LIV Golf, the breakaway league fronted in its early years by Australian Greg Norman, will wind down its operations after failing to secure the backing it needed to relaunch, ending a run of four tournaments in Adelaide and all but cancelling the event planned for Kooyonga Golf Club in March.

What happened

LIV filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 8 September and had hoped BC Partners Credit, which pledged a US$300 million investment, would fund a more financially sustainable “LIV 2.0”, ABC News reported, citing AP. But several leading players were not interested in the new model, and the plan fell over.

“The debtors are not currently proceeding with the LIV 2.0 plan,” lawyer Matthew Williams of Gibson Dunn told a hearing in New Jersey. “Instead, the debtors are toggling to a value-maximising wind-down in their business.”

“While there was great support for the league, we are disappointed that mutually acceptable terms could not be reached among the various stakeholders,” BC Partners said in a statement.

The league, launched in June 2022, lost the support of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in April after spending more than US$5 billion, according to AP.

The Adelaide question

Adelaide hosted four LIV events at The Grange Golf Club, with public backing from the South Australian Government, and was due to stage the next at Kooyonga in March. Reuters reported that Kooyonga had filed a motion in a US bankruptcy court in September saying LIV had failed to pay the first instalment of its venue fee, and the club said it was seeking clarification.

“It feels like it’s game, set and match as far as I can tell,” South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas told ABC Adelaide, according to Reuters. He added that “clearly the event as far as we can tell won’t be going ahead at Kooyonga next year.”

A ‘clear path’ to the Australian Open

Speaking to SEN, Mr Malinauskas said he was “not entirely surprised” and that the state would now focus on the Australian Open, which North Adelaide Golf Course will host across a seven-year span from 2028 to 2034. “We’re on one level disappointed that it’s not going ahead into the future, but on another level, we’ve just got a clear path now,” he said.

He also defended the state’s investment. “We’ve seen $316 million of economic benefit across four events that has delivered crowds of almost 400,000 people,” he said. Reuters reported that more than 115,000 people attended LIV Adelaide across four days last February, a record for a professional golf tournament in Australia.

Why it matters

For Australian golf, LIV’s collapse removes the country’s best-attended tournament, and South Australia’s attention now shifts to the national championship. This summer, the BMW Australian PGA Championship is at The Lakes in Sydney from 26 to 29 November, followed by the Australian Open at Kingston Heath in Melbourne from 3 to 6 December.

Sources: ABC News / AP (6 November 2026); Reuters via Flashscore (November 2026); SEN (5 November 2026); Golf Australia (6 November 2026).