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What is LIV Golf? Explaining the PGA Tour competitor Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson are joining

US golfer Dustin Johnson speaks during a press conference ahead of the forthcoming LIV Golf Invitational Series event at The Centurion Club in St Albans, north of London, on June 7, 2022. - Former world number one golfer Dustin Johnson confirmed on Tuesday he has resigned his membership of the US PGA Tour to play in the breakaway LIV Golf Invitational Series. The decision effectively rules the American two-time major winner out of participating in the Ryder Cup, which pits the United States against Europe every two years. Six-time major winner Phil Mickelson confirmed on Monday he had also signed up to play in the inaugural LIV event in a major coup for the organisers. (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS / AFP) (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf have agreed to merge operations under common ownership.

That golf thing you’ve heard rumblings about for a while is finally here. Maybe you’ve heard it’s controversial, or that some big-name players — Phil Mickelson? Brooks Koepka? Dustin Johnson? Bryson DeChambeau? — are involved, or just that a lot of cash is on the table. But now it’s time to start thinking about whether or not you need to care about it.

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The first LIV Golf International Series event tees off Thursday. Here’s what you need to know:

What is LIV?

The LIV Golf International Series is an upstart league led by Australian former golf star Greg Norman meant to challenge the longstanding reign of the PGA Tour. The endeavor is controversial for multiple reasons, including that it’s backed by Saudi financing and plans to make stops at two Donald Trump-owned courses.

The eight-tournament circuit will feature seven regular-season events and one team championship in late October. Play begins in London on Thursday. The remaining stops are in Portland, Ore., New Jersey, Boston, Chicago, Bangkok, Saudi Arabia and Miami.

LIV is backed by an investment arm, LIV Golf Investments, of which Norman is the CEO. 

Why is it called ‘LIV’?

LIV is the Roman numeral for 54, the number of holes in each tournament (more on that next). It is also the score a player shoots if they birdie every hole on a par-72 course. 

What’s the format?

Each tournament will be a three-round, 54-hole contest with 48 players and no cuts. The events feature shotgun starts (every player starts at the same time, but at a different hole) and a team element.

The individual event will be scored as usual, by stroke play.

For the team event, players will be divided into 12 four-person groups based on a draft the week of each tournament. Each team will have a LIV-appointed captain who will select the other three teammates.

The best two stroke play scores over the first two rounds will count for each team. For the final round, the best three scores will count. The team with the lowest overall score after 54 holes will be named the team winner. The captain will set the lineup each week and choose the scores that will count. 

The team championship will be a seeded four-day, four-round, match-play knock-out.

liv tour golf

Who are the most notable names at the first tournament?

Dustin Johnson headlined the initial field  for the inaugural event in London. Johnson’s participation came as a surprise after saying in February he would not participate in the LIV Golf circuit and would stick to the PGA Tour. 

On June 6, however, organizers announced that Phil Mickelson will tee off in London . T he six-time major winner is taking a leave of absence from the PGA Tour after apologizing for controversial comments he made in support of the rebel series and has not competed since the Saudi International in early February.

Talor Gooch, Matt Jones, Sergio Garcia, Kevin Na, Louis Oosthuizen, Ian Poulter, Hudson Swafford and Lee Westwood are among the other top names. Rumors are swirling that Rickie Fowler could also join.

Who else is joining late?

One-time major winners Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed will join LIV Golf in time for its second event, at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in North Plains, Ore., according to multiple reports. Brooks Koepka, a four-time major winner and former world No. 1, is also reportedly planning to play in Oregon. That event will be the first LIV tournament in the United States.

Bryson's agent says he's joined LIV & will play its next event: "Bryson has always been an innovator. Having the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something unique had always been intriguing to him. Professional golf as we know it is changing & it's happening quickly." — Adam Schupak (@AdamSchupak) June 8, 2022

On June 2, DeChambeau said he wasn’t in a place in his career where he could “risk” joining the LIV series. Reed withdrew from the RBC Canadian Open, a PGA Tour event, on June 7.

DeChambeau and Reed are ranked No. 28 and 36 in the world, respectively, as of June 5. DeChambeau won the 2020 U.S. Open, while Reed claimed his lone major victory at the 2018 Masters.

Could these players be kicked off the PGA Tour and not be in majors?

It was unclear in the weeks leading up to the series exactly what discipline PGA Tour members could face over their participation in LIV. But as the inaugural event teed off in London, the PGA Tour announced that LIV players are suspended and no longer eligible to participate in tournament play.

The Tour issued a statement on June 1 reiterating that members had not been authorized to participate in the series and that those who “violate the Tournament Regulations are subject to disciplinary action.” Golfers were told on May 10 that regulations barred them from participating, the PGA Tour said.

Johnson, Garcia, Oosthuizen and Na were among those who preemptively resigned from the PGA Tour rather than face the potential discipline. A former world No. 1 with 24 career PGA Tour victories, Johnson said he still hoped to play in the majors, but he’ll now be ineligible for the Ryder Cup.

“I can’t answer for the majors but hopefully they’re going to allow us to play,” Johnson said. “Obviously I’m exempt for the majors so I plan on playing there unless I hear otherwise.”

BREAKING🚨: Dustin Johnson RESIGNS from the PGA Tour The golfer is now ineligible to play in the Ryder Cup. pic.twitter.com/LLmlmIDKmF — Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) June 7, 2022

“If I exercise my right to choose where and when I play golf, then I cannot remain a PGA Tour player without facing disciplinary proceedings and legal action from the PGA Tour,” Na, the world No. 33, wrote on social media . 

Mickelson had not resigned from the PGA Tour before the sanctions and told Sports Illustrated he is looking forward to playing in the U.S. Open (June 16-19). He intends to continue playing in majors, he said in a statement announcing he was joining LIV Golf.

Dominoes have started to fall with sponsors, too. Royal Bank of Canada became the first sponsor to publicly pull its support from LIV Golf participants, ending its relationship with Johnson and fellow Tour golfer Graeme McDowell.

The bank sponsors the RBC Canadian Open in Ontario, which is scheduled for the same weekend as the LIV opener, as well as the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, S.C. in April.

Read this story for ongoing coverage of how the majors are handling LIV players.

Why were they allowed to play in the US Open?

What are other stars saying.

Former world No. 1 Rory McIlroy said that LIV is “not something (he wants) to participate in” and implied that those doing so are in it “purely for money” during his news conference at the 2022 Canadian Open. World No. 6 Justin Thomas also weighed in on the topic, saying that he’s “disappointed” and wishes Johnson and others who have joined “wouldn’t have done it.”

How much money is involved?

A total of $255 million will be awarded in prize money across the eight LIV tournaments. Each of the regular-season events will have a $25 million purse — $20 million for individual prizes and $5 million for the top three teams. 

The top three individuals after the seven regular-season events — among those who play a minimum of four events — will also share an additional $30 million ($18 million, $8 million and $4 million each). Finally, another $50 million will be awarded at the team match-play championship. 

A key component is that no competitor will go home empty-handed from a tournament. The winner gets $4 million and the last-place finisher is set to earn $120,000. (For comparison: the U.S. Open, the biggest purse of the four majors, awards $12.5 million in prize money, with the winner getting $2.25 million.)

And there’s more than just prize money on the table in LIV. Johnson was reportedly offered a $125 million contract just to state his commitment to the new league. Norman told The Washington Post that LIV offered Tiger Woods a “mind-blowingly enormous” amount (think high nine digits) to sign on. 

Norman said LIV Golf Investments is aiming to put a total of $2 billion into the sport between 2023 and 2025, eventually increasing the number of events to 14. 

How long is the schedule and does it conflict with the PGA Tour?

The schedule runs from June through October and does not conflict with any existing majors. However, the first three LIV Golf tournaments do coincide with already scheduled PGA Tour events on the 2021-22 calendar.

Do we think this is sustainable?

Hugh Kellenberger, golf senior managing editor: The Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund, has essentially limitless resources to make this work. LIV Golf is happening, and will continue to happen. The question is whether or not it’s a direct competitor to the PGA Tour, or a side-show event that is happening but not in direct conflict.

There will inevitably be lawsuits that will determine a professional golfer’s ability to play on both tours. If those suits are successful from a LIV perspective, then just remember that no one has ever gone broke betting on pro athletes taking the largest paychecks imaginable. If they’re not, LIV’s future will largely depend on it luring more names on the level of a Johnson.

How does the PGA Tour need to respond?

Kellenberger: Johnson, Na and others found a convenient loophole, it seems, by resigning their membership — they quit before the PGA Tour could try to suspend them, essentially. Mickelson kept the door open by refusing to follow their path.

The first question is how the PGA Tour responds to Mickelson, because that’ll influence the next group through the door, including DeChambeau and Reed. Without decisive action from PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan that establishes very clearly a real consequence beyond the public relations blow, DeChambeau and Reed will not be the last to take the blood money.

Wait, are these goofy team names real?

Today in Not The Onion, we have 42-year-old Sergio Garcia captaining a team of fellow golfers called the “Fire Balls.” This is real life. pic.twitter.com/s4566HYmr2 — Dan Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) June 7, 2022

How to watch

LIV is currently slated to stream on YouTube, Facebook and LIVGolf.com; it doesn’t presently have a U.S.-based broadcast partner. The Athletic’ s Richard Deitsch said he can’t see any network with a longtime relationship with the PGA Tour (CBS, NBC, ESPN, etc.) going anywhere near this series. Companies like Fox and Turner may not go for it in the near term with little proof of concept.

