LALI STANDER: LIV is here to stay, shaking up the world of golf

This week I glanced back at the columns I’ve written over the past 18 months, and LIV Golf is that gift that keeps on giving. Every few months the Saudi-backed golf tour pops up for some reason. For the staunch PGA Tour and DP World supporters and the traditionalists, they are almost always making headlines for all the wrong reasons. For those in the LIV Golf camp, it’s for the greater good of the game. Me, I’m planted on the fence, and it’s been a helluva entertaining ride. 

Late in 2021, it looked like the “uprising” of what appeared to be a very expensive sportswashing exercise would be quashed by the powerful PGA Tour.  

A few months later, in early 2022, the organisation, driven by Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson, crushed that idea by announcing its nine-event schedule launch. The events were based mostly in the US, but also stretching to the UK, Asia and the Middle East and worth a mind-boggling $250m. 

When LIV began announcing the first players that signed up a few weeks later, shrieks of shock and horror echoed around the world. 

To be honest, the first “defectors” Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia and Martin Kaymer, and the subsequent sign-ups Ian Poulter, Bubba Watson and Graeme McDowell were quite possibly past their prime. Others like Jason Kokrak and Kevin Na never really moved the needle. Yet, it was still an unexpected shock to see guys not short on money choose the other side and the loss was further compounded when SA’s biggest Major hopes — Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace —  took their leave and the likes of Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, and Joaquin Niemann also abandoning the regular tours. 

When the newly crowned Open champion Cameron Smith became LIV Golf’s most high-profile signing just weeks after his 2022 triumph at St Andrews, it really signalled to all the naysayers that the Saudi-backed golf tour was here to stay. And if anyone still had lingering doubts ... a 14-event schedule for 2023 that includes more events outside the US, killed any notion that LIV Golf would die a quick death. 

It all reminds me of the vibes around cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL) when this initiative launched back in 2008. There was the same measure of excitement from diehard fans, kickback from the traditionalists and fear and threats from the official golf bodies around the world. Might just be so long ago, but it feels like the IPL settled itself on the global cricket scene with so much more ease; I don’t remember it being such an increasingly and ongoing bitter dispute like the one between LIV Golf and PGA Tour. 

Last month — as LIV Golf celebrated the roaring success of their first venture to Australia — the DP World Tour got a favourable ruling under arbitration on their conflicting event policy. Within a few days, the second biggest golf circuit came down hard on 26 players who played on the Asian Tour or under the LIV Golf League banner without release from the tour, issuing stiff fines ranging from £12,500 to £100,000 for every event they played without release. And that was in addition to the £100K fines imposed on the 17 others who had played LIV Golf’s opening two events in London and Oregon in 2022. 

As I write this, Westwood, Garcia, Poulter, Richard Bland and Henrik Stenson have already resigned their long-time memberships. It’s a safe bet more than a few will follow suit in the next week or two. 

On the upside, all the ongoing controversy and drama is sure providing a lot of work for plenty of lawyers, but according to Major champion Rory McIlroy, there is also the glint of a silver lining on the dark cloud bank. 

One of the biggest critics of the breakaway league, McIlroy last week said in a press conference that not everything since the emergence of the LIV Golf League has been bad.  

It did force the PGA Tour into some changes for their new-look 2024 schedule. Eight tournaments with elevated purses, FedExCup points and reduced 70-78 player fields has been designated “no cut” events, which will no doubt delight the top tier. “I’m not going to sit here and lie; I think the emergence of LIV or the emergence of a competitor to the PGA Tour has benefited everyone that plays elite professional golf,” McIlroy, a four-time Major winner and the most outspoken member of the PGA Tour’s Players Advisory Council, said. “I think when you’ve been the biggest golf league in the biggest market in the world for the last 60 years, there’s not a lot of incentive to innovate. 

“This has caused a ton of innovation at the PGA Tour, and what was quite an antiquated system, is being revamped to try to mirror where we’re at in the world in the 21st century with the media landscape.” 

The reality is, like McIlroy said, that the PGA Tour isn’t just competing with LIV Golf. Or with other sports. It’s also competing with Instagram. With TikTok. With blogs and whatever else is competing for eyeballs and drawing attention away from the tour. 

Whether you are a fan or not, LIV Golf has had an immense influence on the game. But McIlroy might be a little off the mark when he concluded: “I think everyone who’s a professional golfer is going to benefit from it going forward.” 

I think some people will agree with me that LIV Golf is the gift that keeps on giving.