Many people have asked, “why LIV? What does the name mean?” Instead of being an acronym, LIV used here is used as Roman numerals, which equates to the number 54. This number is deliberate.
In LIV events, there are 72 holes of golf. The number 54 stands for a “perfect score," as if every single hole were birdied. In 2023, the group intends to change its name to the LIV Golf League.
It takes quite a bit of money to start up a rival golf league, and part of the controversy with LIV Golf is how it's funded. It is funded by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia; more specifically, the Public Investment Fund.
Initially, it was announced in 2019 that a new golf league would form to rival the PGA Tour, known as the Premier Golf League. However, the Premier Golf League sat down with investors from Saudi Arabia in 2020 and they funded the Super Golf League, which would later be rebranded as LIV Golf.
As you may imagine, a rival group forming did not produce a favorable reaction. When LIV Golf was still known as the Premier Golf League, the PGA Tour and the PGA European Tour banded together to form somewhat of an alliance.
Also, during this time, Jay Monahan, the PGA Golf Commissioner, made a pretty hard insinuation that any player who played for LIV Golf would be banned for life from the PGA Tour. However, the PGA did not stop there, as you’ll discover later in this article.
The format of LIV Golf differs slightly from that of the PGA Tour. For their first year, they’ll be playing no-stroke-cut eight tournaments in different cities throughout 2022.
There will also be a tournament final on October 22, which has also caused some controversy. It will be held at the Trump National Doral Miami.
In July 2022, LIV Golf announced that it would play the entire 2023 season as an official league, with 14 events and 48 players under contract. CEO of LIV Golf, Greg Norman, also announced there would be a promotion and relegation system similar to that of European soccer, with four of the players being relegated (demoted) at the end of the season.
The 2023 season was specifically designed to not overlap with the PGA Tour or other international events. The overall prize fund is $405 million.
Another reason for the controversy is how many high-level champion players have signed up for LIV Golf. It’s been reported that former No. 1 Dustin Johnson was paid $150 million to sign up for LIV, and he did play in the opening event at the Centurion Club. Johnson had earned a total of $74 million since joining the PGA Tour in 2008.
There are other high-profile sign-ups as well, including Lee Westwood. However, he signed a nondisclosure (NDA) agreement about his earnings. Other famous players who have joined the tour include Sergio Garcia, Graeme McDowell, Martin Kaymer, Charl Schwartzel, and Louis Oosthuizen, among others.
In addition to other player signups, there are players abruptly leaving the PGA Tour. One such player is Kevin Na, who officially resigned from the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf.
Amateur champion James Piot decided against joining the PGA Tour at all and instead signed up for LIV Golf in 2022.
Greg Norman, the CEO of LIV Golf, told the Washington Post that Tiger Woods was offered a “mind-blowingly enormous amount; we’re talking about high nine digits.”
Yet, Tiger Woods flatly refused to join LIV and remains part of the PGA Golf tournaments. He previously told inquiring reporters, "I've been playing out here for a couple of years over decades, and I think there's a legacy to it. I still think that the tour has so much to offer, so much opportunity. … I understand different viewpoints, but I believe in legacies; I believe in major championships; I believe in big events, comparisons to historical figures of the past. There's plenty of money out here. The tour is growing. But it's just like any other sport. It's like tennis. You have to go out there and earn it. You've got to go out there and play for it. We have opportunity to go ahead and do it. It's just not guaranteed up front."
Other players who left the PGA Tour midyear to play with LIV include Patrick Reed (pictured above), Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, and Paul Casey.
According to Sports Illustrated, 16 of the 100 top players in the world have already joined LIV Golf.
LIV Golf is now getting some of the biggest catches ever. A group of six players has decided to jump ship and move over to LIV, including Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann, both banking a whopping $100 million signing. For Cameron Smith, there are talks that this will ruin his legacy, but he says it’s just business.
Niemann previously stated that he was on the fence about LIV Golf but was leaning toward staying put. After Smith moved over, Niemann quickly followed. Harold Varner III has also decided to move over to LIV Golf, so it’s only a matter of time before others decide to leave the PGA. LIV Golf is throwing real money at them.
Meanwhile, there are big names like Hideki Matsuyama and Cameron Young saying that they’re going to stick with PGA through thick and thin. The best thing about this is that Young had some pretty choice words for LIV Golf and those who were moving from PGA to LIV.
Young stated, “'It's a really difficult situation because it's not anything that anyone really wanted to happen. I think it wasn't meant to be this kind of hostile between the two.” He also stated, “I don't think the competition on the PGA Tour is going to go downhill significantly.” Is that a shot at those who joined?
The LIV Golf Tour is sanctioned by the Asian Tour. Greg Norman is not only CEO of LIV Golf but LIV Golf Investments, whose mission is to “support golf throughout the world,” according to Sports Illustrated.
The investment company has promised the Asian Tour they will pay $300 million to help boost its popularity with 10 events per year. This is different from the $400 million that was used for the startup of LIV Golf.
There is marked interest in the public concerning the Asian Tour. The first event took place in March 2022 in Thailand and was won by Sihwan Kim. The second event was called International Series England and took place in early June 2022 at the Slaley Hall Hotel, Spa and Golf Resort.
Some events are still to be determined.
Part of the reason the LIV Golf events are looked down upon is how the organization is funded. The main shareholder in LIV Golf is a fund known as the Public Investment Fund, which is backed by the government of Saudi Arabia.
This is controversial for many reasons; read on to learn more.
In June 2022, during a LIV Golf press conference, reporters kept asking about the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post reporter who was assassinated by the Saudi Arabian government in 2018.
No justice ever occurred, and many people have disdain for LIV Golf because of their financial association with the Saudis.