Arlo White, the former longtime play-by-play voice of NBC’s Premier League coverage, is serving as the lead broadcaster, joined in the booth by Jerry Foltz and Dom Boulet. The broadcast team will be completed by on-course commentator Su-Ann Heng and on-course reporter Troy Mullins.

The London event tees off on June 9 at 2 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET).

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liv tour golf

How We Got Here: A Timeline of LIV Golf and How the PGA Tour Eventually Embraced Its Rival

  • Author: Bob Harig

How did professional golf's split come to life? Here's a timeline compiled by Bob Harig, from the initial reports of a rival league in January 2020 until now. We'll update this file as more news continues to develop.

2020: The rival circuit idea takes hold

January: Reports first surface about the potential for a rival golf league that has been meeting with players and agents behind the scenes and touting an 18-event circuit with just 48 players, 12 teams and guaranteed pay. Initial ideas saw $10 million purses with no cuts and a windfall for 12 team captains. The concept was called the Premier Golf League .

Jan. 29: Phil Mickelson plays in the pro-am for the Saudi International, an event that is sanctioned by the European Tour. In his group is Majed Al-Sorour, CEO of the Saudi Golf Federation; Andy Gardiner, a director at Barclays Capital and a founder of the PGL; and Colin Neville of the Raine Group, also a backer of the PGL, which had Saudi Arabia backing as well through the Public Investment Fund.

Jan. 30:  Greg Norman, who once tried to spearhead a rival league with the backing of Fox Sports, sees viability in the PGL a day after the pro-am in Saudi Arabia. “It’s just a matter of getting all the right components together, whether players stay together," says Norman, whose World Golf League in 1993-94 was thwarted by the PGA Tour. “With my original concept, some players loved it, and others didn’t like it. I had corporate, I had television but you need 100% of the pie to be together before we can bake it. From what I’m seeing here, this one has every chance of getting off the ground."

LIV golf chief executive Greg Norman looks on during the inaugural LIV golf invitational golf tournament in 2022 at the Centurion Club outside London.

Greg Norman tried to spearhead a rival league decades ago and is a central figure in one now. 

Paul Childs/USA TODAY Sports

Feb. 11:  Speaking at the Genesis Invitational, Tiger Woods says he’s been approached about the PGL . “My team’s been aware of it and we’ve delved into the details of it and trying to figure it out just like everyone else. We’ve been down this road before with World Golf Championships and other events being started. There’s a lot of information that we’re still looking at and whether it’s reality or not, but just like everybody else, we’re looking into it."

Asked why he might even be interested, Woods said: “I think just like all events, you’re trying to get the top players to play more collectively. It’s one of the reasons why we instituted the World Golf Championships, because we were only getting (the top players) together five times a year, the four majors and the Players, and we wanted to showcase the top players on more than just those occasions. So this is a natural evolution, whether or not things like this are going to happen, but ideas like this are going to happen going forward, whether it’s now or any other time in the future."

Feb. 18: A week later at the WGC-Mexico Championship, Rory McIlroy seemingly deals the PGL a serious blow: “The more I’ve thought about it, the more I don’t like it. The one thing as a professional golfer in my position that I value is the fact that I have autonomy and freedom over everything I do. I pick and choose—this is a perfect example. Some guys this week made the choice not to come to Mexico. If you go and play this other golf league, you’re not going to have that choice.

"I read a thing the other day where it said if you take the money they can tell you want to do. And I think that’s my thing, I’ve never been one for being told what to do, and I like to have that autonomy and freedom over my career, and I feel like I would give that up by going to play this other league. For me, I’m out. My position is I’m against it until there may come a day that I can’t be against it. If everyone else goes, I might not have a choice, but at this point, I don’t like what they’re proposing."

Spring/Summer:  Talk of the rival golf circuit dies down considerably amid the global Coronavirus pandemic. Talk shifts to when golf will resume and how it will take place amid a health crisis. The PGL idea goes into the background.

Fall:  The PGL approaches the European Tour, now the DP World Tour, with a proposal to merge or cooperate. CEO Keith Pelley turns down the PGL and instead forms a "strategic alliance" with the PGA Tour that will see some crossover events, the Tour take an ownership stake in European Tour productions, and effectively—at the time—hold off the outside threat.

2021: LIV Golf is born

May 4:  A report surfaces that a new Super Golf League has emerged and that it is either the new name for the PGL or something different. Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson are among those linked to it. Sometime during the spring and summer of 2021, the PGL sees some of its personnel switch allegiances to a new entity that will have full Saudi backing and will come to be known as LIV Golf.

Oct. 27:  At a private unveiling in New York, LIV Golf Investments is announced with Greg Norman as its CEO, with the idea of first helping to back golf in Asia with the $300 million investment in the Asian Tour, which will be used to finance a new elevated series of events called the International Series. It is eventually disclosed that Norman will also be the commissioner of a new tour called the LIV Golf League, with plans to launch in the spring of 2022.

Nov. 21:  PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan sends a memo to players outlining how 55% of the Tour’s revenue will be paid out to players in the form of prize money, bonuses and other benefits—believed to be in response to Phil Mickelson saying on a podcast that only 26% of revenue was going to the players.

Early 2022: Phil Mickelson speaks, LIV prepares

Feb. 2:  While playing in the Saudi International for the third straight year, Phil Mickelson does an interview with Golf Digest in which he refers to the PGA Tour’s "obnoxious greed" as a reason why players might be interested in LIV Golf. He also maintains that the Tour is sitting on millions of dollars that should be going to the players. "It’s not public knowledge, all that goes on," Mickelson said. “But the players don’t have access to their own media. If the Tour wanted to end any threat, they could just hand back the media rights to the players. But they would rather throw $25 million here and $40 million there than give back the roughly $20 billion in digital assets they control. Or give up access to the $50-plus million they make every year on their own media channel."

Team Hy Flyers captain Phil Mickelson is pictured at the inaugural LIV golf invitational golf tournament in 2022 at the Centurion Club outside London.

Phil Mickelson set golf ablaze with comments early in 2022 accusing the PGA Tour of "obnoxious greed," then after a hiatus emerged as one of LIV Golf's headliners.

Feb. 17:  Even Tiger Woods and the Genesis Invitational—where he is not playing—take a back seat to the drama that unfolds when Alan Shipnuck releases an excerpt from his soon-to-released biography of Phil Mickelson in which the golfer, among other things, says he is willing to use the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League as leverage against the PGA Tour and that he and other players paid attorneys to help LIV Golf develop its business plan.

Feb. 20:  With Phil Mickelson’s comments the talk of the tournament, players such as Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau come out in support of the PGA Tour , viewed as a blow to LIV Golf. It is later learned that Mickelson’s comments and the subsequent back-tracking of several players who were interested in LIV set back the league’s plans and sent it into disarray.

Feb. 22:  In the wake of his comments, Phil Mickelson offers an apology and says he will step away from the game for a period of time and offers to pause relationships with sponsors. “I have always known that criticism would come with exploring anything new. I still chose to put myself at the forefront of this to inspire change, taking the hits publicly to do the work behind the scenes.”

Mickelson said that he offered the brands with which he was associated “the option to pause or end the relationship as I understand it might be necessary given the current circumstances.” KPMG and Amstel Light end their relationships with Mickelson, and a few days later, Callaway announces that it is pausing a relationship that dates to 2004.

March 8:  With Phil Mickelson missing—and, later it was learned, suspended—PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan addressed the media at the Players Championship. A typical state-of-the tour-type news conference turned into questions about Mickelson and LIV Golf . "The PGA Tour is moving on," he said. "We have too much momentum and too much to accomplish to be consistently distracted by rumors of other golf leagues and their attempts to disrupt our players, our partners, and most importantly our fans from enjoying the Tour and the game we all love so much.

"I am grateful for the strong support our top players have shown recently and publicly, and I’m extremely proud that we’ve turned the conversation around to focus on what we do best: delivering world-class golf tournaments with the best players to the best fans, all while positively impacting the communities in which we play. We are and we always will be focused on legacy not leverage."

March 16:  Despite numerous setbacks, LIV Golf announces an eight-tournament schedule to begin in June. It won’t be the LIV Golf League, as planned, but the LIV Golf Invitational Series. Purses will be $20 million for the individual portion with $5 million more set aside for the teams. At the time, LIV Golf was unsure if it would be able to fill a 48-player field so it announced that the entire purse would be paid out regardless of the number of players who started. Total prize money for the eight events was set at $255 million, with $50 million set aside for a season-ending Team Championship.

May 10:  PGA Tour players and Korn Ferry Tour players interested in competing in the first LIV Golf event outside of London in June need to seek conflicting event and/or media releases but are denied. The Tour tells players it is not an authorized event. Greg Norman, the LIV Golf commissioner, pushes back. "Sadly, the PGA Tour seems intent on denying professional golfers their right to play golf, unless it’s exclusively in a PGA Tour tournament. This is particularly disappointing in light of the Tour’s non-profit status, where its mission is purportedly to promote the common interests of professional tournament golfers.

