What is the future of LIV Golf?
It looks pretty sad, but one thing could change everything in a hurry.
It’s common to say - and indeed has been said frequently that LIV Golf is an existential threat to the PGA Tour. Certainly, there is still a real risk that they could continue to peel away stars and dilute the PGA Tour so much that they look good in comparison.
But right now, as the seasons begin for both tours, things look a bit less dire than they did during the middle of last year. LIV stayed in the headlines last year not for what happened on the course, but with the constant news cycle of yet another golfer leaving the PGA Tour for LIV. That has slowed to an absolute trickle and in theory, their fields are set for the year. Were you aware that Thomas Pieters just joined LIV? He’s a top-50 OWGR golfer and this news barely made a peep.
While they do have a TV contract, it’s with the CW, and many top affiliates aren’t airing their tournament on weekends at all, with it only being available via the app during the week. In some ways, though they may technically be reaching more folks this way than on YouTube, it feels like a step backward. This last weekend was quite informative in a few ways that I’m sure Greg Norman wasn’t thrilled with.
The first is patently funny, which is that LIV Golf does not own the LIVGolf Twitter account. Who does? A 15-year old girl named Olivia who is a 33 handicap and has absolutely no interest in letting LIV take it over.
God that makes me laugh. But hey, shit happens. In the meantime, go Olivia! Then some even more serious stuff began to leak, which starts making LIV look less and less like the kind of league we were told it was by so many golfers who joined. If you remember, many of them said they wanted to play less, have more freedom, spend more time with their families, etc.
Well, sure. But when you are working with the Saudis, remember who makes the rules:
(Just a chef’s kiss to John Nucci for maybe the best possible image to use in the above tweet.)
It’s worth following that thread but in short, here are some things that are written into the LIV contracts, which it’s quite possible many golfers did not read before signing:
LIV demands every golfer play every event, and the number of events is up to LIV. This has already increased from 8 to 14. If golfers want to and are eligible to play in majors, that’s 18 events a year, which is basically what most of them played on the PGA Tour.
LIV owns all the intellectual property related to the players (remember Phil Mickelson complaining that the PGA Tour did this? Yikes.)
Players must wear LIV golf branded gear, show up for sponsorship events, not enter into any other contracts (which is hilarious since they’re suing the PGA Tour for this exact reason), must use their social media accounts to promote LIV, participate in LIV media, introduce LIV to their sponsors… man, it goes on and on and on.
Now, I don’t know what a standard PGA Tour contract looks like in comparison, but this is pretty restrictive, and a far cry from what I think the LIV golfers were sold.
But hey, it’s all about the golf, right? Did you know that LIV had a tournament this week? If you live in some markets, you might have caught them on the CW, or the CW app or of course the LIV Golf app. The ratings were meager, but golf is a niche sport so I’m not going to hang my hat on that … LIV seems to smartly be going up against non-premium PGA Tour events and that should help. On the other hand…I mean, what does it mean that Charles Howell III won? It means he made $4,000,000 - plus more because his team won. Can you tell me what team he’s on? Or who else is on that team? (It’s the Crushers, and it includes Paul Casey and two other people I can’t be bothered to check. OK, I checked and it includes Bryson DeChambeau! And Anirban Lahiri! That’s actually a pretty talented team and I had no clue, because the team concept is so, so lamely executed.)
In case you were sitting around thinking, “What are the Crushers all about?” I’m here to help:
They’re here to win, and they’re here to show the rest of the world how it should be done.
That’s right… when Bryson and his boys are on the tee, class is in session.
This is a team that isn’t just thinking outside the box.
It’s crushing the box, then building a better one.
Because while there’s no such thing as perfection, the quest for greatness never ends.
On the Shotgun Start today, they said there are whispers that a lot of golfers are regretting their decision and embarassed at the product that LIV is. I mean, it’s a startup so this is not fair, honestly. (It’s a startup that talks about itself as if it’s the greatest thing in history, which feels quite familiar for someone living in Northern California.)
There’s one thing that could change things, aside from a top-notch golfer looking at all the above and thinking, “Hey, that sounds worth throwing away my career for!” And it is this - a LIV golfer winning a major.
It’s not as far fetched as it sounds. Cam Smith is a beast at The Masters, and obviously his game lends itself to The Open where he’s the reigning champion. If Cam can show up and win (though he couldn’t nudge out CH3 last weekend in Mayakoba), that would be a HUGE PR move for LIV and really give it talking points that it is as legitimate as it pretends to be. Clearly, the tour also has many other former major winners, with Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Mickelson, DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia and others among them. Perhaps only DJ of this group still has the game to win a major in 2023, but it could happen.
For now, in the battle for the professional golf game, the PGA Tour is winning. True changes have started on the PGA Tour and a lot of that is, indeed, a response to LIV, so that’s good for the sport overall. Next year will be remarkably different in a way that I think will truly be transformative in a positive way, and I hope that they live up to that promise. In the meantime, Greg Norman can sit on his bicycle and wonder why it’s not all working out as he’d planned. (Note: It’s because he’s truly terrible at his job.)
Right on Matty with your analysis of LIV Golf. Keep it up.