Deep Dive into the LIV Golf Tour: Eleven Things You Might Not Know
By Bradley Turner Keiser University College of Golf Director of Online Golf Instruction – MBA, PGA
What is LIV Golf?
The LIV Golf Tour is a Saudi Arabia-backed professional golf tour that brings new audiences to the game through a cutting-edge entertainment product. Each week there are 12 teams, with four players each competing for individual and team prize money. The mission of LIV Golf from their website states:
Our mission is to modernize and supercharge the game of professional golf through expanded opportunities for players and fans alike.
To attract the best players in the world, the Saudi sports fund has allocated $2 billion to get the tour off the ground and running. A significant amount of that money has gone to a few golf superstars to entice them to join the new tour. The reported signing contracts make it easy to understand why players left the PGA Tour, with Phil Mickelson receiving $200 million, Dustin Johnson, Cam Smith, and Bryson DeChambeau each receiving close to $125 million.
Greg Norman is the CEO
The Hall of Fame golfer from Australia had envisioned a super tour since the early 1990’s when he was the number one player in the world. The PGA Tour has always required its members to play in about 15 events yearly to retain their membership. This did make it difficult for international players to compete on the best tour in the world and balance out other international events and commitments. The LIV Golf Tour is a step in bringing Norman’s vision from the 90s to reality in 2022.
The LIV Golf Fan Experience
There has been a lot of banter on social media regarding the fan golf experience both at the golf course tournament site and with the live streaming on YouTube. LIV supporters have made it sound like the live-streaming YouTube broadcasts are far superior to anything golf fans have experienced. I watched the final round of the latest LIV event and was not impressed with the second-rate broadcast team. The graphics were fine, but something other than what added to the presentation to golf fans. The PGA Tour and DP Tour broadcasts are a step above the LIV group.
LIV Golf is focused on the fan experience with its slogan, “Golf Only Louder,” with music played throughout the tournament and plenty of interactive experiences for fans. The post-tournament celebration has also included live music for LIV golf fans. Similar to golf but louder, it has had unintended consequences, such as the noise from obnoxious drunken spectators who are happy to be loud and boisterous. The players might be experiencing a different kind of fan, but I am sure they are pleased to have anyone come out and watch.
The Players
At the end of the LIV inaugural season, there have been 68 players competing on the LIV Golf Tour. Here is a snapshot of the quality of the field of 48 players that competed in the season-ending team championship in Miami this past October. The findings below are derived from the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) as of May 28, 2022… the week before the inaugural LIV event in London. Since LIV Golf events do not receive OWGR points, I thought it was fair to assess the standings of all players just before the first event in London. Not sure I would describe the field as the best in the world, but it is getting better each week.
- Ranked 1-50 14 players (Cameron Smith #3…only top 10 player)
- Ranked 51-100 13 players
- Ranked 101-150 8 players
- Ranked 150+ 13 players
Based on the above evidence, most educated golf fans can assess where most of the world’s best players are not playing.
The Teams
The team concept consists of twelve teams with four players each. LIV is modeling its team championship after Formula One auto racing which has enjoyed tremendous success and growth in American viewership. In Formula One, two drivers and ten teams compete throughout the season for a team championship. Fans of Formula One are hardcore fanatics about their drivers and teams. The LIV marketing team’s slogan wants fans to care about the teams; 12 Teams. 48 Players. Intense Competition. New Rivalries.
I don’t see golf fans becoming passionate about Team Crusher facing Team Cleek in the finals, but that remains to be seen. The 12 teams are captained by a top player with some regional bias in creating teams. For example, the Punch team is headed by Cameron Smith, with fellow Aussies Marc Leishman, Matt Jones, and Wade Ormsby on the squad. I am not sure the entire golfing continent of Australia will be glued to the television to watch Team Punch throughout the season-long team championship. With the sophomore year of the LIV Tour starting out in Mexico in February of 2023, it will be interesting to see if these teams will change or stay the same.
