The Quick Verdict
Sir Nick Faldo gave an interview to Today's Golfer, published around 25 July 2026, headlined on why LIV Golf failed. In it he said "So many things were a mess." Past tense. Two days later a syndicated version carried the line as "So many things are a mess." Present tense, no mention of the original interview, and with his sharpest criticism cut out entirely.
One letter. It turns a man writing an obituary into a man filing a complaint.
What he actually said
The full passage, in the original, runs roughly like this. Things were a mess. Everyone got excited about the shotgun start, but a friend of his in television production described the problem: eighteen golfers hit, then eighteen golfers walk, then they all hit again. They tell you not to blink or you'll miss it — and you did miss it, because you watched one shot and missed the other seventeen. He calls it a television nightmare.
Then the small field. You'd be bored out of your brains, he says, playing the same fifty-odd players week after week. Some of their ideas, in his summary, were questionable.
And then the line that didn't make the syndicated version at all. Asked what LIV's biggest failing was, Faldo went not to format but to the money: he cannot believe they sat down and decided the great idea was to make unknown golfers extremely rich.
That's the best sentence in the interview. It's also the one that got dropped.
Two things worth knowing about the shotgun-start argument
First, it isn't his. It's his friend's. An unnamed friend, in television production, at an unspecified broadcaster, and we're not told whether the man has ever worked on a LIV broadcast. By the time it reaches you it's third-hand — producer to Faldo to interviewer to aggregator to reader.
It might well be right. It sounds right. But it's the single most-quoted claim in this whole story and it's an anonymous remark relayed by someone with no stake in television.
Second, and nobody in this coverage mentions it: LIV moved to 72-hole events for the 2026 season. The old three-round, 54-hole framing that half of Faldo's back catalogue rests on has been out of date since November. His no-cut objection still stands, because there still isn't one. The 54-hole part doesn't.
He has been saying this since 2023
This isn't a new position. It's a very consistent one.
January 2023: he called the tour meaningless, said the format sounded crazy, described the defectors as mid-40s players taking the easy option, and argued LIV players should be out of the Ryder Cup. Later that year, hosting the British Masters, he predicted LIV as constituted wouldn't survive the PGA Tour–PIF framework agreement — nobody was really interested, and the sponsorship wouldn't come. In 2025, on talkSPORT, he said the absence of a cut had removed the players' edge and that "some of those players have gone soft." He compared the business model to something no bank manager would sign off.
Three years, one argument, delivered with more conviction each time.
So was he right?
Here's where it gets more interesting than the headline lets on, and where I'd resist the tidy version.
On the outcome, it looks like he may be. LIV is reportedly in serious financial trouble. The Saudi Public Investment Fund is withdrawing funding at the end of this season, after more than $5bn over four years. Around $350m is reportedly needed to continue. Martin Kaymer put the $40m season finale at roughly a five per cent chance. Seven players are said to be preparing exits, and Graeme McDowell is planning a DP World Tour return.
On the mechanism, he predicted something different. Faldo said LIV would fail because nobody was interested, the sponsorship wouldn't arrive and the format was boring. What's actually reported to be happening is that the owner decided to stop writing cheques. Those aren't the same story. Plenty of well-watched leagues have died because the money left, and plenty of dull ones survive on subsidy indefinitely. Predicting the destination isn't the same as predicting the road, and after the fact the two tend to get quietly merged.
And on "gone soft," the evidence genuinely cuts both ways. Faldo used Jon Rahm's opening 78 at the 2026 Masters to make the point. But Rahm went into that week having recorded 29 top-10s in 30 LIV starts, with a worst finish of T11, ranked second in the world by Data Golf. He also used DeChambeau, who had missed three cuts in three 2026 majors — while having won the 2024 U.S. Open, finished second at that year's PGA, and added a T5 Masters, a T2 PGA and a T10 Open in 2025. To golf.com's credit, they pointed that out at the time. Almost nobody else did.
Pick your example and you can prove either case. That's usually a sign nobody has actually measured anything — and nobody has. There is no ratings data in any of this, and no performance study. Two testable claims, zero tests.
Who's talking, and from where
Worth saying plainly, because it doesn't make him wrong but it does place him: Faldo is a six-time major champion, a former Ryder Cup captain, a DP World Tour great, the retired lead golf analyst at CBS and a regular Sky Sports contributor. He is, in every professional sense, the establishment. LIV is the competitor to the tours whose broadcasters have paid him.
On competitive mentality and what tournament golf demands under pressure, he's about as qualified as a human being can be. On television economics and sponsorship markets — which is where the bank-manager line and the "nobody's interested" prediction actually live — he's a golfer with opinions. I couldn't find a single broadcast executive, ratings analyst or sports economist quoted anywhere in this story.
About that headline
"What Sir Nick Faldo has been told about LIV Golf" is doing some work. The only thing he was told is the TV producer's line. The rest is what he thinks, and has thought publicly since 2023.
One more thing to check if you're reading around: the syndicated version puts his career at 43 worldwide victories. The original interview says 40 professional titles, from 1977 to 1998. Another source has him at 30 DP World Tour wins. Nobody explains what's being counted. Six majors — three Masters, three Opens — is agreed everywhere, so use that. And if you see him listed as 66 or 67 somewhere, that's not an error, just an old article; he's 69.
FAQ
What did Nick Faldo say about LIV Golf?
That so many things "were" a mess, in a Today's Golfer interview about why the league failed.
Is the quote present tense or past tense?
Past tense in the original. A syndicated version rendered it in the present.
What's his problem with shotgun starts?
That they're unwatchable — you see one shot and miss seventeen. The argument came from an unnamed friend in TV production.
What did he call LIV's biggest failing?
Deciding to make unknown golfers extremely rich. That line was cut from the syndicated version.
Has he said this before?
Repeatedly, since January 2023 — on Sky Sports, talkSPORT, the Sky Sports Golf Podcast and at the British Masters.
Did he predict LIV would fail?
Yes, in 2023, on the grounds that nobody was interested and the sponsorship wouldn't come.
Is LIV Golf actually failing?
It's reportedly in serious financial difficulty, with PIF funding ending this season. That's a funding decision rather than the audience collapse he forecast.
Is he right that no cut makes players soft?
Unproven either way. Rahm's 29 top-10s in 30 LIV starts and DeChambeau's 2024 U.S. Open win complicate it considerably.
Does LIV still play 54 holes?
No. It moved to 72-hole events for 2026, which dates part of his criticism.
GOLFRAW's Take
I have no particular brief for LIV and I think Faldo lands a proper punch with the bit about making unknown golfers mega rich — that's the thing that actually grates, and it's the thing that got edited out. But look at what happened here. A man gives a reflective interview about a league he thinks is already dead, and within forty-eight hours it's been reheated into a present-tense broadside with his best line missing and an anonymous producer's opinion promoted to the headline. Nobody lied. Somebody just changed one word from "were" to "are" and let the rest do the work. If you want to know why golf discourse feels like the same six arguments on a loop, that's why. The quotes get recycled faster than anybody checks them, and when the underlying subject genuinely is in trouble — which LIV appears to be — the actual story gets lost under three years of the same soundbite.