Sergio Garcia seeks court approval to leave LIV and eyes other tours

Sergio Garcia is seeking clarity in court over his existing LIV Golf contract after the league filed for bankruptcy in September. Garcia’s representatives asked the court to declare the agreement terminated or, alternatively, to authorize Garcia to terminate it himself.

LIV Golf hopes to relaunch as LIV 2.0 in 2027. League CEO Scott O’Neil has described a 10-event season that would not conflict with the global professional golf calendar. Five events would be team competitions, and purses would likely be considerably smaller than those offered by LIV 1.0.

LIV players must decide whether to continue on a diminished circuit while playing as many non-LIV events as possible, or leave LIV entirely. Garcia’s filing suggests he is leaning toward the latter.

“Garcia respectfully requests that any order authorizing rejection of the Agreement provide that the Agreement is terminated or, in the alternative, modify the automatic stay to permit Garcia to effectuate termination of the Agreement in accordance with its terms,” his lawyers wrote.

The lawyers argue that LIV’s bankruptcy constitutes a breach of contract but does not formally terminate Garcia’s agreement. While the contract remains in effect, tournament organizers, sponsors and other counterparties may hesitate to work with Garcia because he cannot clearly represent that he is free of competing contractual commitments.

“So long as the Agreement remains of record, tournament organizers, sponsors, and other counterparties may hesitate before dealing with Garcia, who may be unable to represent that they are free of competing contractual commitments. That uncertainty is particularly acute for a professional athlete, whose tournament schedule, sponsorship arrangements, and participation in other events must be planned well in advance, and whose competitive career is necessarily finite,” Garcia’s lawyers wrote.

Terminating the contract would not necessarily mean Garcia has ruled out playing LIV 2.0. It would simply give him the opportunity to explore other career paths.

Garcia has said he hopes to play more on the DP World Tour in 2027. At the 2026 BMW International Open, he said: “It’s obviously something that I’ve always said that I wanted to do. At 46, I can’t play 30 events a year, but I’m going to make an effort to see if I can at least play a handful and try to do my best there.”

Garcia’s legal disputes with the DP World Tour related to his LIV career have been resolved, and he remains in good standing as a member.

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp also said at the Tour Championship in August that any LIV player seeking to return to the PGA Tour must prove that he is free of contractual obligations to LIV.

“I don’t know the future of LIV. It sounds like they’re working really hard to come up with the next iteration of it. We’ve been consistent. Anyone who’s interested in coming to the PGA Tour needs to demonstrate that they are relieved of their contractual commitments or any tail obligations they might have in that legacy model. Brooks certainly did that, and until then, we weren’t really able to consider anything seriously. I would say the same thing here,” Rolapp said at East Lake. “Any player who is here needs to demonstrate that they’re completely free of any tail obligation for some time.”

That leaves Garcia with a possible path toward the PGA Tour, although his age makes such a move seem unlikely. His LIV contract would still have to be officially terminated.