LIV Golf star frustrated with ‘rat’ in player group chat

LIV Golf has a matter of days to secure its future, but one player is frustrated that a mystery ‘rat’ in a private group chat is not helping the cause by leaking information to the media.

When Thomas Detry made the bold move to LIV Golf last winter, he could scarcely have believed the tumult that would follow.

But even after LIV filed for bankruptcy this month, and with the league wading through a murky path to survival without Saudi Arabia’s multi-billion backing, Detry insists he has no regrets over his big decision.

“I’ve had one of the best years of my life,” the Belgian tells TG at Wentworth, where he is getting ready for the BMW PGA Championship. “For my golf, it’s been great. For my lifestyle, it’s been even better. My wife and the kids are really happy.”

Detry has finished inside the top-10 seven times in 12 LIV starts and while he concedes those fields are not as deep as the PGA Tour’s, he says they are “very top-heavy, so any any top five or top seven is a really strong performance”. The 33-year-old has made over $11 million in prize money and has relished traveling in a team with Dustin Johnson and his childhood friend Thomas Pieters.

But the days of those mind-bending Saudi-funded purses are over and like his LIV colleagues, Detry is waiting on whether LIV 2.0 – a reimagined league with 10 events – can be salvaged.

For that to happen, LIV will need to convince enough of its top stars to commit their futures so a $300 million deal with its “lead investor” BC Partners to go through. It’s understood that players have been offered to sign a non-binding agreement so LIV can gage player interest levels.

“It’s obviously a shock for everybody, but we knew it was coming,” Detry says of the bankruptcy news. They’ve got amazing financing. BC Partners is one of the biggest hedge funds out here in London. They clearly see the value in the teams and they see the value in this league. So now it looks like it could be something really great again. Obviously, they’ve made some mistakes with LIV 1.0, and hopefully, they can rectify that and work on it.”

For now, though, it is a waiting game. Detry is grateful for the updates provided to players by LIV executive Scott O’Neil on a group chat, but senses that a problem has emerged from betrayals of trust.

“Scott keeps communications very open,” he explains. “We’ve got a player group chat. It seems like there’s a rat in there. It seems like we’re just trying to keep all the stuff between us and it seems like most of the stuff is being released out there all the time quite quickly. So it’s not easy to keep confidential things confidential. But they’ve really improved with the communications.”

Detry added: “None of this stuff is really game-changing that was leaked. But still, we’re trying to keep something confidential in the group. And the idea that someone might transfer it to the media, to someone else, is not really fun to know.”

Detry is one of many LIV players here at Wentworth for the BMW PGA Championship facing uncertain futures. He appeared locked in for the PGA Tour’s lucrative Signature Events this year after a standout 2025 season highlighted by an epic maiden victory at the WM Phoenix Open.

But the outlook is now more precarious and the doors of Ponte Vedra are (at least temporarily) closed.

“I would love to stay,” he says. “I really enjoy LIV. But we’ll see what happens. Obviously, the golf ecosystem is changing all the time. So, we don’t really know if fines are going to start here in Europe. We don’t really know what the deal is.”

Indeed, the matter for several LIV players is now complicated by the DP World Tour’s resumption of their hardline stance on dual members. Next year, Wentworth HQ won’t be granting the same conditional releases which has spared Detry and eight others bans and fines for violating their conflicting tournament rules this season. So if players do sign with LIV 2.0 and gain equity in a league, there will be consequences for those hoping to balance their schedules.

“I still have to figure out a lot of things,” Detry adds. “But if you told me now that I could play anywhere in the world and LIV, I would be 100% in for LIV and fill in my schedule with some majors and DP World Tour events. That would be my dream. I’d be delighted to play there.

“I’m just trying to focus on my golf right now. That’s why I haven’t really talked to the DP World Tour yet. But I think this week will be a good week to do it.”