LIV Golf's Korea Open boost did not survive the week. The breakaway league has reportedly pulled back a sponsorship top-up it had previously committed to the Korea Open — leaving Asian Tour players to be told by email, on the Monday morning of the event, that the championship's purse would revert to its original 1.4 billion won.
The news, reported by Flushing It and amplified on The Shotgun Start podcast on Wednesday, lands awkwardly for LIV at a time when its broader funding picture is already under scrutiny. The Korea Open — co-sanctioned through The Open Championship's qualifying series and offering a place in the 2026 Open via the R&A's qualifying pipeline — had announced what would have been the largest prize fund in tournament history a few weeks ago, jumping to two billion won on the back of roughly $500,000 in additional support from LIV.
Then, on the Monday of the event, players in the field were told the additional support had been withdrawn. The purse was going back to 1.4 billion won.
"At the end of April, they're like, '$500 grand in prize money support from LIV Golf, the two billion won, the largest in tournament history,'" Andy Johnson said on The Shotgun Start, summarising the announcement chain. "Then Monday morning, you commit or you change, you figure it out — the Korea Open becomes what it is. Monday they get an email saying, 'Due to reduced sponsorship, we're going back to the original 1.4 billion won.'"
Co-host Brendan Porath was more sympathetic to the practical decision than the optics.
"Not great. But if you're LIV at this point, [you've] got to save money. You just pull it back where you can," Porath said.
The optics, regardless, are awkward for the Asian Tour and for the players already in the field. Bubba Watson, Anirban Lahiri, Danny Lee and Richard T. Lee are among several LIV-affiliated players in the Korea Open this week, lured in part by the prospect of a chunky purse and a back-door route into the season's third major. They will now compete for what amounts to a meaningfully smaller pot than the one advertised at the end of April.
The withdrawn support arrives against a backdrop of broader scepticism about LIV's financial trajectory. Bloomberg Podcasts on Tuesday confirmed reports that LIV Golf is currently seeking funding — a striking phrase for a property whose entire pitch since 2022 has been deep-pocketed Saudi sovereign-wealth backing. Recent coverage from the Wall Street Journal, also discussed on The Shotgun Start over the past fortnight, has questioned whether the Public Investment Fund's commitment to the venture has begun to taper. The Korea Open reversal will not, on its own, settle that argument. But it is the kind of small, real-money pullback that supports the case.
For the Asian Tour, the timing is particularly difficult. Co-sanctioning the Korea Open with the R&A's Open Qualifying Series gave the tournament a sporting prestige it had not always carried. LIV's brief sponsorship boost gave it a financial one. The combination produced what looked, briefly, like one of the biggest weeks the Asian Tour calendar has ever seen. Stripping the financial side back at the eleventh hour reduces it again to something much closer to its long-standing baseline.
It also raises a fairly open question for The Open Qualifying Series. The Korea Open's spot in the Open Championship field is unaffected. But the willingness of high-profile LIV players to keep chasing those qualification slots — through Asian Tour events LIV had, until this week, been talked up as wanting to grow — is now an open question.
LIV Golf has not, at the time of publication, publicly commented on the change in support. The reduced 1.4-billion-won purse remains the tournament's official prize fund. The fight for the three Open Championship spots, and the chance to play Royal Birkdale this July, continues regardless.