Martin Kaymer, captain of the Cleeks LIV Golf team, told reporters on Wednesday that it is “extremely unlikely” the course will host the August team final in Michigan.
The news was first reported by Ben Parsons of Today’s golferwho spoke to a “disappointed” Kaymer ahead of this week’s LIV Golf UK event.
It comes as the embattled league tries to secure funding for next season after cutting off support from Saudi Arabia earlier this season.
Kaymer said he expects the next three LIV tournaments – this week in England and subsequent meets in New Jersey and Indianapolis – to go on as scheduled, but unless there is a sudden change, the Michigan team final scheduled for the St. John’s Cardinal tournament in Plymouth, Michigan, will not take place. (He put the odds at five percent.) The previously scheduled event in New Orleans was postponed indefinitely.
One quote from Kaymer stands out in the report. He toyed with the idea of moving the team event to Indianapolis for a week and ended up thinking about a LIV year.
“On the other hand, how do you expect a team to win the whole season if you don’t have a team competition? We have to be honest. The whole season has been a bit of a…,” he told TG. “So many things have happened. New Orleans has been cancelled. Probably the last tournament has been cancelled. So I think it’s important to just finish the season and hopefully we’ll have a plan for 2027.”
Kaymer added that he was not disappointed in the future of the league; he echoed his fellow captains’ hopes that they could “press the reset button” to create a smaller version of the LIV in the future; CEO Scott O’Neill hopes to secure funding by September. Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter said this week they have helped the league find potential investors, and Jon Rahm said the league is keeping him informed but has no concrete guarantees about its future.
“I’m not going to share anything with you that I can’t share right now,” he said when asked if he was going to play with LIV next season.
The news from Michigan comes on the heels of the Asian Tour’s exit from its agreement with LIV in favor of a partnership with DP World and PGA Tours, announced Tuesday.
You can read more about Kaymer here.