Welcome to Issue #44
“Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect”
Arnold Palmer
What’s on my mind this week
Do former Tour pros really need their amateur status back? Lahinch sold out for the Walker Cup, golf's amateur game doing just fine, thanks. Ryder Cowan has never played in a rain jacket, good chance that changes this week. Golf Digest getting into the business of golf, we knew this stuff would catch on eventually. Can't wait to see Michelle Wie West and Lottie Woad in the same league. Darts, cricket and football stars turning up at the Solheim Cup, eventually everyone becomes a golfer. And no splitting the ‘G’ at Adare Manor in 2027 as Heineken gets the stout rights.
In the news
Why it matters: The Financial Times reports that LIV Golf may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as soon as the week of September 7th, with PIF potentially providing a bankruptcy loan of less than $100 million and LIV sending settlement offers to players owed guaranteed payments beyond 2026.
Our Take: The real signal is what Chapter 11 could accomplish. LIV spent more than $5 billion proving that sovereign capital could create an elite golf league almost overnight. Bankruptcy protection would now determine what that league is really worth once historic liabilities, guaranteed contracts and unconstrained spending are stripped away. Settlement offers reportedly worth only a few cents on the dollar are the clearest expression of that revaluation. What LIV committed to under PIF's spending model is not what LIV can afford under conventional investment discipline, and the difference has to be closed before any credible LIV 2.0 can operate. Bloomberg Law reports that BC Partners is exploring an equity-like investment structured to preserve LIV's net operating losses. Accumulated losses can potentially offset future taxable income, making their preservation commercially valuable to a post-restructuring business. The interesting question is whether BC Partners wants to invest in LIV as it exists, or in the cleaner company that emerges after restructuring. Chapter 11 provides the mechanism for delivering the second option.