Bryson DeChambeau finally breaks silence on LIV Golf amid mass exodus and $100m severance demands

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Bryson DeChambeau has gone against the grain. As many golfers flee LIV Golf in the wake of its bankruptcy filing, DeChambeau has committed himself to continuing on. The LIV star has committed himself to the next iteration of the leagueGettyThe $5 billion Saudi-backed breakaway league was forced to file for bankruptcy after the Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced their intentions to remove their funding after 2026.But DeChambeau, who is one of LIV Golf’s biggest stars, is optimistically looking ahead to the future to what the league is calling ‘LIV 2.0’, after securing a $300 million investment from BC Partners in October. “The point of it is that the team golf stuff, I was very excited about,” the 33-year-old said in an appearance on Raj Shamani’s How To Become Elite At Anything podcast. “I really care, and I still do care deeply about the team golf stuff. And the top company just wasn’t really managed that effectively. And I know that now… I didn’t know that during the time.“Our teams were doing very well. Like our teams, we generated almost $29 million last year in revenue,” he added.“We had $21 million in cost just from payment of players and expenses and travel and everything. So we made $8 million EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) last year.“And the teams were doing well, but then all the player payments and everything got pushed down to the teams when they went bankrupt because the top company wasn’t being run effectively.“Which, no fault to each other, it’s just we thought that there was a lot more capital that was going to be at play with the guys that were funding it. Yeah. And it didn’t work out.”These comments are the first that the two-time Major champion has made since the announcement that a cohort of 10 or so golfers, and spearheaded by Dustin Johnson, were seeking legal expertise to demand $100 million in severance payments for unpaid contracts.None of the claimants in this cohort, including Thomas Detry and two-time Masters winner Bubba Watson, have yet to put pen to paper on the restructuring agreement for LIV 2.0. Dustin Johnson leads a cohort of over 10 players seeking a settlement from LIV over unpaid contractsGettyDeChambeau believes that LIV 2.0 will be a huge successGettyThey join names including Tyrrell Hatton, Ian Poulter, and Tom McKibbon, all of whom have already made clear of their intentions to not compete in the league. They join Jon Rahm, who declared the proposed relaunch as ‘unacceptable’ after quitting the league in October. Rahm’s decision to walk away came at a personal cost, leaving $100 million (£75.5 million) of what he was owed on his contract on the table. As many are hesitant to commit to playing in the newly revamped league for next year until they receive all the clarity they need to make a final decision, DeChambeau’s decision to commit his future to the unproven project is particularly striking. This is because the American was initially reported to have been involved in talks with the DP World Tour about adding more tournaments to his schedule.However, this avenue was very quickly slammed shut with the news that the DP World Tour was banning players who signed up for LIV 2.0. As for his feelings over what lies ahead, DeChambeau strongly believes that this time around things are “going to be done right” in an effort to ensure that the new-look league “hopefully exists forever.”Sign up for talkSPORT Stateside, the YouTube channel dedicated to passionate US Sports fans. Will Gavin, Brian T. Smith, former NFL star Efe Obada and a collection of special guests debate the biggest talking points across the NFL, soccer, NBA and more.