For four years, LIV Golf sold fans one promise: its stars were bigger than the tours they left behind. With the league now reportedly heading toward liquidation, a DP World Tour veteran has decided to test that theory. Bryson DeChambeau, LIV’s loudest salesman, is his case study.
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Eddie Pepperell was blunt on the Sliced Golf Podcast aired on November 4 while discussing who could still carry the breakaway league.
“I think in a lot of people’s minds Bryson holds the key, and I think the answer to that is yes but increasingly no. I think unfortunately for Bryson across the last 12 months he’s become, well in my mind anyway, I see him a little as a little less serious a golfer now than I did 12, 24 months ago certainly when of course he was winning at Pinehurst and still contending to win the major championships.”
The numbers support his criticism. DeChambeau missed the cut at the Masters, PGA Championship and US Open this year. Reports suggest this was the first time in his career that he missed the cut in three major tournaments in a row. However, he bounced back at The Open, finishing tied for 14th. His performance came after a two-shot penalty, and he ended the tournament six shots behind winner Ryan Fox.
Pepperell didn’t pick Pinehurst at random. In 2024, DeChambeau beat Rory McIlroy there by a single shot. He got up and down from a bunker 55 yards out on the 18th, then holed a four-foot par putt, a shot he later called the best of his life. It was his second US Open, four years after Winged Foot.
He followed it with top-10s at three of the four majors in 2025, which is why this year’s slide feels so jarring. He did win twice on LIV in 2026, but those wins came weeks before the league lost its Saudi funding.
Pepperell went further, saying, “I think LIV has been dead since the Saudis pulled the funding.” That decision was confirmed on April 30, after more than $5 billion in backing was withdrawn. LIV filed for Chapter 11 in September.
The exodus followed. Jon Rahm’s separation was finalised in October, and Tyrrell Hatton, Tom McKibbin and Sergio Garcia have since moved on too. Louis Oosthuizen is heading back to the DP World Tour for 2027.
This week, the Financial Times reported that BC Partners has abandoned a proposed $300 million rescue. Sports Business Journal’s Josh Carpenter reported that Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann did not sign up for the relaunch. DeChambeau has not publicly confirmed his plans, and his contract expired at the end of the 2026 season. That report is striking because he had sounded upbeat about LIV 2.0 only days earlier.
Pepperell’s sharpest line may be the broader one. “It’s realizing these players don’t hold as much value across time as we thought they did. Certainly maybe they thought they did.”
That cuts at the heart of the LIV model, which paid for star power up front. The league leaned on a handful of big names, and those names are now walking away.
The options aren’t clear-cut for DeChambeau either. The DP World Tour has said LIV players will not be eligible for 2027 membership, which also closes the Ryder Cup door for Europeans. He does have a huge YouTube following and a reported pathway back to the PGA Tour.
The harder question is the one Pepperell raised. If Bryson DeChambeau wants to be taken seriously again, no content deal can answer it. The only thing that can is a major leaderboard, and the 2027 Masters is a long way off.