"Instead, the Tour is intent on perpetuating its illegal monopoly of what should be a free and open market. The Tour’s action is anti-golfer, anti-fan, and anti-competitive. But no matter what obstacles the PGA Tour puts in our way, we will not be stopped. We will continue to give players options that promote the great game of golf globally.”

Mid 2022: LIV Golf—with big names—tees off

May 31:  Dustin Johnson, a two-time major winner who has 24 PGA Tour titles, headlines the field announced for the first LIV Golf event to be played at The Centurion Club outside of London. Others listed are past major winners Sergio Garcia and Louis Oosthuizen, as well as Kevin Na, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood.

June 6:   Phil Mickelson ends a four-month hiatus in which he missed the Masters and defense of his PGA Championship title, emerging as LIV Golf’s latest signee who is set to compete later in the week at the first tournament. At a news conference prior to the tournament, Mickelson is asked several times about his past comments regarding Saudi Arabia, its human rights record and the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, believed by U.S. government officials to have been carried out by the Saudi regime.

“Well, certainly, I've made, said and done a lot of things that I regret, and I'm sorry for that and for the hurt that it's caused a lot of people. I don't—I don't condone human rights violations at all. Nobody here does, throughout the world. I'm certainly aware of what has happened with Jamal Khashoggi, and I think it's terrible. I've also seen the good that the game of golf has done throughout history, and I believe that LIV Golf is going to do a lot of good for the game as well. And I'm excited about this opportunity. That's why I'm here."

June 9:  Within minutes of the first tee shots being struck at the first LIV Golf event, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan issues a memo in which players who are participating are told they are being suspended .

Charl Schwartzel waves to the crowd after winning the inaugural LIV Golf event in 2022 at the Centurion Club outside London.

Charl Schwartzel owns a unique piece of golf history: winner of the first LIV Golf event.

June 11:  Charl Schwartzel, the 2011 Masters champion, wins the first LIV event, holding on for his first victory anywhere in nearly six years. The win was worth $4 million from the $20 million purse and because Schwartzel’s team, Stinger GC, won the team competition, he pocketed another $750,000 from the $3 million paid to the winners.

June 21:  Following other players who committed to play for LIV during or after the first LIV event, then-four-time major champion Brooks Koepka is announced as the latest addition . He joins the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Pat Perez, Patrick Reed and Abraham Ancer as those who were now set to play in LIV’s second event.

June 22: During a news conference at the Travelers Championship, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan outlines a plan that will see the PGA Tour return to a calendar-year schedule in 2024 while also increasing the purses substantially at eight events, including the legacy events for Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus . The FedEx Cup season is also changed to see smaller fields at the first two playoff events.

Aug. 2:  Eleven LIV golfers sue the PGA Tour to challenge suspensions and claim a restraint of trade. Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau are among those named in the suit. Three other players—Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford and Matt Jones—seek a temporary restraining order so they can play in the FedEx Cup playoffs. (The restraining order is denied on the eve of the FedEx Cup playoffs.)

Aug. 16: Tiger Woods flies to Delaware and heads a players-only meeting at the BMW Championship along with Rory McIlroy where details are hashed out that will lead to substantial purse increases and benefits for players. It would later commonly be referred to as "the Delaware Meeting."

Aug. 24: On the back of the Delaware meeting, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan announces a hastily-devised plan that will see eight tournaments in 2023 with boosted purses. First called designated events, these tournaments would have $20 million purses except for the Sentry, which will be $15 million. For several of the events, the result means more than doubling the purse. For the legacy events, it means adding $8 million per event. And the first two playoff events will also have $20 million purses.

Aug. 30: Just more than a month after his victory at St. Andrews, British Open champion Cam Smith becomes the latest player to join LIV Golf , doing so in time for its event in Boston. Smith is joined by Joaquin Niemann, who attended the Delaware meeting, along with Marc Leishman, Harold Varner III, Anirban Lahiri and Cameron Tringale. At the time, it gave LIV Golf six of the top 30 players in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Cameron Smith talks to media during a press conference after winning the 2022 British Open at St. Andrews Old Course.

One month after winning the 150th British Open, Cam Smith left for LIV Golf.

Michael Madrid/USA TODAY Sports

Oct 5: LIV Golf announces a strategic alliance with the MENA Tour, a developmental tour that has had Official World Golf Ranking accreditation since 2016. LIV Golf incorporates its events into the MENA Tour schedule and says it believes it should be granted OWGR immediately due to the association. The move is scoffed at as an end-around to try and obtain points and the OWGR does not grant points to LIV Golf.

Oct. 29: Martin Slumbers, the CEO of the R&A, makes it clear that the British Open is not going to ban LIV golfers who are otherwise eligible for the 2023 championship. "We are not going to abandon 150 years of history have the Open not be open," Slumbers said.

Oct. 30: LIV Golf completes its first season with Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces team winning the team championship in Miami. The four team members share a $16 million payday.

Nov. 15: At the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, Rory McIlroy says it is time for golf’s warring factions to figure something out. But he says it needs to happen without LIV Golf commissioner Greg Norman . “Greg needs to go. He needs to exit stage left. He’s made his mark but I think now is the right time to say you’ve got this thing off the ground but no one’s going to talk unless there’s an adult in the room that actually try to mend fences."

Nov. 29: At his Hero World Challenge event in the Bahamas, Tiger Woods also says that Greg Norman needs to go. Woods had been planning to play for the first time since the British Open but withdrew due to plantar fasciitis. “I think (Greg Norman) has to go, first of all, and then obviously the litigation against us and then our countersuit against them. Those would then have to be at a stay as well, then we can talk, we can all talk freely. Right now as it is, not right now, not with their leadership, not with Greg there and his animosity towards the tour itself. I don’t see that happening. But why would you change anything if you’ve got a lawsuit against you? They sued us first."

Tiger Woods speaks to media at the 2022 Hero World Challenge in Nassau, New Providence, Bahamas.

At his Hero World Challenge in 2022, Tiger Woods said Greg Norman would have to depart before a discussion could take place between the rival tours.

Tracy Wilcox/Getty Images

Dec. 16:  Only a year into the job, the Chief Operating Officer for LIV Golf leaves his position . Atul Khosla was hired by LIV Golf in December 2021 from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL team, where he held the title of chief corporate development and brand officer. Khosla was also chief operating officer for the Chicago Fire soccer club in the MLS and also worked for General Electric and NBC Sports. In his role at LIV Golf, he reported to CEO and commissioner Greg Norman. His role was taken over by executives of the Performance 54 agency and not filled for nearly a year.

Dec. 20: Augusta National makes clear it will be inviting those eligible for the Masters to participate . “Regrettably, recent actions have divided men’s professional golf by diminishing the virtues of the game and the meaningful legacies of those who built it," Masters chairman Fred Ridley said in a statement. “Although we are disappointed in these developments, our focus is to honor the tradition of bringing together a preeminent field of golfers this coming April.”

Early 2023: OWGR, legal issues persist

Jan. 19:  LIV Golf announces it has a long-awaited television partner after its events were available only via streaming in the first year. The CW Network—the C is for CBS, the W for Warner Media—enters into a multi-year agreement to televise LIV Golf tournaments. The deal will not see LIV Golf get paid a traditional rights fee but that is "mutually financially beneficial." It is believed that LIV will share advertising revenue with the CW and will also likely be expected to shoulder a good bit of promotional work.

Jan. 24:  Jay Monahan and Keith Pelley recuse themselves from reviewing LIV Golf’s application for Official World Golf Ranking points. Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, and Pelley, the CEO of the DP World Tour, are two of the seven members of the OWGR board of directors that ultimately decides the fate of tours seeking accreditation. Keith Waters, who heads up the International Federation of PGA Tours and is the DP World Tour’s chief operating officer, also recused himself from the application.

“I have not looked at the LIV application," Pelley says during a session with reporters in Dubai. “So I can’t give an opinion on an application I have not seen. It is in the hands of the technical committee. On the advice of legal counsel, myself and Jay recused ourselves from the separate committee. Representatives of the four majors will now determine the LIV application. We are not involved and we have no influence on what transpires as far as LIV goes."

April 5: The DP World Tour wins an arbitration case against LIV Golf players who were seeking to play the former European Tour. The arbitration panel rules that the DP World Tour had the right to fine and suspend players for violating its membership regulations in order to compete in LIV Golf events. Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and 10 other players had brought the action in response to fines levied for not being granted permission to compete in LIV Golf events. A separate antitrust case between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour is still scheduled for 2024.

May 4:  Amid its investigation of former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents, the Department of Justice looks specifically at his dealings with LIV Golf, according to the New York Times . Two of Trump’s courses hosted events in 2022 with three scheduled to do so in 2023.

Summer 2023: The stunning agreement 

June 6: The golf world is stunned to learn that secret negotiations have been taking place and resulted in a "framework agreement" between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Public Investment Fund . Initially said to be a "merger," it is later reframed as an agreement that would see the entities have an alliance. The biggest part of the news is that all of the lawsuits have been dropped. The idea is to have a final deal by Dec. 31, 2023.

