In the next 10 days, LIV’s free agents will realize how little freedom and agency they really have | Opinion - Golfweek

It’s a sobering sign of how upside down golf is that we’ve reached the improbable point where Sergio Garcia is leading by example. 

He’s complaining, of course, but only in the legal realm. On Sept. 30, the Spaniard’s lawyers asked a New Jersey bankruptcy court to either terminate his contract with LIV Golf or give him the right to do so, arguing that a lack of clarity on the league’s future unfairly limits his ability to investigate alternative options.

“That uncertainty is particularly acute for a professional athlete, whose tournament schedule, sponsorship arrangements, and participation in other events must be planned well in advance,” the filing said. A cynic might add that advance planning should include stockpiling baby wipes on whatever tour is luckless enough to host Garcia, whether it’s the one he said he couldn’t wait to leave (PGA), the one he shouted was “f****d” because it didn’t take Saudi money (Europe), or the one he reportedly embarrassed with his club-smashing antics at the Masters (LIV). 

Most of LIV’s existing player agreements are expected to be terminated in the bankruptcy restructuring, though players could agree new deals to remain for LIV 2.0. Garcia hasn’t ruled out doing that, but wants the flexibility to investigate other avenues now. That can’t happen while the PGA Tour and DP World Tour refuse to entertain approaches by LIV players unless they can prove they’re free of all contractual obligations, a demand that has flummoxed agents accustomed to being taken at their worthless word. The only surprise is that Garcia’s fellow players haven’t also been proactive rather than wait for legal proceedings to determine the timing and scope of their freedom. Not that their wait will be lengthy. The hour is approaching when LIV players must — as a crude Irish idiom puts it — either shit or get off the pot. 

Per the terms of its proposed investment from BC Partners to reinvent the circuit, LIV has 35 days from filing bankruptcy to sign half of the players to whom it owes money, and those players must collectively represent two-thirds of all monies owed to its roster. The first threshold is reachable since most of its members are washed-ups or never-weres with limited options. The second is trickier since LIV doesn’t appear to have the buy-in of its biggest creditor, Jon Rahm, but might cobble together enough I.O.U.’s from others to satisfy the requirement. The 35-day window closes Oct. 13. A court hearing scheduled for Oct. 7 may offer a status update, if not hard numbers.

Over the next 10 days, LIV players will learn if they’re stuck in Scott O’Neil’s indigent shanty or whether they’re free to ring the bell at Brian Rolapp’s palace in Ponte Vedra or Guy Kinnings’ overmortgaged modest semi in Wentworth. But Rolapp appears to have rolled up the welcome mat and even the normally jovial Kinnings is starting to snarl behind the scenes.

LIV’s free agents are about to find out how little agency they actually enjoy. 

In response to an inquiry, a DP World Tour spokesperson acknowledged a “high volume of inbound interest and enquiries in recent weeks,” and said it’s exploring terms on which those players might be accommodated, “provided they are free from third-party contractual restrictions and are willing to abide by our membership regulations.” What that means, sources say, is that LIV refugees might get starts, but not in lucrative Rolex Series events, and that anyone who re-ups with LIV 2.0 risks being bum-rushed to the exit. That’s a warm embrace compared to what’s probably on offer in the U.S. 

The PGA Tour’s wariness of exposing itself to tortious interference claims by talking to still-contracted LIV players was heightened by a recent Financial Times report that the Saudi Public Investment Fund is scuffling with BC Partners over whether it truly intends to keep the league going, raising fears that Yasir Al-Rumayyan could still seek a face-saving maneuver. But even those players who will be free to send Rolapp a valentine are going to realize that the same agents who led them into a dead end have been downplaying the difficulty of navigating a way back. 

A few days ago, I asked an executive to estimate the likelihood that a current LIV player competes on the PGA Tour in 2027. 

Rolapp could be willing to make a case internally for guys who add to the competitive mettle of his product — Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Cam Smith, Joaquin Niemann, say — assuming they’ll genuflect and perform the ‘Koepka Trinity’: display sufficient humility to communicate an understanding that they done screwed up, even if they don’t explicitly say so; forgo equity for an extended period, perhaps permanently; and make a charitable donation that would surely dwarf the $5 million Koepka handed over. If that price is too high for some, well, there’s no barbed wire around the Gulfstream headed to tournaments in the hinterlands. 

A well-placed insider insists that only one member of the PGA Tour’s board still wants LIV defectors burned at the stake. More importantly, no board members are openly advocating for their return, so Rolapp would have some persuading to do, at risk to his own standing if any returned player becomes a problem in the future. Which might explain the hardening attitudes at headquarters toward Bryson DeChambeau, whose social media teasing, absence of self-awareness and public evangelism for LIV 2.0 increasingly make him seem like a liability no one is eager to assume. 

A lucky few among LIV’s players will have already heard hard truths from their agents and prepared accordingly. The rest will learn that they paid for lousy advice that sugar-coated reality, and they’re still getting it. 

Eamon Lynch is a columnist for Golfweek and a frequent contributor to Golf Channel.