Jon Rahm, one of the biggest stars of LIV Golf, says he's not "too worried" about the future of the breakaway league despite speculation about its financial future.
Rumours have swirled that LIV could lose its future funding as Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has been backing the format, revealed a new five-year investment strategy without any mention of future funding for LIV Golf.
Despite growing doubts, its latest event, LIV Mexico, got under way at Club de Golf Chapultepec in Mexico City on Thursday, although the broadcast did experience some technical difficulties. In a statement LIV Golf put that down to the impact of local power outages.
After shooting a round of 65 to place second and three behind Victor Perez, Rahm insisted he "wasn't too worried" about LIV's future.
"Until the people in charge told me if the rumours were valid or not, it didn't make sense for me to think about it or to waste time thinking about it," he said.
"We weren't here [before the tournament week], we knew we were going to play, so the idea was to prepare for a tournament and that's it.
"As everything suddenly came out, so quickly, I wasn't too worried about that, because normally, before the rumours come out, we know something.
"There's always someone in the league who knows something. It was so fast that I didn't really worry about it."
reported on Wednesday that LIV Golf executives had been summoned to an "emergency meeting" in New York, before the subsequently reported that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which bankrolls the project, was on the verge of cutting its support, although that no final decision had been made.
The newsletter Money in Sport reported in February that LIV Golf already had spent $5.3bn (£3.9bn) and was projected to surpass $6bn (£4.42bn) by the end of the year.
Your Site understands there was a lot of confusion among players, who would like some reassurances, but none of the team captains had been informed of any imminent announcement.
LIV Golf launched in 2022 by paying roughly $1billion in signing bonuses to some of the PGA Tour's biggest names, such as Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Rahm.
Prize money for individuals and the 13 teams was raised to $30m this year.
But Scott O'Neil, the CEO of LIV Golf, was adamant: "If we keep the trajectory going the way we are and the revenue growth going, this is going to be a really good business for a really long time."
He was speaking on Thursday's TV broadcast to quell the rumours of the circuit's imminent demise.
"From a business standpoint, we did almost a half a billion dollars in sponsorship last year with big brands like Rolex and HSBC, Aramco; these are global brands. I'm thinking we're in a wonderful position," he said.
"From a structural standpoint, this business will continue to evolve as it has over the last 12 months. The good news for us is we know how to put on a show. We know how to grow the game.
"But will there be a change in how we operate? Of course. I would have told you that last year and six months ago. We are looking to blend a version of LIV and the national opens, the great national opens around the world. We think they're the most underappreciated, undermarketed, underdeveloped assets in golf, and the reason is it gets us on the ground to grow the game of golf."
He added: "If I am a PGA Tour player, I want LIV to survive. These prize purses are pretty good. Competition is good for business. If I'm a television network, I'd love LIV Golf to survive. It's good television. If I'm a reporter, it certainly makes the news a little more spicy, or has occasionally. If you're a fan, you want more golf around the world.
"So I think there's a lot more to gain with LIV Golf here than LIV Golf gone."
LIV Golf launched in 2021, funded by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), to serve as a rival to the established PGA Tour and DP World Tour.
Its emergence contributed to a division within professional golf, with some of the biggest names in the game like Phil Mickelson, Jon Rahm and Dustin Johnson defecting to the breakaway tour.
LIV began as a series of 54-hole tournaments, but switched to 74 holes for 2026 with the hope of securing Official World Golf Ranking points.
LIV had also announced for 2026 a total prize fund increase to $30m, with the team prize doubling to $10m alongside the $20m individual purse.
The Saudi-backed league started with 12 teams and 48 players, before expanding to 13 teams, but lost notable names in five-time major winner Koepka and former Masters champion Reed in the past few months.
Your Site News chief correspondent Kaveh Solhekol:
"I think Saudi Arabia is having a little bit of a rethink about how much money it invests in sport.
"The Public Investment Fund, which is a sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, invests the money that Saudi Arabia makes from selling oil in order to diversify and grow the economy.
"PIF announced their new investment strategy for the next five years and also told the areas they were going to focus on. There were seven areas and in this new strategy sport is not explicitly mentioned but, having spoken to people in Saudi Arabia in the past, they would say that sport goes under tourism and also entertainment.
"So I don't think they are totally ignoring sport, but I think it is fair to say they are having a rethink and they are repositioning their priorities.
"I think the way they see it is 'business is business' and they want a return on their investment. Something like LIV, for instance, they have invested $5bn so far and it's expected that were they to continue funding LIV it would still lose money for the next five to 10 years.
"So I think, going forward, Saudi Arabia and PIF are still going to back and invest in football, Formula 1, golf, boxing, tennis but they will do so with much more of a business rationale. Deals have got to make sense for them. They don't want to be just seen as people who are there to throw money at everyone and any sports person who wants to come to Saudi Arabia.
"There is a war going on in the Middle East as well, economies all round the world have been affected by it, especially those in the Gulf region, so I think going forward Saudi Arabia is just saying to the world 'look, we are going to carry on investing in sport but we are going to be very, very sensible about the way we do things'."
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