LIV Golf’s interesting and wild first season comes to a close

The inaugural season for LIV Golf ended over the weekend, bringing to a close the most disruptive year in professional golf since the PGA Tour split from the PGA of America in the late 1960s.

It’s been an interesting and wild first season for the organization backed by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. It’s moved through conceptual, to unusual, on to provocative and then to shocking and back again.

From the jaw-dropping amounts it paid to top players to join its side – said to total up near $1 billion – to the controversial statements by its CEO Greg Norman to the lawsuits filed against the PGA Tour and by the PGA Tour, there have been few dull moments.

There were also eight tournaments that included a player draft, post-event concerts, anti-Saudi protests and champagne victory celebrations.

Through it all, most of the attention for LIV Golf has been from the rewards the golfers are reaping. And with good reason. On the course, Dustin Johnson has collected $35 million, $18 million of that coming as a bonus for winning the individual title and another $4 million for his share of the team championship.

If the rumours are right, he also picked up $125 million as his signing bonus, meaning his total is in excess of $160 million. The amount is simply shocking, considering it took Johnson 14 years to make $75 million on the PGA Tour.

“I really regret my decision to come here,” deadpanned Johnson after the final individual stop in Thailand two weeks ago. “It’s just so terrible. I’m sitting there last night thinking about it; it was really bothering me a lot. Yeah, just can’t get over it.”

It’s not just the big names earning big dollars. Gobs of money was spread far and wide. Less accomplished players, such as Peter Uihlein, were able to cash in big cheques. His winnings for the first LIV season topped $12.5 million or almost three times what he collected during his decade on the PGA Tour where he never won a tournament and was 394th on the career money list.

Aside from the money, LIV brought other alterations to the traditional golf tournament format that have been eye-catching: the 48-player fields, the no-cut rule and the shotgun starts. Those drew mixed reviews from fans, with some suggesting it seemed more like a member-guest tournament than a professional championship.

The change that seemed to bring the most interest was the team format. Players competed individually and as part of a team at the same time (except for the final event, which was all about the teams). LIV hopes to build teams that will operate as franchises that can be sold. Each franchise will have a major player as part owner with the opportunity to earn more money if the team increases in value.

There’s little doubt that LIV Golf has shaken golf’s foundation. In its abbreviated first season, it has certainly stirred the pot and upset what had been a fairly traditional sport on the professional level.

Phil Mickelson, the first big player to jump to LIV and its biggest backer, declared two weeks ago that the new circuit was trending upwards while the PGA Tour was going in the other direction. After getting called out on those comments by Rory McIlroy, the lefthander walked them back while still proclaiming the success of his new home.

“Maybe I shouldn't have said stuff like that,” admitted Mickelson. “I don't know, but if I'm just looking at LIV Golf and where we are today to where we were six, seven months ago and people are saying this is dead in the water, and we're past that. Here we are today, a force in the game that's not going away, that has players of this calibre that are moving professional golf throughout the world and the excitement level in the countries around the world of having some of the best players in the game of golf coming to their country and competing. It's pretty remarkable how far LIV Golf has come in the last six, seven months. I don't think anybody can disagree with that.”

Mickelson is not wrong. LIV Golf has carved a deep place in the golf landscape in a short period of time. But most of that has been due to the money being handed out in contracts and winnings. There’s been very little attention focused on the actual product on the course. Few golf fans can recount any great finishes or magical shots from this year’s tournaments. In fact, it’s safe to say not many can remember which players won which events.

That has been LIV’s biggest problem in its first season: the money has stolen the headlines. In June at the RBC Canadian Open, McIlroy battled Justin Thomas and Tony Finau down the stretch at St. George’s before tapping in for a 64 and defending his title north of the border. It was the on-course competition that the massive crowds remember, not the size of the first-place cheque.

At the same time in London, Charl Schwartzel captured the inaugural LIV tournament, with Hennie Du Plessis in second, and Brandon Grace and Uihlein tied in third. They were followed on the leaderboard by Sam Horsfield, Oliver Bekker and Adrian Otaegui.

Outside of a past-his-prime Schwartzel grabbing the $4 million first-place cheque, it wasn’t hard to guess which tournament garnered more attention.

LIV will need to change that. The best way is to show the product to the world, something that it hasn’t done with any extended reach. LIV Golf was seen only on its own website, YouTube, or online streaming service DAZN, not exactly the first places you think of for your Sunday afternoon golf fix. Canada did get some screen time on television with CHCH, a Hamilton, Ont.-based station with national reach, airing some rounds. The same happened piecemeal in a number of other countries, but there was no major broadcast partner. 

LIV has been unsuccessful in getting a deal with a television network yet, although it says it is in negotiations. The major U.S. networks have turned down LIV mostly due to previous arrangements with the PGA Tour. Apple and Amazon, two other possibilities, stated they ended negotiations about being the home of the tour. LIV may have to resort to buying time on a network and then selling its own advertising. That’s not an ideal method but there don’t seem to be many other options.

There’s also the matter of crowds on site, which were mostly smaller than PGA Tour stops. They did increase as the season progressed, with decent galleries in Boston, Chicago and Miami, but tickets were offered on resale sites for as little as a dollar.

For its second season, in addition to shifting the focus from cheques to shots – which might be tough with a total purse of $405 million – there are other things LIV needs to do, some small and others quite significant.

That list will include figuring out how its players can earn world ranking points and access major championships, right down to getting a website that seems functional and operates in real time (as an example, there was no live scoring for the first event). While it’s at it, turning off the army of LIV Twitter bots might help its image, too.

Although the next tournament won’t be until February, there is still lots ahead in the coming weeks. There is the battle with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, which is likely to be played out in the courtroom rather than the golf course, and it’s expected that more big-name players will make the jump from the PGA Tour to LIV.

On its side, the PGA Tour has had to react to LIV. It has drastically changed its schedule, creating a series of elevated tournaments with big purses, some of which is being funded by its reserves. It still has the biggest stars in the game, the best courses on which to play and a brand-new television contract. While it may have been forced to react and respond, it is still very much the world’s top golf product.

LIV Golf would like to change that, of course and it isn’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future. Through all the ups and downs, from the battles between the supporters and detractors, it made it through its first year and did so with some momentum.

Talor Gooch, who joined the circuit with the first tournament in London in June, may have best summed up LIV’s inaugural campaign in his press conference on Sunday after celebrating as part of the team champions: “How could they ignore us now?”