Welcome to Issue #53
“BC Partners is leaving LIV Golf to spend more time with its family.”
Patrick McDonald
What’s on my mind this week
Tom Kim and Brian Campbell playing each other's ball from the same bunker in Mexico, both picking up two-shot penalties. Nothing quite like finding your original ball after hitting the best provisional of your life. Andrew Novak winning $1.08 million with a rusty old putter he once gave his wife for her birthday. Sunday Golf launching a $200 golf bag specifically for simulator golf, complete with two cupholders and a four-can cooler. The increasingly pointless exercise of cleaning a muddy golf ball with an equally muddy towel. One putt at the Internet Invitational helping Reaper Golf, a small golf brand, generate half its annual sales in a week. Peter Millar becoming a viral obsession among young golfers, with some even getting the crown logo tattooed on themselves. Owen Wilson taking up golf for a television role and ending up making three birdies in four holes at Riviera.
In the news
Why it matters: RepSpark has acquired Tee Commerce, a platform operating online storefronts for more than 700 golf facilities. The deal brings consumer-facing retail and fulfilment capabilities into a business already facilitating over $4 billion in annual wholesale transactions across 250 brands.
Our Take: Golf's traditional pro shop has always had a physical limitation. There's only so much merchandise it can stock, and every additional product ties up capital and shelf space. Tee Commerce offers clubs a way around that, allowing them to sell branded products online without carrying additional inventory or managing fulfilment. The more interesting opportunity comes from connecting those storefronts with RepSpark's existing wholesale network, potentially giving golf professionals access to a much broader range of approved products. That integration is still to come, and the commercial arrangements between brands, clubs and the platform will be important. Tee Commerce reported 114% growth in 2025, suggesting demand for the model. RepSpark is now betting it can connect two parts of golf retail that have traditionally operated separately. For clubs, the attraction is potentially more sales without the corresponding investment in stock. For brands, it's another route to the golfer.
Why it matters: London-based Hanover Investors has become the principal shareholder of Caddies Europe, the group behind GolfStar, which operates 30 courses across 25 facilities in Sweden, Finland and Spain. The deal brings more than SEK 100 million (£7.5m) in funding to support further acquisitions and investment in existing facilities.
Our Take: Golf course ownership and management is attracting another investor with ambitions to build at scale. GolfStar already has more than 20,000 members, while parent company Caddies Europe expects approximately SEK 300 million in revenue this year. Its business extends beyond operating courses into maintenance, technology and other services used by golf facilities. That gives Hanover more than a portfolio of golf courses to work with. The opportunity is to spread operating costs, technology and commercial expertise across a growing network, while offering golfers access to multiple facilities through a common membership model. For independent clubs and course owners, joining a larger group could provide access to investment and operational support that might otherwise be difficult to secure. The challenge will be maintaining the quality and individual character of those facilities as the network expands.
Why it matters: British golf apparel brand MANORS has secured a £1 million trade finance facility from HSBC to fund manufacturing and inventory. Co-Founder Jojo Regan told Business in Golf that the company is forecasting revenue growth of 130–150% in 2026 as it works towards profitability.
Our Take: Growth creates a particular challenge for apparel businesses. Manufacturers need paying, inventory needs ordering and much of that cash goes out months before customers buy the products. For a young brand expanding internationally, that can put considerable pressure on working capital, even when sales are growing strongly. MANORS has previously raised equity to support its development, but the HSBC facility gives it another way to finance stock without repeatedly diluting existing shareholders. There's a trade-off, of course. Debt needs to be repaid, and getting inventory forecasts wrong can quickly create problems. But it's an interesting next step for a brand trying to move from rapid growth towards a more financially sustainable business. The forecast growth is impressive, although profitability will be a more meaningful test of how successfully MANORS is managing its expansion.
Pic from Manors
Worth your time
Watch: Outgoing PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan reflects on his tenure, LIV Golf and the future of professional golf with Eamon Lynch.
Read: Travel + Leisure explores how women are changing the way golf trips are planned and experienced.
Listen: The ATP chairman on why tennis is leaving billions on the table. Some familiar challenges for golf.
Feature Story
LIV Golf bought the players. It couldn't build the business.
Pic from BBC
LIV Golf spent billions convincing some of the world's best golfers to join its breakaway league. Four years later, when its survival depended on securing commitments from enough of those same players, the deal fell apart.
On Thursday, LIV confirmed plans for an orderly wind-down after its proposed restructuring agreement with BC Partners Credit was terminated. The investment firm had been working on a revised version of the league for 2027, supported by financing of up to $300 million, with lower costs, player ownership and a business model designed to survive without Saudi Arabia's financial backing.
Although LIV remains open to alternative proposals during the wind-down process, the planned restructuring is no longer expected to proceed.
Around 30 players were reportedly prepared to commit to the proposed competition, with another 10 considering participation. But the proposed investors couldn't secure the combination of leading players and financial support needed to proceed.
After more than $5 billion in reported investment from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), LIV was preparing to wind down rather than continue under the proposed new structure.
The enormous contracts that helped establish the league may also have made its transition to a sustainable business considerably more difficult.
The price of entry
When LIV launched in June 2022, the PGA Tour already had the players, tournaments, broadcasters, sponsors and decades of commercial relationships.
LIV needed to convince enough of golf's biggest names to leave that established system.
Its solution was money. A lot of it.
Enormous guaranteed contracts, substantial prize funds and fewer tournament commitments attracted Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau, among others. Jon Rahm followed in December 2023.
