Committed LIV Golf pro stunned after waking up to see league is over

Richard Bland has admitted to feeling “surprised” after waking up to discover LIV Golf was shutting for good, revealing that all the signs were pointing towards a positive future.

The 53-year-old was one of LIV’s first signings back in 2022, defending the breakaway tour on a regular basis.

While many of the star names, including Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and David Puig decided to leave LIV amid the uncertainty, Bland had committed his future to LIV 2.0.

Now, though, that future is no more following the news that LIV Golf is on the wind-down, bringing an end to four years of competition.

Bland has now revealed that the announcement caught him off guard when speaking to Martin Dempster of the Scotsman.

“Yeah, I was surprised,” said Bland. I read it for the first time yesterday on social media when I woke up. Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that. Everything I was aware of was positive and it looked like it was going to move forward. So, yeah, to wake up to that was not what I was expecting.

“We were kind of hearing that they’d got the players. Or they’d got enough players that would support it. Obviously they’d have had to get more players, but, yeah, I wasn’t expecting it.”

What next for Richard Bland after LIV Golf collapse?

There is an argument to make that Bland has been one of the biggest winners of the LIV Golf era.

Perhaps not the biggest name, but considering he hadn’t exactly enjoyed plentiful success on the DP World Tour – recording his first win aged 48 – the Englishman will have earnt his fair share of millions across the previous four years during his stint on the breakaway tour.

Indeed, across 61 total events between 2022 and 2026, Bland earned close to $22m. that isn’t taking into account potential signing bonuses.

He also won the 2024 Senior US Open and Senior PGA Championship, but he admits that his future is unclear heading into 2027.

“Obviously it has left me a little bit up in the air,” Bland continued.

“I don’t really have a huge amount of options outside of LIV. Obviously I can come and play on this circuit (the European Legends Tour) if I want to. Right now the Champions Tour is a pretty closed shop, so I can really do anything there for another nine months or so and, even then, I don’t know what I would have. Not much from what I’ve heard. We’ll just have to wait and see.

“But I think it is going to be a much-reduced schedule for me going forward. That’s okay. I’m not much bothered, to be honest, as I’m in a fortunate position where I can wait and see what happens. I’ll maybe play a little bit in Asia, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it next year.

“I’m done kind of chasing the game. I’m not going to chase it any more. I haven’t got the desire to do that. I could rejoin the tour, but my category isn’t going to be great. I don’t want to go to places where I don’t want to be playing. I’d much rather go where I want to play. I’ve kind of closed the book on the DP World Tour and that’s fine, I’ve dealt with that. I’ve got no desire to go back there and play full time.”

While Bland is just one of several who doesn’t know where they will be playing next year, going by his comments, he is content at that fact.