Reports the multibillion-dollar LIV Golf league is about to collapse could have a ripple effect in South Australia, which is pushing ahead with a $45 million golf course redevelopment for the Saudi-backed competition.

There have been conflicting reports over the global competition’s future, with Britain’s Financial Times reporting Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is poised to cut backing for LIV Golf.

There are also suggestions that executives have been called to an “emergency meeting” in New York, reported by The Telegraph.

However, Reuters sources with knowledge of PIF’s operations said funding would continue, with the remaining nine tournaments of the 14-event 2026 schedule to go ahead as planned.

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil has emailed players to reassure them. However, his email did not address reports that PIF might stop investing in the breakaway circuit after spending more than $US5 billion ($A7 billion) since its inception in 2022, or whether the league would continue beyond this season.

“I want to be crystal clear: Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” O’Neil wrote.

“While the media landscape is often filled with speculation, our reality is defined by the work we do on the grass. We are heading into the heart of our 2026 schedule with the full energy of an organisation that is bigger, louder, and more influential than ever before.”

LIV Golf’s sixth tournament of the year is in Mexico, starting on Thursday (local time).

“The life of a startup movement is often defined by these moments of pressure,” O’Neil continued.

“We signed up for this because we believe in disrupting the status quo. We have faced headwinds since the jump, and we’ve answered every time with resilience and grace.

“Now, we answer by doing what we do best: Putting on the most compelling show in sports.”

On Thursday, SA State Development Minister Chris Picton said LIV had “given assurances” to the Malinauskas government “that there’s no change from their perspective, but we wait to see if there are further changes”.

He said a LIV-inspired upgrade of the North Adelaide Golf Course would continue. The state government passed special legislation last year to seize control of the course’s land from Adelaide City Council.

“We think that there’s a much broader benefit of this development, that’s why we’ve invested in it,” Picton said.

SA Greens leader Robert Simms said doubts around LIV’s financial backers “raise serious questions”, including whether taxpayers would pick up the bill. He called for transparency around the commercial arrangement between LIV Golf and the state government.

Former Masters winner Sergio Garcia, one of the captains of the LIV teams, was asked about the speculation ahead of this week’s event in Mexico City.

“Honestly, we haven’t heard anything other than what Yasir [Al-Rumayyan, LIV Golf chairman] told us at the beginning of the year,” Garcia said.

“That he’s behind us, that they have a long-term project. And well, honestly, you know how these rumours are. There are always a lot of them. And I can’t tell you anything more than what we already know.”

In October, financial papers filed in Britain revealed LIV Golf Ltd made a US$462 million ($A704 million) loss in the year to December 31, 2024 – after a $US396 million ($A604 million) loss in 2023.

Australia propped up LIV’s revenue in 2024, bringing in about $US26 million, followed by $10 million from Hong Kong.

Adelaide was LIV’s only Australian event in 2024 and its whopping contribution leads the nine geographic areas where LIV operated, according to the financial report.

Five-time major winner Brooks Koepka quit LIV earlier this year to return to the PGA Tour. Former Masters champion Patrick Reed also walked away and is competing on the DP World Tour as he bids to return to the PGA Tour.

If LIV does fold, it will leave Cameron Smith and his all-Australian Ripper GC teammates Marc Leishman, Lucas Herbert and Elvis Smylie in limbo.

LIV Golf, which launched in 2022, has been decried as a vehicle for Saudi Arabia to attempt to improve its reputation in the face of criticism of its human rights record.

Through big-money contracts ​and lucrative purses, ‌it managed to lure several of golf’s biggest names, including Smith, Koepka, Rahm and fellow major champions Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau.

Earlier this year, LIV Golf Adelaide set a record as the highest-attended golf tournament in Australian ​history with more than 115,000 fans. Last month’s tournament in South Africa attracted more than 100,000, another national record.

-with AAP

Republished from InDaily