As more details emerge, it is learned that PGA Tour Policy Board members Jimmy Dunne and Ed Herlihy secretly met with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF, for several weeks prior to the announcement. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan also had clandestine meetings with Al-Rumayyan. On the day of the announcement, they appeared together on CNBC.

June 7:  While surprised that everything came together so quickly, Rory McIlroy says that the PGA Tour’s partnership with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia will ultimately be good for the game of golf. Speaking after his pro-am round at the RBC Canadian Open, McIlroy learned of the agreement shortly before the rest of the world but said much of it has been mischaracterized and that it should not be viewed as a merger with LIV Golf.

“LIV has nothing to do with this. It’s the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the Public Investment Fund that are basically partnering to create a new company. That’s where I was a little frustrated. All I’ve wanted to do was protect the future of the PGA Tour and protect the aspirational nature of what the PGA Tour stands for. I think this does this. If you look at the structure, this new company sits above everything else. (PGA Tour commissioner) Jay (Monahan) on top of that. Technically, anyone involved with LIV would answer to Jay. The one thing whether you like it or not, the PIF were going to keep spending money in golf. At least the PGA Tour controls how that money is spent. You’re dealing with one of the biggest sovereign wealth funds in the world. Would you rather fight against or have them as a partner?"

June 7:  Although not involved in the negotiations, LIV Golf CEO and commissioner Greg Norman has a positive message for the staff . Norman, who was not mentioned in any of the news releases associated with the agreement, tells more than 100 people on a 30-minute call that LIV will see no operational changes and that work is already being done on a 2025 schedule. “The spigot is now wide open for commercial sponsorships, blue chip companies, TV networks. LIV is and will continue to be a standalone enterprise. Our business model will not change. We changed history and we’re not going anywhere."

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan addresses the media during a press conference at East Lake Golf Club prior to the 2023 Tour Championship.

Eight days after appearing with Yasir Al-Rumayyan on CNBC to announce the "framework agreement," PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan took a leave of absence for health reasons. He later took responsibility for an "ineffective" rollout of the agreement which caught most PGA Tour players by surprise.

John David Mercer/USA TODAY Sports

June 14:  On the Tuesday of the U.S. Open week, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan announces through the Tour a health-related leave of absence that will see Tour executives Ron Price and Tyler Dennis take over his duties.

July 7:  In a memo to players, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan says he will return from his leave on July 14, which is the Monday of British Open week.

July 9: Randall Stephenson, a longtime member of the PGA Tour and former head of AT&T, sends a resignation letter to Monahan and the board and specifically cites his displeasure with the framework agreement.

July 11:  Among wish-list ideas proposed by the LIV Golf League in the time leading up to the framework agreement was giving Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy LIV Golf League franchises and seeing them compete in LIV Golf events. It was just one of the ideas that discussed by the parties as part of documents released by a Senate subcommittee during a hearing in Washington, D.C., led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). The PGA Tour rejected it as part of the negotiation.

The committee is concerned about the foreign involvement in an American sports league as well as possible antitrust violations. Some of the ideas include having a "World Golf Series" team event that would be played in Saudi Arabia; LIV operating as it is but being played in the fall or with the idea of LIV coexisting along with the PGA Tour; two of the PGA Tour’s designated events that would be branded by the PIF or the Saudi Arabia oil company, Aramco.

July 18:  Masters champion Jon Rahm says he has no trust issues with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan—unlike several of his peers—and suggests time is needed. “As it comes to what he's been doing for us and the PGA Tour, I think he's done a fantastic job. I would say it was unexpected what happened. I think what the management of the PGA Tour, the turn they took without us knowing was very unexpected, but I still think he's been doing a great job. And right now after that happened, I only think it's fair to give them the right time to work things out. I still think they have the best interest of the players at heart."

Rahm, speaking before the British Open, also reiterates he is not interested in LIV Golf. “We all had the chance to go to LIV and take the money and we chose to stay at the PGA Tour for whatever reason we chose. As I've said before, I already make an amazing living doing what I do. I'm extremely thankful, and that all happened because of the platform the PGA Tour provided me. As far as I'm concerned they've done enough for me, and their focus should be on improving the PGA Tour and the game of golf for the future generations."

Aug. 1:   Tiger Woods is named to the PGA Tour Policy Board , giving the players a power boost as he becomes the sixth player director on the board. Part of the move includes a stipulation that will see a change in PGA Tour governance that means the player directors will have final say in any decisions going forward.

Aug. 8:  PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan speaks with reporters for the first time since his leave and after returning to work and takes responsibility for the way the negotiations for the “framework agreement" were secretly handled and the subsequent rollout. “It was ineffective and as a result there was a lot of misinformation. And anytime you have misinformation that can lead to mistrust. And that’s my responsibility. That’s me and me alone. I take full accountability for that. I apologize for putting players on their back foot. But ultimately it was the right move for the PGA Tour. I firmly believe that as we go forward time will bear that out. It was the right move and obviously we’re now in a position with NewCo (PGA Tour Enterprises) that provides the opportunity to have productive conversations."

Late 2023: LIV strengthens its lineup

Oct. 19: On the eve of LIV Golf’s final event of 2023, CEO and commissioner Greg Norman speaks with reporters publicly for the first time since the agreement was announced and says he has "zero" concern about the future of the league , regardless of what happens with the “framework agreement."

“All indications are showing that the position of LIV has never been stronger and that the success of our players and our brand has never been in a better place. And as we look forward into 2024, we’ve got a full schedule. We’ve got some places we’ve been to before, but we’ve got some new venues as well and we’re reaching different regions."

Nov. 28: Tiger Woods speaks publicly for the first time since the framework agreement was announced and he joined the Policy Board, touching a variety of subjects including outside Public Equity Investment in the PGA Tour, the Public Investment Fund and LIV Golf. He calls the ongoing negotiations "murky" and says "I would have to say there's a lot of moving parts on how we're going to play. Whether it's here on the PGA Tour or it's merging, or team golf. There's a lot of different aspects that are being thrown out there all at once and we are trying to figure all that out and what is the best solution for all parties and best solution for all the players that are involved.’’

He says during the week and again two weeks later at the PNC Championship that he is focused on a deal getting done or some resolution by the Dec. 31 deadline.

Dec. 7:  After weeks of speculation, Jon Rahm is announced as the newest member of LIV Golf . The two-time major champion, who on numerous occasions had expressed his disinterest in LIV due to the format, among other things, makes it official in New York where he said the lucrative offer was difficult to ignore and he had come to terms with the format. He also said his decision had nothing to do with any animosity or issues wit the PGA Tour.

“I’m forever grateful to the PGA Tour and the platform they allowed me to be on. I have nothing bad to say about them. They allowed me the opportunity to play in some great events and allowed me to make a mark."

Dec. 31: The agreement deadline comes and goes but the PGA Tour says there is "meaningful progress" and that negotiations will continue into 2024.

2024: PGA Tour lands an investor deal

Jan. 31: The PGA Tour announces the formation of PGA Tour Enterprises in a partnership with Strategic Sports Group, a group of investors from a number of professional sports. The deal, worth $3 billion, is said to allow nearly 200 PGA Tour players access to $1.5 billion in equity over time. The deal states that it allows for co-investment from the PIF in the future.

March 12:  Speaking with reporters for the first time since August, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said negotiations with the PIF are “accelerating” and that he and PGA Tour Policy Board members met with Yasir Al-Rumayyan in January, but did not offer specifics.

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Gene Frenette: PGA Tour, LIV must resolve golf's division for good of game, and do it quickly

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Starting with Rory McIlroy’s 5-under-par 31 on his front side Thursday morning, it was refreshing to feel a genuine buzz emitting from The Players Championship. 

All the subsequent roars echoing across the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass the past few days gave the golf world a perfect diversion from the Kardashian-level drama swirling around it. 

The last thing golf needs, on the 50th anniversary of The Players no less, is division. Fans that care about the sport are fatigued, wondering how much longer the PGA Tour leadership will continue being burdened with strife about its future. 

More Gene Frenette: Gary Woodland comeback from brain surgery an inspiration at The Players Championship

It’s no wonder Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, the players and galleries welcomed getting to the point where they could focus on The Players competition and eventually applaud a champion. 

Frankly, the prelude to The Players wasn’t much fun. The media narratives were more about what the Tour business model is going to look like moving forward, and less about actual golf or compelling player story lines. 

Sadly, all this chaos about whether the Tour is going to finalize its partnership with LIV, the breakaway golf league, or how all that influx of $1.5 billion cash from Tour partner Strategic Sports Group might be dispersed to the players is no way to grow the game. 

It’s an enormous turnoff, so stop this nonsense. Fix it. 

Golf observers — be they casual, ardent supporters or on the fence — have little interest in how multi-millionaires are going to add to their bottom line. 

Greed never plays well in any sports arena, less so with golf, whose audiences are much smaller than football or basketball. It’s seen a significant drop in TV ratings in 2024, including a 30 percent decrease in last week’s final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, when world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler won by five shots, compared to a year ago. 

With Tiger Woods mostly on the sideline, the Tour has picked a bad time to be embroiled in squabbling over how to map out its future — deal or no deal? — with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). 

Deciding how to funnel more money into the bank accounts of players already assured of lifetime financial security isn’t the water-cooler conversation golf is seeking. 

