LIV Tour Discussion Thread (*** NO POLITICS ***)

[bscinstnct]

I’d watch all the  LIV events if they played teams of 4 with 2 pros and 2 random 15 handicaps and they played alternate shot!

 

They could promote it and have a lottery system to be picked as the ams and millions of people would try! 
 

Have random dudes skulling approach shots and the pros have to hit massive shots to save the hole.

 

Or some dude from Des Moines sweating over a 5 footer to win a million bucks!

 

Ratings bonanza 🤣

Edited July 11 by bscinstnct

[jdl]

2 hours ago, Holy Moses said:

I think the team concept is fine. It’s a way to keep fans interested in their big name players and the players still trying to compete if they are having a bad week. Team golf is not the issue with LIV. The PIF and LIV itself are the issue. 

 

Yeah team golf is great in the Ryder Cup. But it's relative scarcity is part of what makes it work. If they had one even every year, it's not as good (see Prez Cup). And more often than that? Nope.

 

1 hour ago, FriedEgg said:

 

bingo, LIV needs to find a way

 

Fixed it for you.

[bekgolf]

6 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

I’d watch all the  LIV events if they played teams of 4 with 2 pros and 2 random 15 handicaps and they played alternate shot!

 

They could promote it and have a lottery system to be picked as the ams and millions of people would try! 
 

Have random dudes skulling approach shots and the pros have to hit massive shots to save the hole.

 

Or some dude from Des Moines sweating over a 5 footer to win a million bucks!

 

Ratings bonanza 🤣

 

I miss Wide World of Sports.  The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.  

 

The format you described would be a fantastic winter afternoon filler for WW of Sports if it still existed.  McKay and the crew calling the action would be epic.

 

Time for another reboot!

[Mr.Cleeks]

2 hours ago, Titleist99 said:

100%.

 

I'm on record as stating that the Majors have gone out of their way to include the Saudi tour. It's pathetic to see the bending over backwards going on. It's their tournament, so they can do as they please, but I'm of the belief that it is to appease the DOJ.

 

 

I have nothing against LIV; I still like a lot of guys on that tour and will watch if they go up against a crappier PGAT event. I feel the guys chirping the loudest about the majors are the ones who'd have a very small change to qualify even if they were on the PGAT. I don't even care if they get OWGR points. The thing is the SOF for LIV fields is super depleted. Bryson, Tyrell and to a lesser extent Rahm/Niennman are the only players adding any actual value to the SOF of a liv event. LIV has a bunch of guys who are ranked outside the top 1000. If Tiger for example plays the Hero and finished all 4 days,he's gonna leapfrog a to of liv gus

Do I think Joaquin Niemann should be playing in all 4 majors? Yes and he's played well and earned his way into them. I actually have a ton of  Patrick Reed; the guy has teed it up 4x on the DPWT this year and once on the Asian tour and is grinding to accumulate OWGR points.

Do I think the top 15 guys on LIV should be exempt into all 4 majors like Bubba suggested.

No and I don't think even Scott O'Neil or LIV exec's believe that's reasonable. LIV has 60-something guys who have played an event this year. Could you imagine inviting 25% of those guys? What a laughable notion. I like how the USGA/R&A do it, top player not currently qualified before X date gets in.

 

This entire OWGR discourse is old and LIV needs to move on.

 

[WesternRacing]

5 hours ago, philly2kuk said:

I thought the OWGR stuff had gone? The rules for ranking points existed before LIV. They need cuts, meaningful relegation and other stuff. It’s been the same from day one, LIV needs to change not OWGR.

 

They have a pathway to majors, that’s all they should get if they won’t abide by the rules that existed before they did.

 

If you read the statement made by LIV’s new CEO very closely and literally, it is worded very carefully and does not say that LIV has agreed to make all of the changes requested by the OWGR board.  I have a sneaking suspicion that they’ve probably move the bar a little and are counting on the board to cave and just give them some measure of points for their exhibitions.

[fowlerscousin]

Great start to the shortened day one of LGA. Westwood out front. A victory for him could make up a lot of ground from not winning a normal major.

