Talor Gooch made over $75 million during the short life of LIV Golf, a figure that dwarfs almost any single career payout in standard tour history. This massive sum sits at the top of a list detailing the absurd earnings of every player who joined the breakaway league. While competing against stars such as Bryson DeChambeau into his fifties, journeyman Richard Bland secured $20 million after needing 478 starts to claim a DP World Tour victory.
The league itself is now dead, with its Saudi benefactors pulling billions and winding down operations. Players who signed up early reaped rewards while the game faced a five-year war of attrition. As one LIV player put it to Today’s Golfer a few months back, “we can’t complain, we’ve had it right off.” The money flowed in, but the competitive structure has collapsed.
The Cost of a False Economy
The financial impact reached far beyond the LIV roster, forcing the PGA Tour to dump cash into purses just to keep its own stars. The unsustainable arms race directly caused Scottie Scheffler to earn well north of $100 million during the past four years alone. Rory McIlroy accurately calls this spending spree a “false economy” that drained resources without solving the underlying tension.
While the PGA Tour fought back with higher checks, the DP World Tour faced a different reality. European officials relied on American friends to dig them out of a financial hole, receiving over $77 million in support during 2025 alone. The question now is whether the taps will turn off in Europe once the PGA Tour no longer feels the heat from a rival league.
DeChambeau’s Stance on Team Golf
Bryson DeChambeau, a two-time U.S. Open champion and early recruit, broke his silence as the league filed for bankruptcy in September. He “gave everything” in a social media statement to keep the tour alive and refused to look back with regret. “I’m not going to rewrite the last four years,” the 33-year-old said.
His future now lies elsewhere, with reports indicating the DP World Tour has offered him an automatic exemption to join the circuit in 2027.
Tyrrell Hatton offered a somber view on the human cost of the league’s failure, noting that many workers lost their jobs when the money stopped. “There was a lot of great people that worked on LIV and a lot of people lost their jobs so that’s pretty sad in itself,” Hatton said. Last week, the league’s lawyers informed a US bankruptcy court that the organization planned to start winding down its operations.
DeChambeau acknowledged his immediate future now lies elsewhere but remains open to what comes next. “Beyond that, I’ll go about whatever is next in the right way,” he said.