Monahan incurred the wrath of players and the golf world at large last June when he reversed course about doing business with LIV. 

The Tour reached a stunning framework agreement with PIF, but those negotiations are still in limbo. It’s a mystery if a deal will come about at all, with the SSG cash input adding to the uncertainty.  

“I, for one, as a golf fan, am tired of it,” said Tour player Billy Horschel. “I think this whole bickering and taking shots at each other just needs to go away. If coming together gets that to go away and we get a deal done with PIF, that’s great. 

“Now how does that turn into [LIV] players coming back to the PGA Tour? I don’t know.” 

Can golf regain momentum? 

The game’s popularity and television ratings have often been a fluid situation, especially as a post-Tiger era becomes more of an everyday reality. 

Whether it’s the sport being in financial flux, lesser-known names winning most Tour events until Scheffler’s win last week or Tiger being a non-factor on the course, golf has lost some of its juice in 2024. 

Maybe a dramatic win by McIlroy, or a big name emerging from a packed leaderboard at The Players or at next month’s Masters, can ignite some momentum. 

Wyndham Clark may be a rising star, but the world’s No. 5-ranked player being on top of The Players leaderboard heading to the weekend still isn’t going to send people scurrying for the remote to tune in. 

For now, players are reluctant to sugarcoat the present environment. They find it hard to deny, unlike Monahan, that golf feels a bit stagnant. 

“If you look at the leaderboards, you look at the ratings, I felt like they really, really worked in 2023,” said McIlroy, who remains one of Monahan’s biggest supporters. “And for whatever reason, they’re not quite capturing the imagination this year compared to last year. 

“I think, if I were to put my own perspective on it, I think it’s because fans are fatigued of what’s going on in the game. And I think we need to try to reengage the fan and reengage them in a way that the focus is on the play and not on talking about equity and all the rest of it.” 

But so long as the Tour struggles to reach a finish line in its PIF negotiations — plus the sidebar acrimony of Monahan trying to regain players’ trust after last summer’s public relations debacle — off-the-course issues are going to garner headlines almost as much as player accomplishments between the ropes. 

During several media sessions before The Players, there were continuous did-you-hear-what-he-said questions to players about somebody else’s take, whether it’s about PIF negotiations, the right field number for Tour signature events or Monahan’s job performance. 

Monahan was evasive on a question about whether any player directors on the Tour’s policy board asked him to resign, saying: “I don’t think that would be a surprise to anybody, given the events of last summer. But we are a unified front.”  

Disingenuous or not, all this just fuels more drama and controversy for the TMZ appetite of social media, which, in turn, influences the attention mainstream media gives to a tiresome topic. 

Like when Xander Schauffele renewed his previous stance Wednesday of expressing reservations about Monahan’s leadership, saying he still “has a long way to go” to earn back player trust. That generated headlines despite the nothing-new-here element to it. 

Monahan, who admittedly mishandled the rollout in last year’s pivot with PIF, understands the urgency of putting all this conflict in the past. But the secretive nature of the negotiations isn’t helping golf to engage fans or make a positive connection. 

“We’ve made and continue to make real progress in our negotiations and discussions with the PIF,” said Monahan. “I recognize that this is frustrating for all of you, but it really is not in the best interest of the PGA Tour and our membership, and for PIF, for me to be talking about where we are with specific elements of our discussions.” 

Then again, progress is a relative term without transparency. 

Golf always wants to highlight its best features, but that’s a challenge when tense business negotiations are hush-hush, and an ongoing Justice Department investigation about antitrust concerns over the tentative Tour-LIV agreement continues to fester. 

Finding unity elusive 

It’s hard to argue against golf being a diminished product when a signature event like The Players is missing the likes of 2022 champion Cam Smith, Jon Rahm, five-time major champion Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Tyrell Hatton, who owns the No. 16 world ranking. 

By no means did the Tour’s signature event lack for interesting stories, especially when a McIlroy or Scheffler made their way up the leaderboard on the first day. 

Still, an overwhelming majority of golf fans prefer seeing all the best players competing at the same venue, which now only happens at the four majors.

Peter Malnati, one of the Tour's player directors, sounded off on that topic Saturday after shooting a third-round 66 at The Players.

"I want to see a unified game where, when we have events like The Players Championship, that we have all the best players in the world and we're proud to call 'em PGA Tour members," said Malnati. "That's what I want. I don't know how we get there, but that's what I want." 

The world’s best player, Scheffler, minces no words about where the blame for golf's division squarely lies. 

“I’m not going to sit here and tell guys not to take hundreds of millions of dollars [to join LIV],” said Scheffler. “If that’s what they think is best for their life, then go do it. I’m not going to sit here and force guys to stay on our Tour. 

“If the fans are upset, then look at the guys that left. We had a Tour, we were all together, and the people that left are no longer here. At the end of the day, that’s where the splintering comes from.” 

Like it or not, that division isn’t going away any time soon. That makes it a Tour problem because Monahan’s kingdom is rightfully viewed as having the sport’s biggest impact.  

But even the membership has grown weary of the lengthy uncertainty about the Tour’s future. Viktor Hovland, the world’s No. 4-ranked player, had this explanation for why he didn’t go out of his way to find out more information about the ongoing drama. 

“I’m just not that interested in spending my free time in trying to figure out every single nuance in the situation,” said Hovland.  

If somebody with heavy financial stakes in a resolution isn’t interested, how do you think golf fans feel? Eyes are on the Tour, more than any other golf entity, to find a way to somehow unify the game. 

That would include the awkward issue of possibly creating a penalty-filled path back for any prodigal-son LIV players, providing some even want to return. 

“The sooner that this is resolved, I think it’s going to be better for everyone, the fans and the players,” said McIlroy.

It's clear the golf landscape is headed for some kind of makeover, but it's hard to gauge what that might look like.

“There’s going to be a lot of changes made to the Tour over the next three or four years," Horschel said. "Some guys won’t like them, some will.” 

By whatever reasonable means necessary, golf better fix this mess. It won’t be easy. Not without Tiger in his prime readily available to clean things up. 

[email protected]: (904) 359-4540; Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @genefrenette 

PGA Tour player directors prepare for meeting with Saudi leader of LIV Golf

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Players on the PGA Tour board negotiating with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund have a meeting planned Monday with the Saudi leader backing rival LIV Golf, something Rory McIlroy said Sunday should have happened long ago.

He also said Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund, wants to be “productive” in golf, while Greg Norman and others involved in LIV are disruptive.

McIlroy won’t be part of the meeting, and details remained vague on where it would be held and whether it would be anything more than an ice breaker with Al-Rumayyan.

“I doubt we will get into anything substantive in the first meeting,” said Patrick Cantlay, one of six player directors on PGA Tour Enterprises, the new commercial venture that already has a minority investor in Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of U.S. sports owners.

McIlroy gave up his seat on the board in November and was replaced by Jordan Spieth. The other four player directors are Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson.

McIlroy met with Al-Rumayyan last year at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. In fact, he said on a British soccer podcast at the start of the year that he had a part in the PGA Tour meeting with PIF in the first place, which led to the stunning June 6 announcement of a proposed partnership.

Cantlay confirmed there were “plans to have a meeting” on Monday at an undisclosed location.

“I think it should have happened months ago, so I am glad that it’s happening,” McIlroy said. “Hopefully that progresses conversations and gets us closer to a solution.”

The solution ultimately would be patching together golf, with players like Masters champion Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, PGA champion Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau among those now with LIV and suspended from PGA Tour-sanctioned events except the four majors.

The PGA Tour’s deal with PIF was supposed to be completed by the end of last year . But with government inquiries, and interest from private equity groups, the deal wasn’t done. The tour aligned with SSG, and Rahm defected to LIV. SSG has pledged up to $3 billion, including $1.5 billion for a player equity program.

McIlroy drew a distinction between Al-Rumayyan and LIV Golf, particularly Norman, the CEO and commissioner of the rival league. McIlroy had said at the end of 2022 that Norman needed to “exit stage left” for there to be any meaningful conversations.

“I have spent time with Yasir and the people that have represented him in LIV I think have done him a disservice, so Norman and those guys,” McIlroy said Sunday at The Players Championship.

“I actually think there’s a really big disconnect between PIF and LIV,” he said. “I think you got PIF over here and LIV are sort of over here doing their own thing. So the closer that we can get to Yasir, PIF and hopefully finalize that investment, I think that will be a really good thing.”

Malnati said there was “massive resistance” to Saudi involvement because of the surprise June 6 announcement — PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, with board members Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne — were the only ones involved.

“As I’ve learned more, I think I understand better and I’m very open minded to learning what involvement they want, what they want out of this and how they think they can help,” Malnati said. “On the surface, I think there are players who have resistance to that relationship, for sure. So that’s why I do think it’s important that maybe our next step is to meet at some point.”

Among the potential obstacles are how to blend players when there is animosity over those who left for massive signing bonuses to join LIV, along with LIV’s desire for team golf.

Cantlay said without PIF investing in PGA Tour Enterprises, he could see golf going down a similar path of two rival leagues whose top players meet only four times a year.

“I don’t think this is an overnight solution,” McIlroy said. “But if we can get the investment in, then at least we can start working towards a compromise where we’re not going to make everyone happy, but at least make everyone understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

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What Is LIV Golf? It Depends Whom You Ask.

