LIV Golf Michigan, the league’s $40 million team championship, is set to be officially canceled after the status of the 2026 season finale had come under serious doubt last week, sources tell Front Office Sports.
An official announcement on the cancellation is expected on Wednesday, according to golf media personality Tom Hobbs, who runs the Flushing It social accounts, which first reported the news.
LIV Michigan had been scheduled for Aug. 27-30 in suburban Detroit at The Cardinal at Saint John’s Resort, which is owned by the Pulte Family Charitable Foundation. Spokespeople for LIV Golf, Saint John’s Resort, and the Pulte Family Charitable Foundation have yet to respond to a request for comment from FOS.
As of early Tuesday afternoon, there had not been any internal announcement or memo to players about the cancellation, one source told FOS. But the news does not come as a surprise to anyone inside or around LIV.
The team championship was one of two events FOS sources had pegged last month as being at the most risk of being canceled as a sentiment grew among those in and around LIV that the funding from the Saudi PIF—which has announced it would stop funding LIV after this season—could dry up even earlier than expected. The other event at most risk, per sources, was LIV’s regular-season finale in Indianapolis Aug. 20-23, but that is currently scheduled to still take place.
“I don’t think they’ll ever get to Michigan,” one source told FOS last month. LIV CEO Scott O’Neil also wouldn’t guarantee that all four remaining events would take place as scheduled.
Last week, Martin Kaymer, captain of LIV’s Cleeks GC team, told Today’s Golfer that the team championship event scheduled was “highly unlikely” to be played after leaving a captain’s meeting led by O’Neil with lingering questions. There has also been no infrastructure buildout at the host course, which also hosted LIV’s 2025 season finale last August. Aramco, the Saudi-owned oil company, was a primary sponsor of LIV Michigan.
This year’s team championship is supposed to pay out $40 million in prize money, with the winning squad taking home $11.2 million, which is down from $50 million and $14 million, respectively, in 2025. Last year’s season finale, also at The Cardinal, included concerts by Imagine Dragons and Swedish House Mafia. No musical acts for next month’s event had been confirmed.
This marks the second LIV event this season to be canceled. LIV Golf Louisiana, which was going to be the league’s debut tournament in New Orleans in late June, was canceled in April.
The removal of Michigan from LIV’s schedule reduces the league’s event total this season from a planned 14 tournaments to 12, and leaves just two more this year: LIV Golf New York at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey Aug. 6-9 and LIV Golf Indianapolis at The Club at Chatham Hills. Both of those events are set to have the standard $30 million purses that LIV events have paid out this year.
LIV is still seeking new investors to replace the PIF’s financial backing, aiming to raise up to $350 million to keep the league alive in 2027.