The first LIV Golf Team Championship was held the last week in October. The top four teams of the twelve LIV teams earned a bye-in on the first day of the championship, with the remaining eight teams seeded based on the season standings. There was no individual purse for the professionals in the team championship, which was very interesting from my perspective. The four players were competing as a dedicated team, which is rarely the case in professional golf.
After day one, four teams were eliminated, and the remaining eight players were in the quarterfinals to determine those making it to the final four. The last day consisted of four teams, with all player scores counting toward the team score. The winning team in the first season of LIV Golf was the 4Aces consisting of Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch, and Pat Perez. The payday for the 4Aces was an impressive $16,000,000 for the week.
World Wide Venues
The 2022 LIV Golf Tour venues were not exactly “bringing golf to the world,” as the marketing slogans have implied; five of the eight events were hosted in the United States, with the three others in England, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia. In 2023, the tour is reported to have 14 events starting in February and ending in September. The tentative schedule for 2023 has 9 of the 14 events played in America, with the remaining worldwide events including Canada, Australia, London, Spain, and Singapore. When Greg Norman said, “I’m a big believer in growing the game of golf on a global basis,” I do not think his actions supported his statement. The PGA Tour, in contrast, will play in Bermuda, Canada, Japan, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and twice in Mexico. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour have been growing the game of golf globally for several years.
Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR)
This is the kryptonite of the LIV Golf Tour. Currently, OWGR is not awarding points to LIV Golf Tour events. There are 22 professional golf tours that receive OWGR points with fields that are very weak compared to the LIV Tour, and they are also 54-hole events. In defense of the LIV Tour, “Ponte Vedra… we have a problem.”
The official world ranking points system is used by many tournaments to invite players to their competitions. The OWGR has been in existence since 1986 to identify the best players around the world. Players earn points based on the quality of the players combined with the depth of the fields. The PGA Tour and DP World Tour (European Tour) have much deeper fields, with 156 players, versus the LIV Tour, of only 48 players. Currently, the quality of the players on the LIV Tour has increased since the inaugural tournament in June, but the LIV Tour has a long way to go to field the best in the world.
The Majors
Of the 68 LIV Tour players who played in 2022, only nine are fully exempt into the Masters in 2023 based on exemption criteria from last year. The exempt players include Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia, Charl Schwartzel, Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson, Cameron Smith, and Bryson DeChambeau. The Masters has yet to make a statement about the LIV Golf Tour and invite other players to Augusta National in April. With the OWGR as a primary tool to invite players into all the major championships, we may see limited LIV Tour players participating in the majors in 2023.
Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup
Apparent casualties with the LIV Golf Tour are the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup. This past September, several players from both sides were not allowed to compete in the Presidents Cup as they must be members of the PGA Tour or DP World Tour in good standing. Henrik Stenson was appointed the European Ryder Cup captain in 2023 but was replaced after joining the LIV Tour. These two team events have historically brought the best in the world together for spirited competition. This may be a different case, with some of the best in the world playing on the LIV Tour.
Currently, No Broadcast Partner
NBC Sports own the Golf Channel, and CBS has been a PGA Tour broadcast partner for decades. In America, this leaves only ABC and FOX as potential partners for the LIV Golf Tour. Securing a contract with one of these broadcast companies can be a huge win for Norman and the LIV Tour. Viewership on YouTube may be one day rival that of NBC and CBS, but that is going to be around for a while.
The Future of LIV Golf is Unknown
I anticipate seeing the LIV Golf Tour for the next three years. Having an oil daddy is excellent to start, but the tour will need to survive economically. The revenues generated must meet the obligations of player signing bonuses and the enormous purses of each event. The two major obstacles to the long-term viability of the LIV Tour are the Official World Golf Rankings and finding a broadcast partner to help drive revenue. A professional golf tour is a business venture that requires revenue to operate. Suppose the Saudi group decides that this experiment is not of interest anymore. In that case, they could take their oil money elsewhere, leaving the LIV Tour stranded at the bottom of an abandoned oil well somewhere in Saudi Arabia.