Many journalists and critics have accused the players in LIV Golf of sportswashing. The most prolific sportswashing event in history happened in Berlin during the 1936 Olympic Games during Nazi Germany.
Generally speaking, sportswashing is a way for athletes or organizations to improve a bad reputation. However, in international cases, such as LIV Golf, it is often used to direct attention away from scandals, corruption, and lack of human rights.
In 2022, golfer Phil Mickelson, who has been associated with LIV Golf, made some poor comments that thrust the LIV Golf association further into controversy.
During a session with his then-biographer, Mickelson made very disparaging comments about the PGA Tour and went on to speak about the Saudi Arabian connection and LIV Golf, saying that Saudi Arabians were “scary [censored] to be involved with.” When this was published, it caught the attention of the media.
In the midst of his comments and controversy, Greg Norman invited Mickelson to join the LIV Tour, and the announcement was made on June 6, 2022, that he would be signing with the tour for $200 million and that he would play the first event of the tour in London.
This announcement came two days before a press conference where Mickelson was roasted for his comments.
Because of Mickelson’s comments, on June 8, 2022, he was roasted by the press and called a “Saudi stooge.” He was also directly accused of sportswashing. Mickelson apologized several times for his comments about the Saudis, but reporters remained confused as to why he was apologizing.
According to the New York Post, Mickelson was asked to clarify during a press conference—was he apologizing for his connection with the Saudis or for boldly speaking the truth?
Greg Norman, the CEO of LIV Golf, has also been openly criticized for his involvement with the organization. The New York Post accused Norman of aligning with the Saudis for his own financial gain. Norman also had made disparaging comments that were criticized by the press, as well as Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz.
The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was connected with Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. According to ESPN, Norman defended him, saying, “Look, we've all made mistakes, and you just want to learn from those mistakes and how you can correct them going forward.”
In June 2022, close to 2,500 family members who had loved ones killed or injured in the September 11, 2001, attacks spoke out in an open letter to the PGA Tour.
In part, the letter read, “Thank you for standing up for decency … to those of you who have chosen what is right over blood money from a corrupt, destructive sports entity and its Saudi backers, please continue to stand strong.”
Former President Donald Trump has also been criticized by the families and survivors of the 9/11 attacks. According to the New York Times, Trump blamed Saudi Arabia for the terrorist attacks on 9/11 during a 2016 interview with FOX News.
However, in June 2022, Trump hosted the second LIV event on his course, the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
After being quiet for some time, Tiger Woods spoke out against the LIV Tours in July 2022, right before the 2022 Open Championship. At a press conference, Woods was asked what he thought of the players who had signed up for LIV.
His response was, “I disagree with it. I think that what they've done is they've turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position.” Later, in August, Greg Norman confirmed to the press that Woods had turned down an offer of $700 million to $800 million to play with the LIV.
In July 2022, the Department of Justice (DOJ) began investigating the PGA Tour to decide if it was committing antitrust violations for not letting golfers participating in the LIV Tour to continue performing in PGA Tour events, such as the Presidents’ Cup.
The PGA Tour responded with, “This was not unexpected,” according to the Wall Street Journal. A spokesperson for the PGA Tour said it would “prevail” in the investigation.
In an attempt to retain players and persuade them not to join LIV Golf, the PGA Tour increased winnings at certain tournaments and also created “alternate routes” to help the players. However, the PGA Tour has conceded they cannot match the amount of prize money that is in the LIV pool.
But the PGA Tour did increase its stake by 40 percent in the European Tour, further strengthening their alliance.
The European Tour, now aligned strongly with the PGA Tour, did not take any actions immediately toward golfers that had joined LIV. However, near the end of June 2022, the European Tour announced any LIV players could not perform in three events co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour.
The European Tour also cut captain Henrik Stenson from the European Ryder Cup team because of his association with LIV Golf.
After the European Tour began removing players involved with the LIV Golf Tour, Ian Poulter and some other golfers took legal action against the European Tour.
Because of the pending legal suit, the players (including Poulter) were allowed to play in the Genesis Scottish Open, a PGA event.
CEO Greg Norman had invited many golfers to join the tour, and the LIV Golf Tours have some of the top players in the world.
In August, on the Piers Morgan Uncensored show, Daly said he begged to be on the tour, but Norman refused, saying he was not giving out any more invites and that Daly was “too old.”
In early August 2022, Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, and nine other players on the LIV Tour filed an antitrust suit against the PGA for their suspensions.
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court in San Francisco and claims the PGA Tour is using “monopoly power.”
Further intricacies of the lawsuit ask for a restraining order so that several players can compete in the August 2022 FedEx Cup playoffs, which is a PGA Tour-sponsored event.
The players include Talor Gooch (pictured above), Hudson Swafford, and Matt Jones.
Initially, Jay Monahan, PGA Tour Commissioner, responded to the lawsuit with a memo, referring to LIV Golf as the “Saudi Golf League.”
He tersely stated that the exiled LIV Tour players knew the consequences of signing up for a rival league as the PGA Tour had made that clear from the outset.
After the lawsuit was filed by the LIV Golf players, both sides continued to speak out about the matter. In statements to Yahoo! Finance, Jay Monahan, PGA Tour Commissioner, said, “To allow reentry into our events compromises the Tour and the competition, to the detriment of our organizations, our players, our partners, and our fans.”
An official statement from LIV Golf retorted, “The players are right to have brought this action to challenge the PGA Tour’s anticompetitive rules and to vindicate their rights as independent contractors to play where and when they choose.” As of August 2022, the lawsuit is still pending.
(Image via PGA of America, CC BY-SA 4.0
