Welcome to Issue #26
"The ardent golfer would play Mount Everest if somebody put a flagstick on top.”
Pete Dye
What’s on my mind this week
Full Swing is back and packs a punch (remember Bethpage?), Trump embarrassing Rory like a drunk uncle at a wedding, LIV looking for some love, Oakland Hills take a bow, the PGA Tour returning to Doral for the first time in 10 years and 5 of the top 15 finding something better to do, still waiting for my free McLaren clubs, Matt Fitzpatrick helping his little bro achieve his dreams is something special.
In the news
Why it matters: Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has confirmed it will end funding of LIV Golf after the 2026 season, leaving a league that has cost an estimated $500 million to $600 million a year with no backer and no clear future.
Our Take: The numbers were always the story. More than $5 billion invested over four years, peak TV ratings that barely registered, a PGA Tour merger that never closed, and two of the league's biggest names, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, heading toward contract expiry. PIF's new domestic strategy, which explicitly prioritises Saudi-based economic development, makes LIV Golf, a global sports property with a heavy Western footprint, increasingly difficult to justify as PIF pivots its priorities inward. At roughly $5 billion invested against revenues that remain far from covering operating costs, LIV was always a strategic bet rather than a commercial business. LIV has now appointed an independent board led by restructuring specialists and is actively seeking new investors, while insisting 2026 revenue is up 100% year-on-year. That last number is true and also beside the point. Growing from a very small base while burning $500 million annually is not a business model. It is a countdown. The players who left the PGA Tour for nine-figure guarantees may now face a very different negotiating environment with a tour they left. The next six months will determine whether LIV survives as an independent entity, becomes leverage in a forced merger with PGA Tour Enterprises, or enters an orderly wind-down through asset sales across teams, media rights and infrastructure.
Why it matters: With Hawaii gone from the 2027 schedule and Farmers Insurance ending its 17-year run at Torrey Pines, Sentry Insurance, which holds a Tour sponsorship deal through 2035, is widely reported as the likely new title sponsor in San Diego.
Our Take: This is what a well-structured sponsorship contract looks like under pressure. When the Kapalua water dispute forced The Sentry off Maui, Wisconsin-based Sentry did not lose its deal. It retained a long-term contractual relationship with the Tour and now finds itself in the unusual position of being a sponsor in search of a venue rather than a venue in search of a sponsor. Torrey Pines is the obvious landing spot, though not without logistical and political considerations. Iconic setting, strong broadcast visuals, and a West Coast slot that aligns with Brian Rolapp's post-Super Bowl scheduling ambitions. The vacancy itself also reflects broader sponsorship dynamics, with long-term partners reassessing return on investment in a more ROI-driven sponsorship environment. There is a more intriguing scenario in play. Sports Business Journal has reported that moving Torrey Pines into the FedEx Cup Playoffs under Sentry's banner is a genuine option. It is a compelling idea, though one that would require reshuffling an already tightly structured playoff calendar. Nothing is confirmed until Rolapp's June update at the Travelers Championship. But there is a contract, there is a vacancy, and the logic is unusually clean, even if execution rarely is.
Why it matters: The R&A has confirmed a record $10 million purse for the 2026 AIG Women's Open at Royal Lytham, the sixth consecutive annual increase, while its CEO openly acknowledged the event is not currently profitable.
Our Take: Mark Darbon was unusually direct about the economics at this week's press conference. Asked about profitability, he said directly that if it were the primary goal, there are things the R&A could do to get there. But it isn't. That admission reframes the investment. The R&A is treating the AIG Women's Open as a long-term brand asset rather than a revenue line, using prize fund growth and increased broadcast exposure as the instruments of credibility. Since AIG came on board in 2019, the purse has tripled. The winner's share has more than doubled. And yet the gap to the men's game remains significant, with even the smallest men's major purse exceeding the women's record high by a wide margin. This is a model only governing bodies can sustain. A private owner would struggle to justify the same timeline or level of investment without a clear path to return. That is what makes the strategy both credible and fragile. It depends on institutional patience and continued partner alignment. Success will ultimately be measured in sustained audience growth, sponsor retention, and whether the event can narrow the commercial gap to the men's majors over time. Darbon's honesty is either a sign of long-term commitment or a preview of a more difficult conversation when the AIG partnership comes up for renewal. Either way, it is a position that deserves to be taken seriously.