Bold new project or crass money grab? Even golf’s best players (and former President Donald Trump) disagree on the merits of the Saudi-financed golf tour.

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By Alan Blinder ,  Tariq Panja and Andrew Das

The Saudi-financed, controversy-trailed LIV Golf series has been the talk of men’s golf since its launch last year.

But what is it? Who is playing it? What’s all the hubbub, and how can you watch it ? Here’s what you need to know.

What is LIV Golf?

The series, which Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund bankrolled with at least $2 billion, has presented itself as “an opportunity to reinvigorate golf” through rich paydays, star players, team competition and slick marketing.

LIV Golf’s organizers hope to position it as a player-focused alternative to the PGA Tour, which has been the highest level of men’s pro golf for generations.

liv tour golf

The World of LIV Golf

A guide to the entangled and far-reaching power structure of the Saudi-financed golf tour.

LIV’s critics, which include some of the world’s best players, have labeled it an unseemly money grab that is diminishing golf as a sporting test.

How much money are we talking about?

When LIV debuted in June 2022 , its tournaments were the richest in golf history, with regular-season events boasting purses of $25 million. The winner’s share at each stop was $4 million, and the last-place finisher was guaranteed $120,000. (For context, the winner of the 2022 Masters Tournament received $2.7 million, a prize bumped up to $3.24 million in 2023.)

And LIV’s prize money was on top of the appearance fees and signing guarantees accepted by individual players. Phil Mickelson, a six-time major tournament winner, is being paid a reported $200 million to take part, and Dustin Johnson , a Masters and U.S. Open champion, was said to have been tempted by an offer worth $150 million. Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Cameron Smith are among the players who appear to have received multimillion-dollar inducements to surrender their PGA Tour careers.

The PGA Tour has since increased the purses at some of its events , but the blend of guaranteed money and LIV prize funds has kept the young league writing the biggest checks in golf.

Who are the players?

LIV has 48-player fields, and some of the men who participate are indisputably big names in pro golf. Beyond the past major champions like Koepka, Mickelson and Smith, there are also players like Lee Westwood, formerly the world’s top-ranked golfer, the Ryder Cup stalwart Ian Poulter and Mito Pereira, who came tantalizingly close to winning a major in 2022.

The PGA Tour has retained the loyalties of other stars, though. Tiger Woods, who rebuffed a nine-figure offer from LIV, has denigrated the league's approach to competition and complained that its players “turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position.” Rory McIlroy has been a fearsome critic , and Jon Rahm, who won the 2023 Masters , said earlier this year that he thought the PGA Tour was “making the necessary changes to adapt to the new age, and I think it’s better for everybody.”

Despite the star power of some players, many LIV golfers are probably strangers even to deeply committed golf fans. But many know the league’s commissioner: Greg Norman, the two-time major tournament winner who spent years fuming over the PGA Tour’s structure.

So, is this a vanity project for Saudi Arabia?

Not exactly. Saudi Arabia is among the resource-rich Persian Gulf states that have turned toward sports to raise their profiles, reshape their reputations and develop their economies in new ways.

Through its sovereign wealth fund, Saudi Arabia has been around the forefront of the movement. In addition to LIV, the wealth fund has acquired the Premier League club Newcastle United , and Saudi money has poured into Formula 1 racing and boxing.

But documents obtained by The New York Times show that Saudi officials know that their golf foray may have limited financial payoff. McKinsey and Co. consultants privately told the wealth fund that a golf league could be earning revenues of at least $1.4 billion a year by the end of the decade — or be losing hundreds of millions of dollars.

For its part, the wealth fund has insisted it is nothing more than an investor in LIV. In February, though, a federal judge in the United States said she had concluded that the fund was “ the moving force behind the founding, funding, oversight and operation of LIV .”

How has the Saudi initiative gone over?

Not always well. One of LIV’s biggest signings, Mickelson, provoked outrage when he praised the series as a “ once-in-a-lifetime opportunity ” even as he called Saudi Arabia’s record on human rights “ horrible ” and used an expletive to emphasize a description of the country’s leaders as “scary.” Norman made things worse soon after later when he dismissed Saudi Arabia’s murder and dismemberment of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi by saying, “ Look, we’ve all made mistakes .”

Not that pro golf’s existing power structures, including the PGA Tour, have always held the moral high ground. See: here , here , here and here .

How have the established tours responded?

The PGA Tour, which is now mired in litigation against LIV, suspended players because it requires members to request and receive releases to play in events that conflict with those on its schedule.

The punishments were not a surprise: The tour had clearly signaled that it would take action against any of its players who joined. So moments after the players hit their first LIV shots, the tour dropped the hammer.

The suspensions also applied to any PGA Tour affiliates, including the developmental Korn Ferry Tour, tours in Canada and Latin America and, notably for the older players who joined the LIV series, the PGA Tour Champions circuit for golfers 50 and older.

The DP World Tour, formerly known as the European Tour, is closely aligned with the PGA Tour, and it imposed fines and suspensions on its players who appeared at LIV events. In April, an arbitration panel in London upheld the DP World Tour’s right to punish players , a decision that will affect the European roster for this year’s Ryder Cup, which will be contested this autumn in Italy, and for years to come.

That decision did not leave American golf organizations in the clear, though. In addition to the lawsuit LIV is waging against the PGA Tour, the Justice Department is conducting an antitrust investigation into men’s professional golf. Department officials have been especially interested in whether the PGA Tour’s threats of discipline undermined the integrity of golf’s labor market and in the ties between the tour and the organizers of major tournaments.

U.S. officials have interviewed Mickelson, DeChambeau and Sergio García as a part of their inquiry. It is not clear when the investigation will conclude, much less whether the government will try to force any changes in golf.

Can LIV golfers play the majors?

The PGA Tour has long, close links to the organizers of the four major tournaments: the British Open, the Masters, the P.G.A. Championship (which is run by an organization that is distinct from the PGA Tour) and the U.S. Open. But the tournament organizers have taken no steps to ban LIV players explicitly. At the Masters, contested in April, Koepka and Mickelson tied for second place. And in May, Koepka won the P.G.A. Championship by two strokes.

There is a catch, though: The tournament organizers set the criteria for entry and have the authority to change them at any time. Also, many, though not all, exemptions that grant automatic entries are based on relatively recent performances in sanctioned events, so many LIV players could ultimately find themselves excluded from the majors.

Norman felt a version of that power last summer , when the R&A, which runs the British Open, said it had “decided not to invite him to attend” a traditional dinner of past Open champions. Augusta National Golf Club also opted not to invite Norman to attend the Masters, but that decision was less freighted since Norman never won that event.

Some of the players who have signed up for LIV, and even many who have not, believe the PGA Tour offers many golfers a raw deal. The biggest stars contend their earnings should be more commensurate with their status in the game, and they have pointed out how the best players in other sports earn far more than golfers do.

Moreover, LIV players routinely argue that they should be viewed as independent contractors and free to play whenever and wherever they choose.

In their decision in the DP World Tour case, British arbitrators said pointedly that the independent contractor argument was “overplayed.”

“Individual players have to accept some limitation on their freedoms inherent in tour membership,” the panel said. No player, the arbitrators noted, “suggested that he had given up his independence by signing up to onerous (albeit remunerative) obligations to LIV.”

How do LIV Golf events work?

LIV has set up what are essentially shorter tournaments with smaller fields — three rounds instead of four, and with only 48 players competing instead of the rosters on the PGA Tour, which can be three times as large some weeks — and featuring concurrent individual and team play events.

With the small field, there is no cut midway through the event to lop off the stragglers, and every round starts with a shotgun start, meaning players tee off from different holes on the course simultaneously and then proceed around the course’s layout from there.

The individual competition feels, in many ways, like a traditional golf event: three rounds, lowest score wins. In the team event, four-man squads effectively contest a separate competition for a separate prize pot.

How is that different from the PGA Tour?

With rare exceptions, PGA Tour events generally consist of four rounds of stroke play, in which players compete against one another to post the lowest score. And while the LIV Golf format might feel unusual for players and viewers, the ultimate goal — circle the 18-hole course in as few shots as possible — is the same.

The PGA Tour is planning to eliminate the cut at some of its events beginning in 2024, a shift that LIV has openly relished.

How many events are there?

LIV Golf organizers scheduled 14 events for 2023. The schedule includes three events at courses controlled by former President Donald J. Trump’s family — keeping the league close to one of its greatest political patrons — as well as a tournament at Real Club Valderrama, the Spanish course that hosted the Ryder Cup in 1997.

Other venues are less dazzling. When someone essentially asked Johnson ahead of the Masters this spring to compare Orange County National Golf Center, where LIV had just held a tournament, to Augusta National, he replied: “I don’t think you could have those in the same sentence, other than I played there last week and I’m playing here this week.”

How can I watch?

In LIV’s first year tournaments were shown online and on lesser-watched streaming services in much of the world. For 2023, the league signed a deal with the CW Network to broadcast its events in the United States. It is not, however, thought to be the kind of deal that has the CW paying an enormous rights fee to LIV.