[Buddon _Burn]

8 hours ago, CaseyC said:

OWGR has said that promotion and relegation of players is the problem.  But how do you do that with the "Team" concept?  How can a Team ever sign a player to a multi-year contract if the bottom players get dropped and new players come on?

Is it just promotion/relegation itself or the fact it is done in a meaningless way (where there's so often been a work around to keep guys in LIV who should have been cut loose)? I don't see what the problem with promotion/relegation would be on the face of it if conducted properly and transparently - the accepted tours largely work in essence off the same principal. 

 

As we all know, there's already various tours with small fields/only three rounds that get OWGR points e.g. the Clutch Pro Tour in Europe (albeit a very small number of points but those are cherished and deserved by the guys working their way up on that/those tours) and also arbitrary invitational events with no cuts, e.g. Genesis.

 

Given the no cuts thing is however the major sticking point, LIV really should be able to find a way with this e.g. have a cut and let the others play the final round solely for the team format but not counting towards the individual places. This feels no less contrived than the above examples or e.g. how the Tour Championship was run for years, with a comically artificial leaderboard that then needed to be translated back to reality for OWGR purposes.

 

The team format, although very distracting to an individual event wanting OWGR points, should not be an impediment - there's plenty of Pro-Ams etc. around the world that are still eligible for OWGR points, which in my opinion entail the same issues but which are accepted.  

[Holy Moses]

5 minutes ago, Buddon _Burn said:

Is it just promotion/relegation itself or the fact it is done in a meaningless way (where there's so often been a work around to keep guys in LIV who should have been cut loose)? I don't see what the problem with promotion/relegation would be on the face of it if conducted properly and transparently - the accepted tours largely work in essence off the same principal. 

 

As we all know, there's already various tours with small fields/only three rounds that get OWGR points e.g. the Clutch Pro Tour in Europe (albeit a very small number of points but those are cherished and deserved by the guys working their way up on that/those tours) and also arbitrary invitational events with no cuts, e.g. Genesis.

 

Given the no cuts thing is however the major sticking point, LIV really should be able to find a way with this e.g. have a cut and let the others play the final round solely for the team format but not counting towards the individual places. This feels no less contrived than the above examples or e.g. how the Tour Championship was run for years, with a comically artificial leaderboard that then needed to be translated back to reality for OWGR purposes.

 

The team format, although very distracting to an individual event wanting OWGR points, should not be an impediment - there's plenty of Pro-Ams etc. around the world that are still eligible for OWGR points, which in my opinion entail the same issues but which are accepted.  

The OWGR board has already said that LIV’s 54 hole, no cut events are not the issue. It’s the very limited relegation and very minimal ways to get into LIV that’s the issue. Remember, LIV basically picked and choosed their players. No one earned a spot. 

[Buddon _Burn]

Just now, Holy Moses said:

The OWGR board has already said that LIV’s 54 hole, no cut events are not the issue. It’s the very limited relegation and very minimal ways to get into LIV that’s the issue. Remember, LIV basically picked and choosed their players. No one earned a spot. 

Okay, got it. Seems like something LIV could resolve - probably one year of brutal relegation/qualifying and then just following on from that going forward. Maybe difficult if some of the guys on longer term contracts end up in the relegation zone, but they'd still have the ability to contest a genuine qualifying program to get back up (and without intense competition given so many PGA tour aligned players will never enter). If those guys don't get through all of that, then it's worth the PIF's while just paying out the remainder of those contracts - it's unlikely the top end guys (Brooks etc.) are ever going to be in this situation anyway, so it's only the Poulter, Pereira type guys who may get relegated and fail to re-qualify, and they presumably wouldn't cost LIV an unjustifiable amount to just pay out. 

[Holy Moses]

2 minutes ago, Buddon _Burn said:

Okay, got it. Seems like something LIV could resolve - probably one year of brutal relegation/qualifying and then just following on from that going forward. Maybe difficult if some of the guys on longer term contracts end up in the relegation zone, but they'd still have the ability to contest a genuine qualifying program to get back up (and without intense competition given so many PGA tour aligned players will never enter). If those guys don't get through all of that, then it's worth the PIF's while just paying out the remainder of those contracts - it's unlikely the top end guys (Brooks etc.) are ever going to be in this situation anyway, so it's only the Poulter, Pereira type guys who may get relegated and fail to re-qualify, and they presumably wouldn't cost LIV an unjustifiable amount to just pay out. 

