Michael La Sasso wins LIV finale, for this season and likely LIV as we know it

LIV Golf’s fifth season – and by every indication LIV as we know it – wrapped on Sunday evening in Indianapolis.

Rookie Michael La Sasso, just over seven months removed from leaving Ole Miss midway through his senior season as the reigning NCAA individual champion, got up and down for birdie on his final hole to push ahead of Jon Rahm and win LIV Golf - Indianapolis for his first professional title.

“I had a bunch of buddies texting me last night asking if they should fly in, and I said I was going to win anyway, but you might as well come for the show,” said La Sasso, who shot 10-under 60 in Friday’s second round before closing in 66-65 for an 18-under week at Chatham Hills. “It ended up working itself out.”

La Sasso entered the season finale sitting 53rd in points and firmly in the drop zone thanks to seven finishes outside the top 40 in his first 11 starts. While he avoids relegation with his victory, what that means exactly for La Sasso remains to be seen.

After Rahm, who was vying for his fifth win in three seasons since joining LIV, bogeyed his final hole to finish a shot back, LIV announcer Arlo White made this call: “Whatever the future holds, Jon Rahm has been colossal in the LIV golf league.”

White later made several references to LIV's "uncertainty."

With Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, LIV's founding backer, having pulled all future funding, lawsuits piling up and reports of a potential mass exodus of players, LIV enters its offseason embroiled in doubt.

Even before LIV’s season finale in Indianapolis, the league had begun scaling back. It canceled two tournaments, including LIV - Michigan, LIV’s team championship that was originally supposed to be the final tournament of the season. LIV had reportedly, according to the Flushing It social media account, also begun notifying its employees and contractors that their employment could be ending in September if the league does not secure future funding. Scheduled concerts this week were officially canceled just days out, that announcement coinciding with notice that the LIV Indianapolis purse would be cut nearly in half, to $10.1 million.

Golf.com’s Sean Zak, who has covered 10 LIV events, wrote earlier this week that LIV - Indianapolis, which last year set LIV’s domestic attendance record with 60,000 fans, “feels smaller than the rest.”

LIV CEO Scott O’Neil has been touting whatever comes next as LIV 2.0, but so far, what we know definitively is that a 2027 season would feature fewer tournaments (10, down from the scheduled 14 this season) and reduced purses ($10 million, down from the usual $20 million) albeit with players now receiving major equity in the league. O’Neil announced earlier this month that LIV had signed a term sheet with a lead investor, and though that investor is reportedly BC Partners, that has not been confirmed by the league, nor how much said investment is. Bloomberg reported that BC Partners was “leading a group of investors looking at lending money to LIV Golf.”

Ted Goldthorpe, co-founder of BC Partners, reportedly attended LIV’s player meeting last week at Chatham Hills. Players were mum about what was shared in the meeting, though Martin Kaymer said, “The investor is excited. There are a few things that need to be figured out, but I thought it was positive. It’s still early to tell what next year will look like, but I think they are working very hard to get more specifics.”

Brendan Steele added: “Talking with our investor, he just has great vision for what we want to do and how to move this thing forward.”

O’Neil spoke to reporters last Wednesday, the day after the meeting, and had no specific updates other than: “In terms of timelines, we have a very compressed timeline to get the deal done. I’m not going to share that here. But I can tell you we’re well on our way to a transaction.”

• Rex Hoggard,

• Rex Hoggard,

Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard reported that a potential transaction could be contingent on how many LIV players decide to remain with the league. There have been multiple reports that Rahm, who is signed through at least 2027, is seeking an early exit, though Rahm did not address them this week and instead, when asked Sunday about his future, he answered, "I'm looking forward to going home and helping my very pregnant wife with the kids because it's a 3-v-1 right now. It's probably a 4-v-1 with the one that's due in October. Happy to be dad for a few days before I get back for the Irish Open, but mainly looking forward to a haircut tomorrow at 10 a.m. because I need one badly."

While Rahm and numerous other LIV members were granted conditional released by the DP World Tour to compete on the European circuit this year, the DPWT has informed LIV members that it is “highly unlikely” those releases would be granted in 2027.

LIV has already seen stars Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed depart with Koepka rejoining the PGA Tour back in January and Reed set to re-earn his PGA Tour card in 2027 via the DPWT’s Race to Dubai.

Steele added that he’s “happy to stay” with LIV in 2027, though Kaymer wouldn’t comment on his future with the league, responding, “I can’t say that.” Sergio Garcia was equally vague on his intentions, saying, “We’ll see.”

Rahm's Legion XIII teammate Tyrrell Hatton chose Queen's "I Want To Break Free" as his walk-out song on Thursday, and according to Fried Egg Golf, it was a not-so-subtle hint that he is among those wanting out. Hatton then, when pressed about his seemingly subdued attitude following Legion's season-long team win on Sunday, said, "Anytime you win is great. We've been able to do that the last few years a number of times. ... I just want to get to the airport because I have a flight to catch, so that would be great."

Bryson DeChambeau, LIV’s biggest supporter from a player standpoint, spoke to reporters on Thursday and asked that “people give us one more shot and be open-minded.” He also seemed to respond to recent comments by Rory McIlroy, who posed the question, regarding Rahm, DeChambeau and other LIV players who could potentially bolster the PGA Tour product by returning, “Have they brought value to LIV?”

“I hope people can see that we actually bring value to the game of golf,” DeChambeau said, while adding, “Behind the scenes we’ve got a lot of people that are working hard to make this possible for not only all the players that are out here but all the fans that have come out to these events and the economic impact that we’ve made in all these places, whether it’s South Africa, here in Indy or Australia, numerous places across the world, the U.K., all the different places we’ve been in the U.S. Even Nashville when we played a few years ago was unbelievable. I think we just have a bit of a responsibility to continue to show this.”

Added DeChambeau: “If it works, it works; awesome. If it doesn’t, we’ll figure things out. Time will move on, and I would say that time heals things.”

On Sunday, DeChambeau, who tied for third with Garcia in Indianapolis, was again asked about LIV’s future, this time by LIV’s on-course reporter Jerry Foltz.

“I think there’s a lot of potential moving forward,” DeChambeau said on live television. “It’s been an interesting ride, that’s for sure. You know just as much as I do everything that we’ve gone through and the tough moments that we’ve had, but it’s made us stronger. As much as we’re transitioning from LIV 1.0 to 2.0, I have great thoughts about what could happen next year. I wish I could be more upfront about it, but ultimately, I’m proud of the fact of what we’ve done, the good and some of the bad that we’ve unfortunately had. Things that have occurred, you know, I’m going to be real with it, not everything was perfect, but for the most part we’ve done a solid job. And if there’s one thing that I could say is we did something different in the game of golf, and I’m proud of that.”

Bryson ended the interview with this: “I think there’s something fun coming.”

Whatever that is, it likely won't be anything like the LIV we've seen the past five years.