LIV Golf has taken blow after blow in recent weeks as it races to secure its future. Since the start of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy hearings, the league has seen several pros abandon it.
After the DP World Tour announced LIV players would be banned from its events next year, the departures accelerated.
Most of those players are eyeing the DP World Tour for playing time in 2027, with the PGA Tour out of reach, for now.
On Thursday, new reports added two now former LIV Golf players to that list: Thomas Pieters and Charles Howell III.
Here’s what you need to know.
The first shoe to drop on Thursday afternoon came by way of Flushing It Golf, which reported that Pieters would not be signing up for LIV 2.0 for 2027.
Hours later, Josh A. Carpenter of Sports Business Journal reported on X that LIV pro Charles Howell III would also be departing LIV.
In the reports, both players were said to be seeking DP World Tour starts next year instead.
With its recent rule change, the DP World Tour forced players to make this very decision: either play on the DP World Tour or LIV Golf in 2027.
But Pieters and Howell III are in much different situations when it comes to the European circuit.
Before joining LIV Golf ahead of the 2023 season, Pieters had accumulated six DP World Tour wins, most recently at the 2022 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. He also played on the European Ryder Cup team in 2016.
In other words, Pieters’ DP World Tour ties run deep.
Not so for Howell III.
The American pro played most of his golf on the PGA Tour before leaving for LIV. He won three times on Tour from 2002-2018. But he has barely ever played on the DP World Tour.
While he did compete in the 2026 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship this October, where he missed the 54-hole cut, Howell III’s last DP World Tour starts before that were the 2020 U.S. Open and Masters. You can add to that one WGC event in 2020 and another in 2019.
Howell is currently ranked 510th in the Official World Golf Ranking, which raises this question: how does he expect to qualify for DP World Tour starts in 2027?
By rejecting LIV, he isn’t barred from European tournaments. But he also doesn’t have DP World Tour status.
Following that logic, Howell III would require an invite to play DP World Tour events in 2027, which would take away a spot from other aspiring DP World Tour pros.
That exact scenario is what angered DP World Tour regular Joost Luiten earlier this week, when he criticized LIV pros trying to play the DP World Tour in 2027.
“Four years ago they didn’t give a s— about the DP World Tour. They made a decision to go after the money. And now all of a sudden, the money is gone and they want to come back and act like nothing happened,” Luiten told Today’s Golfer. “I don’t think that’s right.”
Pieters and Howell III join Jon Rahm, David Puig, Abraham Ancer and Adrian Meronk on the list of former LIV Golf pros who have confirmed they are leaving the league.
Rahm’s decision came in court two weeks ago, before the DP World Tour’s LIV ban was announced.
Puig, Ancer and Meronk announced their departures shortly thereafter.
Then, in a bankruptcy court filing on Wednesday, lawyers for LIV Golf said the decision to move forward with LIV 2.0 or to instead “wind down” operations is expected to be made by the end of the month.
They also raised “anti-competitive concerns” in relation to the DP World Tour’s decision to bar LIV players from its events.
But that’s not all that happened in court on Wednesday. LIV Golf also rejected the existing contracts of 19 LIV Golf players, among them Bryson DeChambeau.
By doing so, the league officially cut ties with those players. That allows DeChambeau to openly negotiate with other tours about the 2027 season. It does not, however, mean that DeChambeau or any of the other players will not sign up for LIV 2.0 if it happens.
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