The problem is, LIV fears what would happen to the captains and big named players if they had a bad season and got relegated out and don’t requalify. LIV’s business model depends on no relegation for certain players, but that butts up against the OWGR rules. LIV will have to budge on that, but their players also want guaranteed contracts and guaranteed up front money. That was the only reason they moved to LIV in the first place. So what do LIV players want more: guaranteed contracts and relegation or OWGR points. We shall

see.

[Titleist99]

7 minutes ago, Holy Moses said:

The problem is, LIV fears what would happen to the captains and big named players if they had a bad season and got relegated out and don’t requalify. LIV’s business model depends on no relegation for certain players, but that butts up against the OWGR rules. LIV will have to budge on that, but their players also want guaranteed contracts and guaranteed up front money. That was the only reason they moved to LIV in the first place. So what do LIV players want more: guaranteed contracts and relegation or OWGR points. We shall

see.

Nah, what will happen is the OWGR will open up a special category for LIV Golf.

 

They'll receive half the points for the first ten players in a tournament.

 

They will do that even though it's unfair to the rest of the tours.

 

Why you ask:  Because they are LIV.

 

IMO

[Holy Moses]

10 minutes ago, Titleist99 said:

Nah, what will happen is the OWGR will open up a special category for LIV Golf.

 

They'll receive half the points for the first ten players in a tournament.

 

They will do that even though it's unfair to the rest of the tours.

 

Why you ask:  Because they are LIV.

 

IMO

Why didn’t the OWGR do that already? I can’t see it happening. The PGA Tour has too much pull.

[jdl]

10 hours ago, Holy Moses said:

The OWGR board has already said that LIV’s 54 hole, no cut events are not the issue. It’s the very limited relegation and very minimal ways to get into LIV that’s the issue. Remember, LIV basically picked and choosed their players. No one earned a spot. 

And LIV actually *reduced* the number of spots available through their qualifying tournament from 4 (?) down to only 1 the last time around.

Will be interesting to see if they've actually proposed more changes to get closer to compliance or if this is just another PR piece so they can complain about the unfairness.

[Hawkeye77]

11 hours ago, fowlerscousin said:

Great start to the shortened day one of LGA. Westwood out front. A victory for him could make up a lot of ground from not winning a normal major.

 

The troll posts are usually a lot better than this, lol.

[leezer99]

10 hours ago, Holy Moses said:

The problem is, LIV fears what would happen to the captains and big named players if they had a bad season and got relegated out and don’t requalify. LIV’s business model depends on no relegation for certain players, but that butts up against the OWGR rules. LIV will have to budge on that, but their players also want guaranteed contracts and guaranteed up front money. That was the only reason they moved to LIV in the first place. So what do LIV players want more: guaranteed contracts and relegation or OWGR points. We shall

see.

IJP is currently the only captain that is close to the drop zone. If a couple of the guys below him on points make it up over the next three events it could spell doom for him. 

[Holy Moses]

46 minutes ago, leezer99 said:

IJP is currently the only captain that is close to the drop zone. If a couple of the guys below him on points make it up over the next three events it could spell doom for him. 

Bubba would have had to requalify last year. Phil, Westwood, and Stenson were really close. Anthony Kim could also be in for relegation if he was part of a team. 

[SnowbirdTom]

Heh, none of them actually "qualified" in the first place.  The only reason they're there is they signed for the big money.  This will always be the big issue with the clown tour.  No playing your way into the tournament rotation.  Closed shop. 

[Titleist99]

11 hours ago, Holy Moses said:

Why didn’t the OWGR do that already? I can’t see it happening. The PGA Tour has too much pull.

 

The new guy is a businessman more suited for golf. He realizes that for his league to be taken as a serious competition, they must have OWGR points. 

