best golfers in the world to the league moving forward.
“Well, most of them call us, you know, quite frankly,“ O’Neil claimed.
The sad part of that claim was that he said it with such confidence and seemed to be completely unaware of how ridiculous it actually sounded.
There is absolutely no way that the world’s best golfers are phoning up O’Neil and begging to be part of an already-doomed project.
Maybe I’ll be proven wrong within the next year or so and made to look rather silly, but I just can’t envisage a future where the best talents in golf are plying their trade on LIV.
What made O’Neil’s comments even worse was the fact that just one day later, he said pretty much the opposite regarding new signings.
Scott O’Neil changes his tune on LIV Golf signings
O’Neil was asked on Friday whether he could name any players who he has his eye on ahead of next season.
Which player is the biggest loser if LIV Golf is shut down?
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“I won’t tell you names but from what you saw last year you can probably get a good indication,“ he said.
“If you were with us in Australia, you saw the impact that Ripper has. You saw the Ripper hats and the little kids running around yelling ‘I love Cam Smith’.
“If you were in South Africa you saw the Southern Guards mania out there. This notion of World Cup style, so you can bet you are more likely to have international players and you can bet on young talent.
“I like young and then we will have a little more experienced guys who represent the country that we are playing in.“
So he’s gone from saying some of the best players in the world want to join LIV to suggesting that the league is now targeting talented young players with high ceilings.
Talk about a juxtaposition!
LIV Golf is clearly under threat right now, whatever way you look at it. And the incredibly bizarre mixed messages from the league’s leadership certainly aren’t allaying any fears.
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