The 2022 Open Championship was the apex of pro golf’s civil war. At least, the first. The PGA Tour was scrambling to retain talent as LIV Golf, then backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, worked to woo big names to their side in an effort to weaken the PGA Tour.
Rory McIlroy, then the PGA Tour’s chief spokesperson, shared the lead at St. Andrews after 54 holes with Viktor Hovland. After a summer of battling LIV off the course, a win for McIlroy at the Home of Golf would’ve been a symbolic victory in the early days of the LIV struggle. But Cam Smith caught and passed McIlroy on Sunday. Naturally, as then-commissioner Greg Norman and LIV Golf hunted major winners, Smith, then the No. 2-ranked player in the world, became their top target. Despite McIlroy and others on the PGA Tour hoping to keep the Australian star on their side, Smith bolted for LIV Golf a month later.
It was another early loss for the PGA Tour, but recent bankruptcy filings for LIV Golf show the Tour almost lost another big name in the wake of the 2022 Open Championship: Cameron Young.
Young had a breakout season in 2022. The long-hitting Wake Forest star finished top-five at the PGA Championship and then runner-up at the Open behind Smith. It was well known that LIV was trying to woo Young back then, but recent filings show that Young signed an intent-to-play agreement with LIV that summer, only to back out.
At the Tour Championship that August, Young admitted he had been “interested” in a move to LIV but never said how close he came. In the end, he said there were things that mattered to him that only playing on the PGA Tour could provide.
“Frankly, I have decided to stay,” Young said at the time. “So, I don’t know, it’s a really difficult situation because it’s not really anything anyone wanted to happen. I think it wasn’t meant to be this hostile between the two. Frankly, throughout the whole process with [LIV], I was very interested. I think they have a bunch of good ideas and are doing some cool stuff.
“With some of the changes coming [to the PGA Tour], that’s kind of what really helped me decide to kind of stay and pursue those goals that I have for myself, like making a Presidents Cup team and a Ryder Cup team and winning a major when all of that is just uncertain if you go. It’s a tough place for me because, you know, I’m very young and there are a lot of factors.”
Young stayed on the PGA Tour and, after a slight dip in play, re-emerged as a star over the last 12 months. He won the Players Championship and the Cadillac, becoming a stalwart on the U.S. team.
The most recent filings revealed more than Young’s commitment to LIV.
As the rebel league works its way through bankruptcy court in hopes of launching LIV 2.0, recent court documents show LIV Golf paid $15.6 million in retention fees to executives before filing for Chapter 11. CEO Scott O’Neil received a $6.375 million retention bonus on June 24. He received a 2.7 million bonus in February. According to records, O’Neil was paid more than $13.6 million from Sept. 12, 2025, to Aug. 28, 2026. The filings also show that Norman received more than $9.4 million when he left the league in September of 2025.
These revelations come after a year in which LIV Golf has failed to pay numerous contractors for past work, leading to multiple lawsuits. Fresh Tape Media is seeking $1.23 million, Mobii Systems is owed $1.1 million and Fantasy Interactive has filed for almost $1 million in unpaid invoices. When it filed for Chapter 11, LIV Golf listed between $500 million and $1 billion in liabilities and between $100 million and $500 million in assets. Players were listed as the largest creditors in the initial filing, with Jon Rahm ($7.5 million in payments past due) and Bryson DeChambeau ($5.7 million) topping the list.
On Friday, Tyrrell Hatton and Ian Poulter announced they would not participate in LIV 2.0, joining Rahm and others in bolting the rebel league. Sunday is the deadline for players to commit to LIV 2.0, although the ultimate decision on whether or not the league has enough players to reboot will be left up to BC Partners Global, which has entered into a restructuring agreement to finance up to $300 million for LIV 2.0.
Only four players have publicly committed to LIV 2.0. DeChambeau has been LIV’s biggest champion but has been silent for quite some time. He’s expected to still be on board with LIV 2.0, but we’ll soon find out what matters to him and if having him, should he commit, is enough to get LIV 2.0 going without Rahm, Hatton and others.
LIV’s attorneys told New Jersey bankruptcy Judge Michael B. Kaplan that they expect to know by the end of the month if they are winding down operations or restarting the league.
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