The strategy worked as an entry mechanism. LIV acquired enough talent to establish itself as a serious challenger, forcing the PGA Tour to increase prize money and reconsider its competitive and commercial structure.
It also gave professional golfers unprecedented negotiating leverage.
But LIV was committing extraordinary amounts of money to players before establishing the revenues needed to support those commitments.
In established sports leagues, player salaries are ultimately financed through broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing and other commercial income. LIV was attempting to develop those revenue streams after securing the talent.
PIF could finance that approach for as long as it chose. Whether another investor would support the same cost structure was a different question.
Pic from RTE
Buying talent, building a business
LIV achieved more than its eventual wind-down might suggest.
Adelaide attracted large crowds and became one of the league's standout events. The team format offered new commercial opportunities, while shorter tournaments and entertainment-led events challenged some longstanding conventions.
The league also secured broadcasters, sponsors and host destinations.
But it never demonstrated that those relationships could generate enough revenue to sustain its spending.
Complete financial information isn't publicly available, making it difficult to establish precisely how far LIV was from profitability.
PIF announced in April 2026 that it would stop financing the league after the season. LIV entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September and sought replacement funding.
After four years, its future still depended on another substantial investment.
And that investor wanted a different deal.
The deal the players didn't take
BC Partners Credit's proposed financing was intended to support a smaller, more sustainable LIV.
The plans involved at least 10 tournaments, reduced prize money and an ownership structure offering players equity in the league and its teams.
Rather than relying on exceptional guaranteed payments, players would have a financial interest in building a business whose value could grow over time.
Pic from Reuters
The challenge was persuading enough leading players to accept the revised terms while also reaching an agreement acceptable to investors and other stakeholders.
Those who had joined LIV for substantial financial guarantees were now being offered a different balance of income, ownership and commercial risk.
Some had already received life-changing sums. Others had opportunities to return to established tours.
There were sporting complications too. The DP World Tour's position on eligibility for LIV 2.0 participants created additional uncertainty for European players, including potential implications for Ryder Cup qualification.
Several prominent players had already moved away from the proposed competition, while others remained undecided. The difficulty was securing enough leading names, on acceptable terms, to make the new league commercially credible.
LIV's lawyer, Matthew Williams, told Thursday's bankruptcy hearing that the parties had negotiated intensively but couldn't secure the necessary combination of financial and player support within the required timeframe.
The restructuring agreement was terminated.
The precise motivations behind individual player decisions and the full details of the negotiations haven't been disclosed. Financial terms, sporting eligibility and career considerations may all have influenced those decisions. LIV also confirmed that outstanding commercial terms remained unresolved.
But the outcome exposed a weakness in its original strategy.
The league had spent billions making individual players extraordinarily valuable. Its proposed replacement depended on persuading enough of those individuals to commit to a collective business with a much less certain financial future.
The first proposition proved considerably easier to sell.
Who captured the value?
The financial benefits and consequences of LIV's four years have been distributed very differently.
Players benefited from guaranteed contracts and increased prize money. Even those who remained on the PGA Tour gained from the competitive pressure LIV created.
The PGA Tour responded with larger financial rewards, structural changes and private investment through Strategic Sports Group. LIV was a major source of competitive pressure during that period, although those developments cannot all be attributed to its arrival alone.
For PIF, the outcome is harder to assess. More than $5 billion was reportedly invested in LIV, which developed a global profile and commercial relationships but ultimately couldn't secure a viable restructuring agreement after Saudi funding was withdrawn.
The investment may also have served other Saudi objectives, including international visibility and influence within professional golf. Those outcomes are difficult to quantify.
Meanwhile, suppliers and other creditors face uncertainty as the league moves towards an orderly wind-down under court supervision.
The business LIV leaves behind
LIV faced a difficult strategic trade-off from the beginning.
Without enormous contracts, it might never have attracted enough leading players to establish itself. Without those players, broadcasters, sponsors and audiences would have had little reason to pay attention.
The spending solved the immediate problem of entering the market. It also created expectations that became difficult to sustain when the original investor withdrew.
Introducing player equity earlier might have helped align incentives. Equally, leading golfers might have rejected smaller guarantees in exchange for ownership in an unproven competition.
LIV was building a sports property in which the players were both its biggest attraction and its greatest expense. It never fully resolved that tension.
Its influence on professional golf will remain. Player earnings, tournament structures, private investment and the relationship between golfers and their tours have all changed since 2022, with LIV contributing to several of those developments.
LIV had spent billions acquiring the talent it believed would make the league successful. In the end, it couldn't persuade enough of that talent to help build its future.
One thing from history
18 holes, three golfers and a police escort
Pic from City Cast DC
Asa Williams, George Williams and Cecil R. Shamwell were members of the Royal Golf Club, a Black golfing organisation. At the time, East Potomac was a publicly owned course where Black golfers faced severe restrictions on when they could play.
The three men were initially turned away. They returned with supporters, and when police arrived, an officer instructed the course to let them play.
Accompanied by six police officers, they completed all 18 holes despite boos and insults from spectators.
The following day, US Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes ordered East Potomac opened to golfers regardless of race. The protest helped accelerate the desegregation of Washington's public golf courses and other National Park Service facilities.
Eighty-five years later, East Potomac is back in the headlines.
This week, the Trump administration submitted plans to redevelop the historic public course into a championship venue designed by Fazio Design. The proposal includes a $304.5 million seawall project, while questions remain over the redevelopment's total cost, affordability and preservation of existing recreational facilities.
The circumstances are very different from 1941. But East Potomac has a history worth remembering whenever its future is being decided.
Have a good week. Until next Friday,
David