Pic from Bunkered
Worth your time
Read: How to line up your fourth putt This book proves once and for all that being bad at golf really is a laughing matter.
Watch: Full Swing Only 4 episodes in this series but they cover a lot! Mixed reviews from people who’ve watched it, drop us a mail, let us know what your take is.
Follow: @fullyequippedgolf Golf.com’s home for equipment and gear news.
Feature Story
From the grid to the fairway
Pics from McLaren
On Wednesday 29 April, McLaren Golf launched its website and revealed its first products to the world, and I was excited. The timing was not accidental. Across town, McLaren's Formula 1 team was preparing for the Miami Grand Prix. Two sports, one brand, one carefully choreographed moment of convergence.
In the 48 hours before a single club had been sold, McLaren Golf had signed three ambassadors: Justin Rose, world number five and among the PGA Tour's leading ball-strikers this season; Michelle Wie West, five-time LPGA Tour winner and 2014 US Women's Open champion; and Ian Poulter, one of the most recognisable names in European golf. Rose and Poulter have confirmed equity stakes. Wie West has been reported as an investor, though the specific terms remain unconfirmed at the time of writing. Three signings. Three tours. No standard endorsement fees in sight.
For a brand that announced weeks ago, that is a serious opening statement. But credibility at launch and proven consumer demand are different things, and McLaren Golf has only established the former.
Engineering first
McLaren Golf draws on the combined resources of McLaren Racing and McLaren Automotive, split between the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England and Carlsbad, California. CEO Neil Howie spent nearly three decades at Callaway Golf Europe. CMO Ryan Lauder was a senior director at TaylorMade for 25 years. Director of Engineering Ryan Badgero came from Cobra. Head of Metal Wood Design Matt Greensmith spent 14 years as Principal Engineer at TaylorMade. The people building the clubs have spent their careers building clubs for the brands that dominate the market.
The launch products are the Series 1 and Series 3 irons, priced at $375 per club. The Series 1 is a muscle-back blade for tour professionals and better players. The Series 3 is a cavity-back for the players distance category. Both available through select fitting retailers from 30 April and at mclarengolf.com.
The core technology is Metal Injection Moulding, creating parts with tighter tolerances and more complex geometries than traditional forging or casting. It is not new to golf, Callaway and Cobra have both used it, but McLaren claims applying it across the entire iron head represents a step forward. Whether that is perceptible within USGA limits is a question the market will answer. Rose's preferences shaped the Series 1 over close to two years of development.
The investor model
The most commercially significant detail of this launch is not the clubs. It is the ownership structure, and what it signals about where golf endorsement is heading.
Rose and Poulter are not ambassadors in the traditional sense. Both have confirmed equity stakes, betting on McLaren's success with their own capital and credibility. Poulter said it directly: "As an investor alongside some outstanding people, this promises to be a very exciting journey." Tour usage signals credibility, not performance superiority. Tour professionals play what they are incentivised to play, and serious golfers know the difference. What the equity model changes is the incentive structure. These players are not paid to say the clubs are good. They need the clubs to be good.
This is not just a smart structure for McLaren. It is a directional signal for the industry. For any tour player with genuine leverage, the guaranteed endorsement fee is no longer the obvious default. Equity, creative input and long-term upside are now on the table. The traditional OEM model, brand pays player, player plays brand, both move on, is under pressure in a way it has not been before.
