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“When you were young, And your heart was an open book,
You used to say live and let live, you know you did, you know you did, you know you did…”
In nearly every James Bond movie, there is at least one easy-to-dislike bad guy.
Professional golf’s new villain has just arrived on the scene and has announced his new league’s inaugural schedule for this summer and fall which will compete against several PGA Tour events.
The LIV Golf Invitational Series, led by long-time PGA star Greg Norman, is going to tee-up its first professional golf tournament next week (June 9-11) in London, England. According to their website, the new golf group thinks they will have an edge over the PGA Tour:
“We are doing things differently. With smaller fields, fewer rounds, a defined season, shorter
playing windows, and shotgun starts, the format has been designed with fans as the #1 priority.”
LIV Golf is a startup golf league bankrolled by Saudi Arabian investors and long-time antagonist to the overlords of the PGA Tour in Greg Norman.
“What does it matter to ya? When you got a job to do, you got to do it well
You got to give the other fella *ell…”
If you asked, “What is LIV?” join the club!
Embarrassingly, I have just learned that LIV is derived from the Roman numerals equaling 54.
That means these tournaments will be limited to 54 holes played over three days. While the PGA Tour plays 72 holes over four days featuring a cut (half of the field) after 36 holes, the LIV Golf events will not have a cut at all. That also means that all 48 players in the LIV Golf field will receive a paycheck of some amount.
The second LIV event will be the first of five to be played on US soil. Portland, Oregon will host the June 30-July 2 tournament at the impressive Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club. A daily admission pass will cost you $70.
Other American locations for this tour include the Trump National Club in Bedminster, New Jersey (July 29-31), The International Golf Club near Boston (September 2-4), Rich Harvest Farms near Chicago (September 16-18), and the season finale to be hosted in Miami, Florida at the Trump National Doral Country Club (October 27-30).
In addition to the opening event in London, the new LIV Tour will also play events in Bangkok, Thailand (October 7-9) and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (October 14-16).
Another unique feature of LIV Golf tournaments will be their “shotgun start” idea. This means that the players will all begin play at the exact same starting time but begin (and end) on different holes. This is a format utilized by many corporate outing “scrambles” so that all of the golfers may return back to the clubhouse at nearly the same time for prize awards and an evening meal.
My lovely wife suggested that they may be doing this to maximize their television coverage. As usual, she is right! Rather than starting each group at the #1 tee and then waiting ten to twelve minutes for the next group to go off the tee, the LIV Golf players will start and finish their 18 holes at nearly the same time. Golf’s television coverage just dropped from six or more hours to (hopefully) less than five hours.
This idea removes the chance that a golfer teeing-off in the morning will play in different course conditions than others who might start play in the afternoon.
This week, the LIV Golf group rolled out their list of golfers who are willing to risk their PGA Tour membership for the chance to earn a lot of money in 2022 offered by the new golf league.
A standard PGA Tour event features a field of 144 golfers. After two rounds, the field is cut in half for Saturday and Sunday’s rounds. If you fail to make the cut, you aren’t paid in PGA Tour events. Tough luck!
In contrast, the LIV Golf field consists of just 48 players. Each of the players in LIV events will play 54 holes (no cuts) and receive a minimum paycheck for their weekly participation.
Speaking of money, the LIV Golf tournaments will feature plenty of cash for the players.
Each of the eight tournaments will have prize money of $25 million. The PGA Tour’s average weekly purse now pays nearly $8 million per event, but the PGA Tour also schedules about 48 weekly events per season, too.
Of the $25 million weekly prize money offered by LIV Golf, $20 million will be split by the 48-player field based on their individual scores. An additional $5 million is to be paid to the top 3 teams in the field each week.
How are the golf “teams” created? Before the initial round of play each week, the 48-player field will be divided into twelve teams of four players each.
A player “draft” will be held with the top four players selecting names for the team’s second, third, and fourth position. As in most fantasy football leagues, the draft allows each team to make one selection per round. Once the first round draft order is established, the team which selects first in Round #1 will then select last in Round #2. The process is repeated until all players have been selected.
During a tournament’s team competition, the best two scores for each 4-player team will count for the team total during the first two rounds. In the third and final round, the three lowest scores count. The lowest team overall team score after 54 holes will be the winner for that week. The $5 million weekly team competition prize money will be divided among the top 3 team scores.
But wait! There’s more!
In addition to the prize money offered at each individual LIV event, the top three individual players for the season will share in a $30 million end-of-year bonus payout. Plus, as an added sweetener, the LIV team championship finale features an incredible $50 million purse.
There is so much money being offered by this upstart new golf tour that it must be very tempting for current PGA stars to pass.
However, PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan has warned his players that they may be permanently banned from participating in future PGA events if they walk the plank and play in one or more of these LIV Golf events.
This week, the gauntlet was thrown down as the first list of “PGA Pirates” was identified.
The most famous name heading to the new LIV Golf league is two-time major champion Dustin Johnson (currently ranked #24 in the world). Former major champions such as Louis Oosthuizen, Sergio Garcia, Martin Kaymer, Charl Schwartzel, and Graeme McDowell have signed-up, too. Other recognizable names include young stars such as Kevin Na (#33 world ranking), Talor Gooch (#35), and Lee Westwood (#74).
Phil Mickelson remains a big question mark as of this writing.
Rumors have circulated that Mickelson was offered more than $100 million in guaranteed payouts (regardless of how he performs in the tournaments) by the league’s sponsors. That same rumor mill has suggested that Dustin Johnson just scored a $125 million guarantee from the new league, too.
Another big challenge for the LIV Golf is getting onto US television. Since the PGA Tour fills a big part of the schedule for Golf Channel, CBS Sports, and, to a lesser extent, NBC Sports, the LIV Golf group has struggled to find a network which is willing to air the events.
Whether intentional or not, the new LIV Golf tour is quickly becoming an “over 40” league. The roster is filled with golfers whose prime earnings on the PGA Tour have started to dwindle in recent years. The PGA Champions Tour is reserved for golfers ages 50 and older, but the purses offered are only about 20% of the payout of traditional PGA Tour events.
Each golfer must carefully weigh the positives and negatives from leaving the safety of the PGA Tour for this new LIV Golf group. The likely loss of annual revenues from corporate sponsorships and financial endorsements for most of the exiting players must be taken into account.
For a golf legend like Phil Mickelson or a well-known PGA star like Dustin Johnson, this is a very difficult proposition. The net present value of the LIV Golf guaranteed pay in 2022 may or may not be worth the risk of losing your future access to PGA and Champions Tour events and the loss in commercial marketability afforded by television coverage of the traditional men’s golf tours.
For me, the biggest question would be the security of the money to be paid by the Saudi investors of the new league. Are they committed funding more than this first year? If that is an unknown, it creates another level of risk for many of the golfers making the switch.
“But if this ever changin’ world in which we live in,
Makes you give in and cry…”
If the Saudis should change their minds and pull the financial plug quickly, the new tour might become golf’s version of “LIV and Let Die”.
*Note – SwampSwami will be on vacation next week. See you soon!