LIV Golf purses are going up in 2026, according to a report -- though it won't all be going directly to the players themselves.
Sports Business Journal reports that LIV Golf tournament purses will increase for their 13 individual-centered events in 2026, going from $25 million to $30 million.
Currently, the $25 million purses for the 13 individual events (the team championship purse is $50 million) features a $20 million purse for the 54-player individual tournament and a $5 million purse for the team-based competition involving 13 four-person teams. All 54 players competing in the individual competition are paid a minimum of $50,000 for finishing the 54-hole event.
The top three teams in the team competition are currently paid from the $5 million purse ($3 million to first, $1.5 million to second and $500,000 to third). After the first few seasons of LIV Golf, however, that money was not split among the players on those three teams. Instead, the money was paid into the coffers of each team to cover their broader expenses, including travel, staff and marketing.
The SBJ report indictes the additional $5 million in prize money will mean that the bigger $10 million team-competition purse will be paid out among all 13 teams. With several teams, including the Cleeks, HyFlyers, Iron Heads and Majesticks, often struggling to cash in LIV Golf events, their competitive team subsidy works out to be much lower compared to more successful teams like Legion XIII, the Crushers and Torque.
In a manner of speaking, the Saudi owners of LIV Golf are passing through money to themselves with these team-purse increases. The Saudi Public Investment Fund, which owns the vast share of LIV Golf overall, owns 75 percent of each of the 13 teams in the league. The captains of the teams own the other 25 percent. The increased team payouts, then, are somewhat of a passthrough from the overall ownership to the teams.
LIV Golf has been successful in bringing in new partnerships in 2025 under new CEO Scott O'Neil, including with HSBC, Salesforce and MGM Resorts. The financial value of those deals, though, to both the league and its players is unclear publicly. The Public Investment fund has invested an estimated $5 billion so far in LIV Golf, according to the Money in Sport newsletter. The purse increases represent an additional $65 million annually, and LIV Golf will have to re-sign several key players whose contracts are expiring this year and next.
The Saudis appear prepared to continue investing in the golf product, perhaps for the dual purpose of backstopping its teams but to also potentially use the league for striking broader economic development deals to benefit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
