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The Spaniards Are Going Home

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Three Spaniards, one bankruptcy court and a sudden fondness for the DP World Tour.

When LIV Golf set out to buy the professional game, Spain lent it some of its most recognisable names: Sergio Garcia and a then-amateur David Puig at the launch in 2022, and Jon Rahm, the reigning Masters champion, at the end of 2023.

Within a single week this October, all three headed for the exit. The cheques, for the most part, have already cleared.

LIV Golf exodus

How LIV Ran Out of Road

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund decided to stop funding LIV at the end of 2026, having reportedly spent more than $5 billion on the project. On 8 September the league filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New Jersey, owing between $500 million and $1 billion to at least 1,000 creditors — Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau among the largest. (Al Jazeera, Skratch)

The rescue plan, LIV 2.0, promises a shorter schedule, player equity and a new lead investor. It also needs star players to make the sums work. A league built on the idea that money solves everything has discovered the drawback of not having any.

One Week in October

On 7 October Rahm’s lawyer told the bankruptcy court that the two-time major champion had reviewed the LIV 2.0 terms and found them unacceptable. He leaves with three consecutive LIV individual titles and, according to court filings, more than $100 million still owed on his contract. The same court released Garcia that week.

Jon Rahm tees off at a LIV event in 2026David Puig tees off at LIV Houston

The following day Puig, 24, used the first round of the Open de España at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid to confirm he was out too: “I don’t see myself playing in the LIV 2.0.” He holds a full DP World Tour card and intends to use it. (Golf.com, Golf Monthly)

Who Is Left

Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed had already gone. Joaquin Niemann, LIV’s most prolific winner with nine individual titles, is reported to be next, while Cameron Smith and Tyrrell Hatton remain undecided.

The DP World Tour has helped them think it over: chief executive Guy Kinnings says anyone signing for LIV 2.0 will not hold membership next year. Richard Bland, 53, says he is staying. Somebody has to turn the lights off. (GolfMagic, Golf Digest)

Why It Matters If You Play Rather Than Watch

Rahm’s first stop is the Abu Dhabi Championship, 4–8 November, and he is expected to base himself in Europe in 2027. Puig plans a full European season. That puts Spain’s biggest names back on Spanish tees — this year the country staged DP World Tour events at Real Club de Golf El Prat near Barcelona in May and in Madrid in October. (Golf Digest)

Cork oaks line a fairway at Real Club Valderrama in SotograndeWhether LIV ever returns to Valderrama, which hosted its Andalucía event in June, is anybody’s guess. Valderrama is not going anywhere, and nor are the rest of the Costa del Sol’s courses, the October sunshine or the pescaíto frito at lunch. The Spaniards have decided there is no place like home. They may have a point.

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Browse our Spain golf holidays and play the courses the Spaniards are coming home to.

Open de Portugal Returns to the DP World Tour — and to Oitavos Dunes

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Back in the top flight. Back at Oitavos. Back until at least 2029.

Seven years after it last appeared on European golf’s main circuit, the Open de Portugal is returning to the DP World Tour — and to the Atlantic links west of Lisbon that hosted it four times in the 2000s. The 2027 edition, renamed the Open de Portugal Cascais-Lisboa, will be played at Oitavos Dunes from 13 to 16 May, the first of three years at the venue. Portugal has not staged a DP World Tour event since the Portugal Masters in 2022. It is making up for lost time. (RTP, Diário de Notícias)

Fairway at Oitavos Dunes running towards the Atlantic, Cascais, Portugal

Back in the Top Flight

The Open spent the past six years at Royal Óbidos on the Challenge Tour, golf’s second division, and played its 64th edition at PGA Aroeira 1 only last month. Promotion places it in the European Swing of a 2027 season of at least 42 events in 24 countries. (Diário de Notícias)

Founded in 1953, it is one of the oldest tournaments in European golf, and the roll of winners carries some weight: Colin Montgomerie, Thomas Bjørn, Sam Torrance and Miguel Ángel Jiménez among them.

