LIV Golf tease first player signing ahead of 2026 season
Martin Kaymer's LIV Golf team will reportedly announce the replacement for Denmark's Frederik Kjettrup on 19 November.
Golf fans are speculating which player is headed to the breakaway tour after LIV teased their first signing ahead of the new season.
LIV brought the curtain down on their third full campaign in August at the $50m team championship in Michigan.
A week prior six full-time players were relegated and have not yet been replaced.
Henrik Stenson, Andy Ogletree, Mito Pereira, Yubin Jang, Anthony Kim and Frederik Kjettrup finished in the drop zone and will have to look elsewhere for playing opportunities.
Former Open champion Stenson, 49, has reportedly settled fines of more than £1m with the DP World Tour and is planning a return to the European-based circuit.
The aforementioned Kjettrup was a member of Martin Kaymer's Cleeks outfit and it appears the German's team will announce his replacement tomorrow.
On 18 November, they teased:
A new chapter begins. 11.19.25. pic.twitter.com/eiFvwYfiRl
— Cleeks Golf Club (@Cleeks_GolfClub) November 18, 2025
Kaymer told bunkered that he hired a Finnish analytics and stats company to crunch the numbers and help evaluate potential signings.
"We have probably 10, 12, 15 names on our list that we're looking at," he said in October.
"Interest from their side, interest from our side, and now we look into stats to make a leaderboard.
"Who would be statistically the best player from those on the list? Then we make a leaderboard, and then we go from there. But we're still in the early process right now."
Names floated by golf fans on X include the likes of Victor Perez, Matthieu Pavon, Antoine Rozner, Martin Couvra and Romain Langasque.
Saddier was one of 10 DP World Tour players that earned their PGA Tour cards over the weekend at the season-ending finale in Dubai.
Should Saddier link up with Kaymer then it would pave the way for Daniel Brown to grab his PGA Tour card.
Brown was the unfortunate bubble boy who just missed out on duel membership.
The Englishman would be keen to avoid a repeat of what happened with last year's bubble boy Jordan Smith.
Tom McKibbin grabbed the last card on offer, only to join LIV Golf.
By the time McKibbin agreed his reported $5m two-year deal, it was too late for Smith to be bumped up.
Smith managed to get over the line this year, though, sparking emotional scenes.
Take a look at the LIV Golf teams for 2026
Scroll down...
Jon Rahm (c) |
Tyrrell Hatton |
Caleb Surratt |
Tom McKibbin |
Cameron Smith (c) |
Marc Leishman |
Matt Jones |
Lucas Herbert |
Joaquin Niemann (c) |
Carlos Ortiz |
TBC |
Sebastian Munoz |
Ben Campbell |
Matthew Wolff |
Peter Uihlein |
Bubba Watson (c) |
Dustin Johnson (c) |
Thomas Pieters |
Patrick Reed |
Harold Varner III |
Brooks Koepka (c) |
Jason Kokrak |
Talor Gooch |
Graeme McDowell |
Louis Oosthuizen (c) |
Charl Schwartzel |
Dean Burmester |
Branden Grace |
Phil Mickelson (c) |
Brendan Steele |
Cameron Tringale |
TBC |
Kevin Na (c) |
TBC |
Danny Lee |
Jinchiro Kozuma |
Bryson DeChambeau (c) |
Paul Casey |
Charles Howell III |
Anirban Lahiri |
Lee Westwood (c) |
Ian Poulter (c) |
TBC |
Sam Horsfield |
Sergio Garcia (c) |
Abraham Ancer |
David Puig |
Luis Masaveu |
Martin Kaymer (c) |
Richard Bland |
Adrian Meronk |
TBC |
Ben Smith joined the GolfMagic team in September 2021, initially as a content executive.
These days, he assumes the position of content manager.
