It’s a tense time for some of LIV Golf’s biggest names as they ponder which tour they will be playing on in 2026.
It’s that time of year again where the LIV Golf stars who finished in the league’s Open Zone start to worry about where they will be playing their golf next season.
Any player ranked 25th to 48th in the standings may have avoided being relegated, but it does mean they can be released if their contract has expired.
One of those players is Graeme McDowell.
The Northern Irishman helped Smash GC to a 4th-place finish at the Team Championship, but it’s been another win-free season for both the Brooks Koepka-led team and McDowell – whose last title came, somewhat ironically, at the 2020 Saudi International, which was then a DP World Tour event.
There have been glimmers for McDowell, though. While it wasn’t his highest-placed finish in the season-long race, the 46-year-old did record his best result in an individual event with a runner-up at LIV Golf Virginia, where he led for much of the tournament before being overtaken down the stretch by a rampant Joaquin Niemann.
In an interview with BBC Sport, McDowell admitted his LIV Golf status is “TBD” and that “there’s work to be done over the next two months to confirm” his contract, but he remains hopeful.
The former world No.4 added: “I have conducted myself well, played well enough, and gave myself a chance to win in Virginia, but the consistency hasn’t been there.
“I expect to be back again with LIV. The main thing is I feel highly motivated to try and win. I haven’t had a chance to pick up a trophy in LIV yet individually and that’s the goal moving into next year.”
But if things don’t go as expected, McDowell has a back-up plan as he looks to return to the Ryder Cup fold ahead of the 2027 matches at Adare Manor.
“If I thought I wasn’t playing LIV in 2026, the DP World Tour is something I would transition back into to give myself one or two last seasons to see if I still have it or not,” he said.
One DP World Tour event he won’t be playing in, however, is next month’s Amgen Irish Open at The K Club.
“I decided I didn’t want to play there this year because I didn’t want to go and make up the numbers,” he added. “I didn’t want to go there with no other reason but just to play another Irish Open.
“I like to play with a bigger picture and a bigger goal in mind.”
McDowell is also hopeful the framework agreement can finally come to fruition to end the so-called civil war at the top end of men’s golf, particularly now Brian Rolapp is in place as the PGA Tour’s new CEO.
“There’s a healing process that needs to happen – how long that takes, I don’t know,” he admitted.
“The politics of the game of golf eventually have to get figured out and we have some good people at the helm – a new chief executive at the PGA Tour and Scott O’Neil, our chief executive at LIV. They are great guys and great relationship builders.
“The best players in the world need to play together more often – that is the headline. Rory [McIlroy] doesn’t want to play 25 times a year, so you only have a certain number of weeks to take the best players and put them together – outside of the four majors. “LIV is trucking along. The product continues to get better and better.
“A lot of people maybe don’t love it yet, but looking from the inside I think we are doing a better job every season.”
About the author
News editor and writer. Probably entertainer third.
He is a keen golfer who claims to play off 12 and enjoys traveling the world to try new courses. His three favorites are Royal North Devon, the Old Course at St Andrews, and Royal Portrush – with special mentions for Okehampton and Bude & North Cornwall, where he first fell in love with the game.
He uses a combination of Ping, TaylorMade and Callaway gear, and once bought the Nike SQ driver which he absolutely did not immediately regret.