The CW is not exactly known for sports programming, but CBS, NBC and ESPN (which is owned by Disney, which in turn owns ABC) have enormous contracts to show PGA Tour competitions. Those networks may have their fill of golf, but they also may be wary of angering their business partners at the PGA Tour. LIV has argued in court papers that the tour pressured broadcasters not to do business with the rebel league.

Last thing: What’s with that name?

LIV (rhymes with give) Golf chose Roman numerals for its name. If it’s been a while since you studied those in school, LIV translates to 54, which is the number of holes each player sets out to complete in each event’s three-round format. That is one fewer round than a typical PGA Tour workweek, but it pays a lot more money.

Kevin Draper contributed reporting.

Alan Blinder is a sports reporter. He has reported from more than 30 states, as well as Asia and Europe, since he joined The Times in 2013. More about Alan Blinder

Tariq Panja covers some of the darker corners of the global sports industry. He is also a co-author of “Football’s Secret Trade,” an exposé on soccer’s multibillion-dollar player trading industry. More about Tariq Panja

Andrew Das joined The Times in 2006. An assistant editor in Sports, he helps direct coverage of soccer, the Olympics and international sports. More about Andrew Das

Inside the World of Sports

Dive deeper into the people, issues and trends shaping professional, collegiate and amateur athletics..

No More  Cinderella Stories?: Expansion of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament has been a popular topic. But adding more teams could push small schools like Oakland, which upset Kentucky, out of the action .

Caitlin Clark’s Lasting Impact: People have flocked to watch the Iowa basketball star  on TV and in person. But will her effect on the popularity and economics of women’s sports linger after her college career ends ?

Gambling Poses Risks for Leagues:   The situation involving the former interpreter for Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Dodgers slugger and pitcher, shows that when it comes to wagering on games, professional leagues have more than just the players to watch .

Unionization Efforts: How is a football team different from a marching band? The National Labor Relations Board is considering this question as it tries to determine whether some college athletes should be deemed employees .

Delayed Gratification: Doping rules, legal challenges and endless appeals have left some Olympic medalists waiting for their golds .

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MOMENTS THAT DEFINED WOMEN'S GOLF

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Shouting At Clouds

Chris DiMarco says senior pros aren’t paid enough, LIV Golf should buy Champions Tour

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Al Messerschmidt

Chris DiMarco spent much of PGA Tour career playing second fiddle. He finished runner-up at 2004 PGA Championship, 2005 Masters (playing in the same group as Tiger when his legendary chip on the 16th hole fell) and the 2006 Open Championship. On Wednesday, however, DiMarco finally got his turn as golf’s main character following comments he made on an episode of the Subpar Podcast .

Speaking on the state of the PGA Tour Champions, DiMarco said the quiet part loud:

“We’re kind of hoping that LIV buys the Champions Tour. Let’s play for a little real money out here. I mean this is kind of a joke when we’re getting $2 million. There were like seven guys last week from TPC [Sawgrass, at the Players Championship, which had a $25 million purse) that made more money than our purses.”

Needless to say, DiMarco’s bold call for "real" money for senior golf was met with raised eyebrows across the industry.

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DiMarco’s career earnings on the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions are somewhere in the ballpark of $25 million. If that’s a “joke,” then DiMarco must have a very strange sense of humor. With even marquee events like the Players Championship struggling for TV ratings, DiMarco’s calls for growth for niche products like the Champions Tour clang louder than ever. Perhaps this is just another instance of an old guy shouting at a cloud, but if DiMarco really thinks the PIF is going to swoop in a save senior golf now, then we have a patch of prime Arabian desert to sell him.

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Lynch: The PGA Tour is facing the toughest decision with LIV Golf. Should players be making that call?

O nly in politics and professional golf can one hear an arsonist share his impassioned vision for the rebuild he rendered necessary. So it was Monday when player-directors on the PGA Tour’s board met Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who as head of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has single-handedly financed the ravaging of the sport. A day later, two golfers on either side of the schism he created indicated how they’re reconciled (or not) to the consequences of their decisions.

Jon Rahm, one of Al-Rumayyan’s more expensive firestarters, offered a positive pitch for the Tour he left. “It was fun to watch, and what a finish. Jesus Christ, that was one that was fun to watch,” he said of the Players Championship, before admitting he has watched other tournaments that he’s no longer eligible to play, three of which he won last season. “It’s gut-wrenching to watch, but it made for great TV, and it was really fun.”

Picture the reigning Masters champion watching the action from home, then juxtapose that with the widely-circulated image of him playing a LIV event in Jeddah with not a spectator in sight. Asked about a subsequent LIV stop in Hong Kong, Rahm praised the people and the food. He is a competitor reduced to a concierge. His brave face notwithstanding, there was a poignant note in his comments about moving to LIV Golf. “It’s done. It’s past. It’s a decision I made, and I’m comfortable with it,” he said. “But I’m hoping I can come back.”

Rahm gives the impression of someone convinced he was going to be a one-man catalyst, that his departure would be a shock so seismic that every faction in golf would hasten toward reunification. By now, he must realize that a path back to the PGA Tour is not yet paved and that, bar four weeks a year, he will be competing before sparse galleries for the foreseeable.

His words struck a dissonant chord against those of Xander Schauffele, a leading man in the Players drama Rahm enjoyed from his couch. ”I'm very content with where I sit right now,” Schauffele said. “I don't have any regrets of what I've done or what I'm doing, so I'm sleeping just fine at night knowing where I stand.”

Their respective comments illustrate the only constant in recent years: golfers making decisions based wholly on self-interest and where they are in their careers, not for any more noble motive, and certainly not for the well-being of the tours from which they earned a stout living. As competitors, golfers ought to be selfish and focus on themselves. But that trait is also why they shouldn’t be positioned to heavily influence decisions that have enormous ramifications for the PGA Tour’s broader business.

Just such a decision is nearing.

I asked someone who was in the room for the Al-Rumayyan meeting in the Bahamas to characterize it. “Weather today was partly sunny with scattered but significant clouds,” came the response. No cloud looms more ominously than the issue of how (or if) LIV golfers return to the PGA Tour in any peace deal. It’s a divisive topic, even among Tour loyalists.

Rory McIlroy’s suggestion that they come back without sanction was quickly poo-pooed by Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler, while Scottie Scheffler — not a man prone to pettiness — said that a welcome might never be extended to guys who litigated against the Tour. Tempting as it may be to exclude Phredo Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau, lines can’t be drawn around individuals based on their popularity in the locker room.

This dilemma isn’t just procedural (What status would LIV guys have? Must they re-earn eligibility? Are they to be excluded from bonus pools for a period?) it’s also personal. Not in the sense of animosity, but in advantage. No Tour member has to best Rahm or Cameron Smith to win a tournament these days. No one is seeing a FedEx Cup bonus that might otherwise be theirs go to Brooks Koepka or Dustin Johnson. None of the rank-and-file struggling for starts are missing out because Graeme McDowell or Sergio Garcia got the call instead.

If you ask John Henry — the leader of Strategic Sports Group, which just invested $1.5 billion in the Tour — he might argue that his product would be measurably improved if the aforementioned defectors were in the fold again. But despite the pablum about unifying the game and seeing the best compete together again, many Tour members are disincentivized to see that happen. Which is why active players should not be on this jury. What’s best for individual members — even a large constituency of them — isn’t necessarily best for the Tour’s commercial prospects. But convincing members of a “member-led” organization that their interests are not the same as the Tour’s interests is akin to persuading Irish republicans that their best future lies in allegiance to the British monarchy.

The equity being distributed to players is an opportunity to reset the parameters of their role in Tour governance. They are shareholders, not owners. Activist shareholders, sure, but not the ultimate decision-makers. That distinction was lost when players used discord over the secretive Framework Agreement to demand a built-in majority on the board, which they also hold at the new for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises. Ask folks if they’d rather see Jay Monahan or Patrick Cantlay make decisions about the direction of a multi-billion dollar enterprise, you’d likely hear a chorus of ‘Neither!’ Players will be compromised in many future decisions, executives were compromised by past calls. But at least executives don’t have their own competitive skin in the game.

“I don't think anyone has sort of the right answer to keep everyone happy,” Schauffele said a few days ago. He’s right. But that’s an argument for avoiding a scenario in which players prioritize their happiness over what’s best for the Tour and the greater game. We’ve seen more than enough of how that usually works out.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Lynch: The PGA Tour is facing the toughest decision with LIV Golf. Should players be making that call?

A PGA Tour sign at the 2023 Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Country Club in Dublin, Ohio. (Photo: Ian Johnson/Icon Sportswire via AP Images)

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2024 Valspar Championship: Live stream, watch online, TV schedule, channel, tee times, radio, golf coverage

The pga tour visits the copperhead course for the last event of the florida swing.

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Major championship season may be lurking, but before players can set their sights on the Masters, they must first traverse the final stop of the Florida swing. The 2024 Valspar Championship welcomes a strong field to the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook, where a difficult finishing stretch coined "The Snake Pit" awaits.

Last week's runners-up at the Players Championship, Brian Harman and Xander Schauffele, are among the cast of players that will make the trip from Ponte Vedra to the Tampa area. The two Americans are joined in the field by a number of their U.S. Ryder Cup teammates, including Justin Thomas. 

They hope to end their skid, with Cameron Young and Tony Finau rounding out the American fold. Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im headline the international contingent and look to find the winner's circle before the tour transitions to Texas for the next couple weeks.

