Former Major champion Graeme McDowell has laid out his plan to move on from LIV Golf, or at least to make sure he has somewhere to land if the league doesn't survive past this year.

The timing isn't a coincidence. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund confirmed in April that it will stop funding the league once the 2026 season ends, and the fallout has only intensified since.

And now, McDowell, one of the league's original 2022 signings, told BBC Sport that regardless of what happens to LIV, he intends to be playing on the DP World Tour next year.

“There’s no doubt there are headwinds,” McDowell told the BBC.

 “LIV are working incredibly hard behind the scenes trying to bring investment in. As players, all we can do is support and be good assets. Regardless of whether LIV Golf can find a solution to continue, I’ll play as a European Tour player in some way, shape or form next season, assuming the Tour still want me and we can figure that relationship out.”

PIF has reportedly put more than $5 billion into the league since its 2022 launch. So when they announced the stoppage, it left CEO Scott O'Neil trying to find replacement money to stay afloat for the next season.

But the pressure is not coming from one place. On July 21, the PGA Tour and DP World Tour announced a new partnership with the Asian Tour, which had previously been a key feeder for LIV.

LIV had invested about $300 million into the Asian Tour to build the International Series, a set of events that helped support LIV’s wider structure. With that link now weakened, LIV has lost more than just a partner.

On top of that, LIV’s own schedule is cracking. The New Orleans event was postponed in late June, and it never got a new date.

 Earlier this week, LIV Golf's Cleeks GC captain, Martin Kaymer, told Today’s Golfer that the season-ending team championship in Michigan has only a five percent chance of happening.

Still, the question remains: Is McDowell actually clear to go back?

By his own account, yes. The paperwork side of it is already done, he said. McDowell told the BBC he settled his outstanding fines with the DP World Tour at the end of 2023.

And the 2010 U.S. Open Champion added that the conversations with the tour this year have been productive enough that the two sides have agreed to sit down again in November to work out a concrete plan for 2027.

Even as he plans his exit, McDowell holds no bitterness about joining LIV Golf.

"In April and May of 2022, I was contemplating the end of my career," he told the BBC.

"I'd even been on the phone with TV networks thinking about commentary. LIV gave me a runway to keep competing. Here I am four years later, still chasing my dream every day. I'll always be thankful for that."

But McDowell isn't the only one planning an exit.

According to the golf-insider account Flushing It earlier this week, seven LIV players have said privately they intend to leave the league after this season regardless of whether new funding materializes.

The players are breaking into three groups. Younger golfers want to follow the path Patrick Reed and Eugenio Chacarra already took. They will build status on the DP World Tour and use it to get back to the PGA Tour.

Older veterans are looking at the PGA Tour Champions, the senior circuit.

And the third group, never had DP World Tour status to begin with, will use Asian Tour eligibility from the International Series to find playing spots.

Read more at Club Golf!

Written by

Md Saife Fida