Also confirmed as investor and strategic partner is 8AM Golf, the holding company behind Miura, True Spec Golf and Golf Magazine. That gives McLaren immediate access to premium fitting infrastructure across more than 200 US locations and media reach that would otherwise take years to build. The established OEMs built these capabilities, fitting networks, media channels, manufacturing relationships, separately, over decades. McLaren has integrated all three from day one. That is a structural advantage, not a marketing one.
The Porsche problem
History is not entirely on McLaren's side. Porsche entered the golf equipment market in the late 1990s and quietly exited without meaningful traction. PXG launched in 2014 with tour presence and clear differentiation and still struggled before a pricing repositioning kept it viable. USGA and R&A regulations cap performance differentiation, no manufacturer, regardless of pedigree, can legally outperform competitors by a meaningful margin. Early credibility does not guarantee consumer adoption.
At $375 per iron, McLaren sits above mass premium brands like Titleist and TaylorMade but well below ultra-premium territory. The pricing signals serious golfers, not collectors. Whether they trust a brand weeks old over equipment they have relied on for years is the real test.
The smart moves
The tour footprint is broader than any new equipment brand has achieved this quickly. Rose plays at the Cadillac Championship this week. Poulter takes the irons to LIV Golf Virginia in May. Wie West carries them at the Mizuho Americas Open and the US Women's Open at Riviera. Three tours, three commercial markets, all in the first month of trading.
Announcing Wie West alongside Rose within 24 hours signals a deliberate choice about who McLaren Golf is for. Most new equipment brands default to a male-first strategy for years. McLaren didn't.
The papaya bag Rose carried onto the range at Doral generated more camera time than most equipment launches achieve in a season. McLaren understands visual storytelling in a way most golf equipment companies do not.
Pic from McLaren
Will McLaren Golf get a podium finish
McLaren Golf has launched with credibility, commercial intelligence and structural ambition. The investor model is a genuine innovation. The 8AM Golf partnership de-risks distribution. The timing is well executed.
Converting that into a sustainable business will be decided on narrower ground. Fitting network penetration, repeat purchase cycles and word-of-mouth among low handicappers are the metrics that matter. Premium equipment brands are not built on launches. They are built on the second and third set of irons a golfer orders, and on whether True Spec fitters are recommending McLaren unprompted six months from now.
McLaren knows how to win races. Winning fitting bays is a different competition, one that plays out over years, not race weekends.
One thing from history
The idea that's been killed before
Pic from Getty
On a November evening in 1994, the world's best golfer slipped contracts under hotel room doors. He did it quietly, in the corridors of Sherwood Country Club in California, convinced he had the game's biggest names on side. He was wrong.
Greg Norman had spent months building what he called the World Golf Tour, eight events, forty players, prize money that made the PGA Tour look like a pub competition. First prize at each stop: $600,000, roughly double what winners were taking home at the time. Rupert Murdoch was backing it. Fox Sports would televise every round. Norman believed he was liberating professional golf. The rest of the world thought he was robbing it.
The backlash was instant. Arnold Palmer, whose moral authority in American golf was essentially absolute, summoned Norman to his office at Bay Hill and told him quietly that this was not how the Tour was meant to work. He and Nicklaus had built it to benefit everyone, not to enrich a handful of stars. Norman left the meeting. The World Golf Tour died with it.
The PGA Tour, shaken by how close it had come, responded within three years by launching the World Golf Championships, high-prestige, limited-field events with bigger purses. Essentially Norman's idea, wearing a different badge.
Here is what makes all of this extraordinary. The man who announced LIV Golf to the world in 2022, who signed the players, fronted the press conferences, and spent the Saudi billions, was Greg Norman. He had spent nearly thirty years waiting to finish what he started in a hotel corridor in Thousand Oaks.
This week, the Saudi Public Investment Fund confirmed it is withdrawing its funding from LIV at the end of 2026. The tour Norman tried to build twice is now fighting for its life, again.
David