All times Eastern; streaming start times approximated   

Round 3 - Saturday

Round starts:  7:45 a.m.

PGA Tour Live:  7:45 a.m. -  6 p.m. --  PGA Tour Live

Early TV coverage:  1-3 p.m. on Golf Channel,  fubo  (Try for free) Live streaming:  1-3 p.m. on Peacock

Live TV coverage:  3-6 p.m. on NBC Live streaming:  3-6 p.m. on Peacock

Radio:  1-6 p.m. --  PGA Tour Radio  

Round 4 - Sunday

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The Masters 2024: Who can still earn invite to Augusta National over next two PGA Tour events?

Players can still earn an invite to The Masters by moving into the world's top 50 this week or by winning one of the next two PGA Tour events - the Houston Open and Valero Texas Open; Watch The Masters exclusively live from April 11-14 on Sky Sports

Wednesday 27 March 2024 13:50, UK

Alex Noren, Robert MacIntyre, Billy Horschel - credit AP Photo/PA

Time is running out to qualify for The Masters, with Ryder Cup players, former FedExCup champions and plenty of notable names among those chasing a late invite to Augusta National.

There are currently 85 players in the field for the opening men's major of the year, live from April 11-14 on Sky Sports , where Jon Rahm returns to defend his title and Scottie Scheffler arrives as pre-tournament favourite.

Players only have two PGA Tour events left to secure a spot for The Masters, with the winners of the Texas Children's Houston Open and Valero Texas Open - providing they're not already exempt - automatically earn an invite.

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MASTERS GOLF PREDICTIONS THUMB IMAGES: PA/AP

Those inside the world's top 50 after this week's event at Memorial Park Golf Course will also get to feature in The Masters, with several players having the opportunity to guarantee their qualification via that method.

Which players have the best chance?

Former BMW PGA Championship winner Byeong Hun An is the highest-ranked player not officially yet listed in the field, although the world No 42 won't drop out of the world's top 50 this week and therefore will secure an invite.

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Early spring in Augusta, GA. #themasters pic.twitter.com/AMMSH0cG09 — The Masters (@TheMasters) March 25, 2024

The Korean started the year outside the world's top 60 but followed a fourth at The Sentry by finishing runner-up at the Sony Open earlier in the season, with another top-10 finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational earlier this month helping him secure a return to The Masters.

Everyone else inside the world's top 50 is already in the field for The Masters, as are the next four in the world rankings, with Tom Hoge (world No 57), Mackenize Hughes (No 63) and former Ryder Cup winner Alex Noren (No 66) among those in action this week looking to earn a late major invite.

The Masters: Latest headlines and video

Who has qualified for the 2024 Masters?

Could McIlroy finally win the Grand Slam?

Can Scheffler add to major tally at Augusta?

Alex Noren, Butterfield Bermuda Championship (Getty Images)

Hoge would need a top-five finish in Houston to have a chance of making it into the top 50, while Hughes and Noren will likely need to end the week inside the top two to have a mathematical chance of securing a spot via that method.

Anyone else who can still make The Masters?

Everyone else in action in Houston will need a win to qualify for The Masters, with Keith Mitchell (No 71) and Germany's Stephan Jaeger (No 72) the next two in the world rankings who would require a victory.

Ryder Cup winner Robert MacIntyre is in danger of missing The Masters for the second successive season, having dropped down the world rankings after a slow start to the PGA Tour season, while English duo Aaron Rai and Matt Wallace also need a win to qualify.

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Former FedExCup champion Billy Horschel (No 87) has posted top-12 finishes in two of his three PGA Tour starts but is on the verge of not making The Masters for the first time since 2017, having featured in every major since 2018.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout (No 55) and Brendon Todd (No 64) both sit out of this week and will need to win the Valero Texas Open from April 4-7 if they're to feature at Augusta National, with that PGA Tour event where the final Masters spot will be available.

Matt Kuchar , former Open champion Francesco Molinari and Kevin Kisner - who has featured in every major since 2015 - are among the other notable names currently set to miss out, while others are struggling since dropping down the world rankings with moves to the LIV Golf League.

Rory McIlroy and Talor Gooch

There are 13 players from LIV Golf in the field, including Rahm, reigning PGA champion Brooks Koepka and two-time major winner Dustin Johnson, although Talor Gooch, Mito Pereira, Ian Poulter and Paul Casey all miss out.

Watch the Texas Children's Houston Open all live on Sky Sports. Early coverage begins on Thursday from 12.30pm on Sky Sports Golf, ahead of full coverage from 8pm. The Masters is then exclusively live from April 11-14 exclusively on Sky Sports. Stream the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, majors and more with NOW.

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THE 10 BEST Moscow Tours & Excursions

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Moscow City Golf Club

Moscow City Golf Club, 1, Dovzhenko Str. Moscow, 119590, Russia

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The only club in the centre of Moscow, located near Mosfilm film studios

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Founded by the Swedish hockey and golf player Sven "Tumba" Johansson in 1987.

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  1. Here's How to Watch the LIV Golf Inaugural Tournament

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  2. What is LIV Golf? The Tour that Has the Sporting World Divided

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  3. Stenson wins LIV Golf event and gets $4 million in debut

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  4. With the PGA Tour Season Over, LIV Golf Looks to Strengthen Its

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  6. What is the LIV Golf Series? A Deep Dive Into the PGA’s Rival Tour

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COMMENTS

  1. Welcome to LIV Golf

    LIV Golf is a new golf league featuring top players and teams competing in a global series of tournaments. Find out the latest news, standings, scores, and watch live events from Hong Kong, Miami, and more.

  2. LIV Golf

    LIV Golf (/ l ɪ v / LIV) is a professional men's golf tour.The name "LIV" refers to the Roman numerals for 54, the number of holes played at LIV events. The first LIV Golf Invitational Series event started on 9 June 2022, at the Centurion Club near St Albans in Hertfordshire, UK. The Invitational Series became the LIV Golf League in 2023.. LIV Golf is financed by the Public Investment Fund ...

  3. LIV Golf 2024 schedule: Events, dates, locations

    LIV Golf 2024 schedule. 2/2-4: LIV Mayakoba — El Cameleon Country Club 2/8-10: LIV Las Vegas — Las Vegas Country Club 3/1-3: LIV Saudi Arabia — TBD 3/8-10: LIV Hong Kong — Hong Kong Golf ...

  4. The PGA Tour and LIV Golf Merger, Explained

    LIV Golf began in late 2021 with the former PGA Tour player Greg Norman as its commissioner and billions of dollars in backing from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which is known as the Public ...

  5. LIV Golf and PGA Tour merger: here's everything you need to know

    The US-based PGA Tour said its merger with the breakaway LIV Golf and the DP World Tour would "unify the game," with all pending litigation mutually ended under the new agreement. A truce has ...

  6. What is LIV Golf? Players, field, tour schedule, news for league with

    LIV Golf is a rival golf league to the PGA Tour where the tournaments consist of 54 holes, the fields are limited to 48 golfers and the purses are an astronomical $25 million.

  7. PGA Tour and LIV Golf Agree to Deal to End Fight Over Sport

    June 6, 2023. The PGA Tour, the dominant force in men's professional golf for generations, and LIV Golf, which made its debut just last year and is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in ...

  8. PGA Tour and LIV Golf Agree to Merger

    The deal to merge the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the rival league financed by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, was seen as a victory for Saudi Arabia on multiple levels ...

  9. LIV Golf tour live updates: Leaderboard, news as Charl Schwartzel wins

    The controversial LIV Golf International Series has arrived. While Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson headlined a 48-player field for the first event, Charl Schwartzel emerged as the winner by one ...

  10. LIV Golf

    LIV Golf is a new and controversial golf tournament backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Find out who is playing, how much money is on offer and why it is rocking the golfing world.

  11. What is LIV Golf? Explaining the PGA Tour competitor Brooks Koepka

    The LIV Golf International Series is an upstart league led by Australian former golf star Greg Norman meant to challenge the longstanding reign of the PGA Tour.

  12. The inside story of how LIV Golf vs. the PGA Tour began

    After the Genesis, even LIV's employees were convinced that McIlroy was right. This thing was dead in the water. The PGA Tour had drawn a line in the sand, making clear that punishment would be ...

  13. How We Got Here: A Timeline of LIV Golf and How the PGA Tour Eventually

    LIV Golf officially launched in June 2021 and will continue in 2024. Here's how the rival league emerged and the PGA Tour's reactions. January: Reports first surface about the potential for a ...

  14. What is LIV Golf? A simple primer on the controversial new golf league

    Two-time major champion Greg Norman is the CEO and commissioner of the league, which is aiming to be an alternative arena to the PGA Tour for the world's best players. LIV Golf is backed by ...

  15. LIV Golf tour schedule 2022: Dates, locations for all eight events in

    LIV Golf prize money. Each regular-season event features a $25 million purse (£20 million), with $20 million to be split over the 48 golfers taking part.

  16. LIV Golf

    During the 2024 LIV Golf League, world-class players from across the globe will compete in individual and team events. The 2024 series will be broadcast exclusively on YouTube, Facebook and ...

  17. LIV Golf Hong Kong 2024

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