If I Had $5 Billion To Spend On Golf: Life After LIV

LIV Golf is officially over. On Thursday, the league's attorney told a New Jersey bankruptcy judge the company is "toggling to a value-maximizing winddown." Five years and more than US$5 billion in Saudi money later, that's how it ends.

It was a failed experiment. It wasn't a pointless one. LIV pushed the PGA Tour to rethink how it pays players and how it builds its schedule and maybe pro golf needed that jolt.

But here's the question I can't stop thinking about: LIV burned through $5 billion and has a liquidation to show for it. If I had $5 billion to spend in the golf ecosystem, how would I spend it?

Here's my list. Fair warning: you can't buy all of it.

1. Endow youth golf (and 10x its impact)

Start with the kids because that's where golf's future gets decided. Put the money in an endowment, spend only the earnings and the funding never runs out.

Here's the scale. In the U.S., the First Tee's national organization took in about $34 million in 2024. Last year, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation announced a $10-million grant. Youth On Course took in around $25 million.

A $5-billion endowment paying out conservatively four to five throws off $200 to $250 million a year. Every year, forever. That's roughly 10X Youth On Course's annual revenue.

This doesn't account for all of the other youth golf organizations and local chapters but even short of that, it changes what's possible for junior golf.

2. Buy the venues

Pro-caliber golf real estate ranges wildly in price. PGA National, home of the Cognizant Classic, reportedly sold for $425 million in 2025. Innisbrook, home of the Valspar Championship, is reportedly selling for about $20 million. That's a gap of more than 20 times between two PGA Tour stops.

So 10 comparable resorts could cost anywhere from roughly $200 million to $4.25 billion. On the private side, the Club at New Seabury on Cape Cod reportedly went for $60 million-plus and Bain's reported $1.3-billion valuation of Concert Golf works out to about $33 million for each of its 39 clubs. My guess is the clubs capable of hosting real events run closer to $50 million. Do the math: 100 of them or 12 jewel resorts is $5 billion.

Own the venues and you decide where the events go.

3. Buy Acushnet

This one is the budget buster. Acushnet, the parent of Titleist and FootJoy, has a market cap of about $5 billion on roughly $2.7 billion in sales and $220 million in net income.

But a market cap isn't a price tag. Takeovers come with premiums (a 25-percent bump puts the equity near $6.3 billion) and Acushnet carries about $1 billion in net debt. Misto Holdings, formerly Fila Holdings, controls roughly half of the voting power through its Magnus subsidiary so the real conversation is with them, not the stock market.

Is it worth it? You'd own Titleist and FootJoy outright. You also wouldn't have a dollar left for anything else on this list but Acushnet Company is generating a healthy annual EBITDA right now so nothing to shy away from.

4. Buy Invited and Troon

Invited owns private clubs. Troon manages courses for owners who'd rather not. Between them, that's 150-plus clubs and more than 825 locations.

The catch is the price tag. KSL only closed on Invited in June, reportedly for $2.6 billion to $3 billion. Troon's owners, TPG and Leonard Green, are reportedly exploring a sale at north of $2 billion. Add them up and you're at $4.6 billion or more, just about our whole budget.

Also, KSL's ink is barely dry and there tends to be a lot of delayed investments needed with these types of deals. Good luck with that call.

5. Own the simulators

Simulators are where a lot of golf is heading and a handful of companies sit at the center of it. Full Swing is going to Versant for $530 million. Vista Outdoor paid $474 million for Foresight Sports in 2021. Leonard Green agreed to buy 60 percent of Topgolf last year at a $1.1-billion valuation. Add those up and you're around $2.1 billion, with Trackman and the rest still to price. That leaves real money for 5 Iron Golf, Back Nine or both.

One problem: Versant, which already owns Golf Channel, GolfNow and GolfPass, got to Full Swing first. Somebody's already playing this game.

6. Own the manufacturing

Here's a dirty little secret of the equipment business: nobody owns their own club factories. We've said as much in MyGolfSpy. Even the biggest brands outsource and based on what we've seen, a small handful of factories and component makers sit behind a big chunk of what's in your bag.

Some of them don't even need golf. Chuo, Mizuno's Japanese forging partner, makes precision auto parts first and golf second.

Buy the right few and you don't need a brand at all. Every brand has to call you.

7. Own the back end of the course

Nobody gets excited about tee sheet software. That's exactly why I like it. Lightspeed, Jonas, foreUP, Whoosh, Noteefy and a handful of others run the booking, pricing and payments behind thousands of courses. One industry review pegs the whole category at north of $400 million.

That's pocket change next to everything else on this list. And whoever owns the pipes sees who plays, when they play and what they'll pay.

It wouldn't be a quick shopping trip. Constellation Software owns Jonas and Lightspeed is publicly traded.

8. Bet big on YouTube

The Internet Invitational proved the YouTube audience is there: 20 million viewers versus the Masters' 14 million. This year's Invitational purse? $4 million. You know what's cooler than a million dollars? A billion dollars.

The audience is proven. The money hasn't shown up yet. Fund real production budgets and pay creators like athletes.

9. Build a women-first golf company

Ida Sports rejects the "shrink it and pink it" model. It built soccer cleats around the female athlete's foot first and it has announced just two funding rounds: a $2-million seed in 2024 and a $3-million raise last month.

Now picture that mindset across all of golf. Equipment, instruction, recreational play and the pro game, all built for women first, all under one roof.

The LPGA might even welcome it. Commissioner Craig Kessler has said, "if I were an investor thinking of coming in as a partner of the LPGA, now is the time to do it." The tour's 2026 prize fund is a record north of $128 million. Your $5 billion is nearly 40 times that.

10. Your turn

That's my $5 billion. You can't buy all of it and several of these swallow the whole budget by themselves so the real question is which ones you'd pick.

What would you do in golf with $5 billion? What did I miss? Let me know in the comments.