If there is one word to describe what LIV Golf was, “disruptor” feels like the most accurate fit for the breakaway circuit.
LIV sought to change the landscape of professional golf, and it undoubtedly did for a number of years by poaching some of the best players in the world and operating with unlimited Saudi funding. There is a difference between disrupting a sport and actively trying to destroy a piece of it, and according to Rory McIlroy, LIV was trying to accomplish the latter.
McIlroy, one of the most outspoken critics of LIV, isn’t making this accusation out of a place of emotion or general disdain, but from information he claims to have gathered firsthand.
DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings was interviewed by the Scotsman ahead of this week’s Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship and stated that LIV was aiming to “destroy” the European circuit. Kinnings went on to explain that he had heard of LIV’s mission to destroy the DP World Tour from “so many different people” that he trusts “implicitly.”
While saying one business is seeking to destroy another could be perceived as just a figure of speech, McIlroy added a very real perspective when asked about Kinnings’ remarks.
“I agree with everything that Guy said. They took players; they took sponsors; they turned professional golf into an arms race,” McIlroy, who is teeing it up in Abu Dhabi this week, explained. “They were going around Augusta saying they wanted to destroy the European Tour.”
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It’s no secret that LIV Golf was looking to reach the top of the professional golf mountain, and believed it could, given its bottomless pockets provided by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF). However, it adds a different level of vitriol when the most influential golfer on Earth not named Tiger Woods alleges that LIV officials were flaunting their mission to destroy the DP World Tour.
As we now know, LIV did not destroy the European circuit.
The Saudis shut off the money spigot to LIV Golf just weeks after the Masters in April, before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September.
The future of ‘LIV 2.0’ is a complete and total uncertainty at this point, while the many players who have left the circuit are planning to compete on the DP World Tour in 2027.