 

He'll be more compromising and less confrontational. Trevor Immelman will give him the points that Greg Norman couldn't get.    IMO

[Holy Moses]

Just now, Titleist99 said:

 

The new guy is a businessman more suited for golf. He realizes that for his league to be taken as a serious competition, they must have OWGR points. 

 

He'll be more compromising and less confrontational. Trevor Immelman will give him the points that Greg Norman couldn't get.    IMO

I don’t see how LIV getting OWGR points makes them more serious competition if nothing else significantly changes with LIV

[Titleist99]

27 minutes ago, Holy Moses said:

I don’t see how LIV getting OWGR points makes them more serious competition if nothing else significantly changes with LIV

That alone, no. I'm sure he was hired to change the perception of that failing league. If not, they could have left GN in charge.

[Mr.Cleeks]

I'm very curious what LIV is gonna do once a lot of these contracts run out. I'm pretty sure DJ/Phil's contracts are up this year and I think those are done. Phil's gonna be 56 next year and I could see him in the booth. Bryson's is up in 2026 and he's gonna want the Rahm. deal. Rahm is locked in til 2028. I can't think of any top 30 player who would even be interested in signing with LIV

[dekez]

On 7/11/2025 at 10:36 AM, Titleist99 said:

Agreed.   LIV Golf has tried for the last four years to match the commercialism, excitement, and team spirit of the Ryder Cup, but with little success.

 

Their team format needs a total reset.  IMO

In part because there's no affinity group with which to associate these teams.  The exception would be Niemann's team which are all from South America (I think). You wouldn't know it by the team name though.  If you had an English team, Aussie Team, Korean team etc it might draw some interest from national affiliation. But even that is probably not good enough. The format sucks.

[FriedEgg]

22 hours ago, Holy Moses said:

It’s not the OWGR’s responsibility to find a way to give LIV points. Do they deserve points based on who LIV players are? Yes. Does LIV need to change things up to line up with the OWGR’s rules? Yes. 

 

 

22 hours ago, SnowbirdTom said:

LIV can have OWGR points easily. Conform to all the rules and they’re in.

 

got it, so OWGR is more or less a racket without an imagination

Edited July 12 by FriedEgg
a

[bscinstnct]

4 minutes ago, FriedEgg said:

 

 

 

got it, so OWGR is a racket without an imagination

 

https://www.owgr.com/how-the-ranking-works

[fowlerscousin]

DJ posted the best round in pro golf this week. -7 on saturday

[FriedEgg]

19 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

 

https://www.owgr.com/how-the-ranking-works

I'm convinced LIV could conform to all the OWGR "rules" and the OWGR would still find an excuse(s) to not give them ranking points.  

[bscinstnct]

14 minutes ago, FriedEgg said:

I'm convinced LIV could conform to all the OWGR "rules" and the OWGR would still find an excuse(s) to not give them ranking points.  

 

They can get points

 

But all factors considered, they would provably give LIV events like 1/3 the points a Signature PGA Tour event would get. 

[grm24]

34 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

But all factors considered, they would provably give LIV events like 1/3 the points a Signature PGA Tour event would get. 

Which would be way to many given how awful their roster of players is top to bottom. Fortunately the rankings don't factor name or past reputation. The exhibition circuit might get points equal to a KFT event. Of course the players and all 15 of their fans would whine about that.

[billyspan]

1 hour ago, dekez said:

In part because there's no affinity group with which to associate these teams.  The exception would be Niemann's team which are all from South America (I think). You wouldn't know it by the team name though.  If you had an English team, Aussie Team, Korean team etc it might draw some interest from national affiliation. But even that is probably not good enough. The format sucks.

Having lived in SA prior to my latest stop in the states...I don't think this "bond" is as strong as people think.  The equivalent would be saying that a team comprised of Canadians, US Americans 😉 and Mexicans have a "North American" pride/bond.

[billyspan]

1 hour ago, FriedEgg said:

 

 

 

got it, so OWGR is more or less a racket without an imagination

There is no perfect system.  The majors themselves have a strong say in the methodology.  I used to be on the Data Golf bandwagon, however, the Strokes Gained metric is problematic.