It rounds off a busy stretch for Portuguese golf. The PGA TOUR Champions made its debut at The Els Club Vilamoura this summer, and the Legends Tour arrives at Pinheirinho, Comporta, on 30 October. Aroeira loses the name but keeps the golf — its operator plans to hold a Challenge Tour event there until 2028. (Flashscore)

Why Oitavos

Arthur Hills laid out Oitavos Dunes in 2001 inside the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, moving as little earth as he could get away with. The par 71 passes through three landscapes — umbrella pines, sand dunes and open coastline — on an out-and-back routing any Scot would recognise. (Portugal Golf)

From the back tees it runs to 6,967 yards, and the stretch from the 11th to the 14th is where it earns its reputation, closing with a par 3 played along the shoreline. Fairways are generous, greens firm, and the Atlantic decides most of the rest. On a still day it is a fine golf course. On a windy one it is a links.

Oitavos Fairway with sailing ships

Making a Week of It

Cascais is fifteen minutes from the first tee and Lisbon around half an hour, so Oitavos anchors a trip rather than filling one. It is the headline; Penha Longa and Quinta da Marinha make sound complements, both close by. Off the course, the menu writes itself: grilled fish on the Cascais seafront, travesseiros from Sintra, and a bica before the drive out.

The Oitavos hotel, a short walk from the 1st tee, has been closed for renovation and is expected to reopen in January 2027. That leaves four months’ grace before the tournament, which in hotel renovations counts as a comfortable margin.

Cascais Marina

Tournament Week, or the Weeks Either Side

Tickets and the full programme are due to be announced in the coming months. Golfers who would rather play Oitavos than watch it should aim for the spring weeks either side of the event — the professionals will by then have kindly demonstrated where not to miss. (Time Out Cascais)

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Browse our Lisbon golf holidays and play Oitavos Dunes before the field arrives in May.

Camiral: The Course Booked for Golf’s Next Ryder Cup

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Catalonia’s two championship layouts, six years before the crowds arrive.

Camiral, in the Girona countryside an hour north of Barcelona, has just been named host of the 2031 Ryder Cup. It is only the second Spanish venue in the competition’s history, following Valderrama in 1997, and the decision changes what a round here means. The two championship courses have always been serious golf. Now they come with a deadline attached.

Golfer checking in a golf travel bag at airport departures before a golf holiday

A Second Ryder Cup for Spain

Ryder Cup Europe’s selection of Camiral makes Spain the first country on the continent to host the event twice, a decision framed by chief executive Guy Kinnings as recognition of Spanish golf’s long-standing contribution to the competition. Sergio García remains the Ryder Cup’s all-time points leader, and Jon Rahm has been one of Europe’s defining players across the last three editions. Camiral now carries that history forward. (ESPN)

Stadium and Tour — Two Different Tests

Camiral operates two courses, and they reward different games. The Camiral Stadium is the tougher of the pair, having hosted a DP World Tour event three times, most recently in 2022, and the European Tour’s Qualifying School Final Stage on seven occasions since 2008.

Camiral Stadium course fairway with the Girona countryside behind, Costa Brava
Next door, the Camiral Tour was built to the same standard but wider, with larger greens that give a broader range of handicaps a fair shot at scoring well. Both share ground that was originally earmarked for a Grand Prix circuit before Formula 1 relocated to Montmeló — golf got the better draw. Between now and 2031, the resort will also host the Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship each year from 2028 to 2030, so the countdown is already on the calendar. (ESPN)

Camiral Tour course, the kinder option

Girona and the Costa Brava Table

The resort itself, now trading as Camiral after years as PGA Catalunya, sits a five-minute transfer from Girona airport. Girona itself is worth the detour on a rest day — a walled old town of stone stairways and a cathedral that climbs straight up from the Onyar river, with a market culture built on Catalan cooking rather than tourist menus. Barcelona is an hour away if the trip stretches to a long weekend either side of the golf. (The Independent)

Historic Old tow Girona

Play It Before 2031

Ryder Cup venues rarely get quieter as the event approaches. Valderrama’s profile only grew after 1997, and Camiral will follow the same curve — more attention, fuller tee sheets, and eventually a course that plays host to the loudest week in golf. Six years is not a long runway. The Stadium and Tour courses are booking-ready now, at a stage where a serious golfer can play the same fairways the world’s best will contest without the surrounding circus.

Camiral joins a shortlist of courses that will only get harder to book quietly. Browse Costa Brava golf holidays and get there ahead of 2031.