LIV Players and Why They Went

An analysis.

After watching Full Swing and seeing how things have gone of late, I think it’s important to realize that not every golfer fled for the LIV tour for the same reason.

Well, that’s not exactly true. They all left for a big bag of money.

God this is all so, so weird.

But the individual motivations of WHY they chose to chase the cash is a bit different. And here’s my unsolicited analysis of why most golfers made these decisions. Note that golfers can fall into one or more categories!

Past Their Prime, One Last Bag of Cash.

This is the category that most golfers fall into. These are golfers who, when looking in the mirror, know that they’ll never win a major again, may not win a PGA Tour event again, and saw a massive amount of money being dangled and thought they simply couldn’t refuse it. This list includes these guys:

• Paul Casey

• Sergio Garcia

• Chucky Three Sticks (Charles Howell III)

• Martin Kaymer

• Graeme McDowell

• Phil Mickelson (tough after he won the 2021 PGA but bear with me)

• Kevin Na

• Louis Oosthuizen

• Ian Poulter

• Charl Schwartzel

• Henrik Stenson

• Bubba Watson

• Lee Westwood

My Legacy Is Set, Why Not Grab the Bag?

• Dustin Johnson. This is a 1 of 1 here. DJ has won two majors, a LOT on tour, and is clearly a Hall of Fame golfer and one of the very best of his generation. Does winning a 3rd major change any of that? No. Does $125,000,000 from LIV plus winnings (something like another $35MM last year) change things for him? Well, probably not for him or Ms. Gretzsky, but it’s hard to turn down that money. It’s a win-win for him, and he truly doesn’t care what folks think about him.

  

The “How Could I POSSIBLY turn this down?”

These golfers don’t have the resume of guys on the above list, but similarly are in a position where the life changing amount of cash dangled in front of them means there’s literally no reason to say no (aside from basic moral fiber):

• Richard Bland

• Branden Grace

• Matt Jones

• Sihwan Kim

• Chase Koepka

• Jason Kokrak

• Danny Lee

• Marc Leishman

• Jed Morgan

• Pat Perez

• James Piot

• Brendan Steele

• Cameron Tringale

• Peter Uihlein

• Harold Varner III

• Bernd Wiesberger

I Can Still Play In The Majors, so…why not?

This includes a bunch of folks who still have major exemptions. There’s really only one or two guys here who can likely still WIN majors but if that’s what matters, the current issues LIV has with world ranking points is irrelevant.

• Bryson DeChambeau (2020 U.S. Open)

• Cam Smith (2022 Open)

• Dustin Johnson (2020 Masters)

• Brooks Koepka (2019 PGA Championship)

• Patrick Reed (2018 Masters)

Note that while Masters and Open winners are invited back to their tournaments essentially for life, they are exempt from other majors for five years. So Reed will be on his last exemptions everywhere but Augusta this year.

Seeing Brooks as a broken shell of a man, saying he simply can’t compete with guys like Scottie Scheffler was … quite something.

The “Hey, PGA Tour - FUCK YOU!”

This is a surprisingly deep roster of players, some of who have appeared above as well. While some guys like Garcia and Reed were always the villains of the tour, it’s a shame to see Mickelson, McDowell and Westy here.

• Sergio Garcia

• Graeme McDowell

• Phil Mickelson

• Pat Perez (now - though he was praising them before he got an offer from LIV)

• Ian Poulter

• Patrick Reed

• Lee Westwood

  

The “Nobody Is Really Sure WHY” guys

These are guys who DO have a lot of promise, don’t have major exemptions and all probably have their own reasons, but are probably making a mistake in every aspect but their bank accounts. All of them would have been poised to win a PGA Tour event and maybe compete in majors, but likely will not have a chance to do either for some time.

• Abraham Ancer

• Eugenio Chacarra

• Talor Gooch

• Anirban Lahiri

• Sebastian Munoz

• Joaquin Niemann

• Carlos Ortiz

• Mito Pereira

• Thomas Pieters

• David Puig

• Matthew Wolff

Note that I would have put Jason Kokrak on this list but he’s been very vocal about wanting to quit golf as soon as he had enough money, so I think we know exactly why he’s with LIV.

I’m fairly sure that’s the LIV roster, but if I’ve left anyone out it’s probably for the best. LIV seems to be “set’ for this year, and I wonder how long anyone will pay attention. They could still remain an existential threat to the PGA Tour, but right now it’s becoming increasingly irrelevant. Glad that all these guys already got paid.