Shipnuck: LIV Golf Is on Borrowed Time

Alan Shipnuck came on to explain what's actually happening inside LIV Golf, and his read is that the league as currently constructed is on borrowed time, with Rory McIlroy's Masters win quietly reshaping the top of the sport at the same time.

The LIV timeline is the lead. Just last week at Augusta, the CEO was telling people LIV was funded through 2032. Now they're funded through 2026. That's not a rounding error, that's a strategic pullback from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which recently rolled out a five-year plan that appears to deprioritize vanity sports projects. They sold their big soccer team. They pulled out of Tom Brady's flag football league. Even the crown prince's signature NEOM project is being scaled back.

Shipnuck's working theory: LIV finishes this season, but a 2027 version in its current excess-driven form is unlikely. He framed Yasir Al-Rumayyan as still trying to salvage the enterprise because the face loss of it blowing away in a sandstorm would be enormous, but ultimately Al-Rumayyan reports to MBS, and MBS is ruthless about capital allocation.

The contract mechanics are where this gets messy. One agent told Shipnuck that LIV is exploring a force majeure claim, using the Iran war as an unforeseen act to void contracts and avoid paying another dime to players who already jumped. Any legal challenge would likely end up in a Saudi court, which Shipnuck noted has a fairly predictable outcome.

Bryson DeChambeau is the domino. His contract is up, and the number being floated to re-sign him is in the hundreds of millions. If LIV can't make that math work, that's where this ends. There's a world where DeChambeau's legacy becomes the player who accidentally killed LIV Golf.

On Rory's Masters win, Shipnuck's take sharpened what happened Sunday. The six-shot lead evaporated. The start of the final round was a nightmare. At one point he was three down with 12 holes to play. And yet Rory kept coming back. Shipnuck's central point: Rory's resilience is his greatest physical asset. He can take a punch like nobody in golf. He built enough of a cushion with his genius to hold on through bad shots on 17 and 18.

The career context is staggering. Rory is now in the career Grand Slam club, six players ever. He's one of only four to win back-to-back Masters. The overlap list between those two categories: Tiger, Jack, Rory. That's it.

Rory turns 37 next month and isn't exactly long in the tooth, and Shipnuck thinks his best golf is still ahead. Twelve months ago you could have called him a slight underachiever. Now the expectations bar moves up again, and Shipnuck's bet is that he clears it.