Speaking from a fully constructed concert venue which moments before blared music to the spectators who attended the final day of the first-ever LIV Golf event, Yasir Al-Rumayyan stepped up to the microphone where a celebratory scene had unfolded at the Centurion Golf Club outside of London in June 2022.
The governor of the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, was reveling in the scene, having launched in some three months an upstart golf tour with the help of Hall of Fame golfer Greg Norman, one that would disrupt the current landscape and eventually lead to all manner of changes that are still playing out today.
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Al-Rumayyan used the opportunity to explain the meaning of LIV, the Roman number 54. He said that would be the “perfect score” in golf, 18 birdies on a par-72 course.
And then he dropped the line that was both outlandish and not necessarily out of the realm of possibility for the PIF when he said that if any LIV player ever shot a score of 54, he’d be paid a bonus of $54 million.
The crowd roared and Al-Rumayyan grinned, his pledge one that had little chance of coming true but one still could have been met given the $950 billion and counting assets of the PIF.
More than three years later, Al-Rumayyan’s boast and LIV’s introduction to the world of golf is a reminder of what the organization was about when it came to its product: a new entity that was leaning into its identity as a 54-hole alternative to what is common among the golf establishment.
And now it is pivoting away from that?
LIV Golf announced last week it would play all of its 13 individual events at 72 holes, starting in 2026. The move was lauded in comments supplied by LIV from star players Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm. And there are undoubtedly sound reasons for doing so.
But the abrupt switch is nonetheless still surprising. LIV Golf doesn’t appear be changing its name to LXXII Golf (the Roman numerals for 72) but yet it is abandoning its identity, its brand.
For all the talk about the difference between 54 holes and 72 holes, there was something about LIV’s approach that it never fully embraced: the idea that it was additive and different.
It made the mistake early on of pushing a narrative that less golf was good for its players instead of pushing the one that would suggest that a new concept ought to do things differently. That’s why they have shotgun starts and the team aspect that is the basis of a franchise model that has yet to take off.
LIV Golf has clearly not been embraced by all, but what was the point of doing the exact same thing as everyone else in golf—one of its biggest criticisms?
Understandably there is an Official World Golf Ranking element to this, and if it leads to accreditation prior to the 2026 season, then it is likely worth any chuckles over abandoning your identity.
LIV Golf has been in pursuit of the coveted ranking points since early in its tenure, was rejected two years ago, decided not to pursue the matter and then changed course this summer under new CEO Scott O’Neil. It is quite possible that O’Neil has been told that this is among the steps necessary in the process.
The OWGR two years ago laid out some parameters publicly, saying that LIV Golf did not have proper promotion and relegation to its league, not enough field variance and expressed some concerns about the team format.
But 54 holes was not a deal-breaker. Then-chairman Peter Dawson said so, as has USGA CEO Mike Whan, who is a member of the OWGR board.
“As we said, some of these issues can be worked out,” said Whan, referencing a potential mathematical adjustment for LIV events. Whan never spelled out specifically what that would be but he made clear that the 54-hole issue was not the biggest issue.
That is why this decision is interesting. Did OWGR tell LIV that all of its events needed to be 54 holes in order to receive full accreditation? While there was certainly some grumbling about not playing 72-hole events—Tyrrell Hatton said last week at the DP World Tour event in Abu Dhabi that a player survey a year ago came with a majority of players wanting things to remain the same.
Rahm has said from the beginning that he wanted 72 holes and there’s been some conjecture that players who are competing in the major championships would prefer four-day tournaments.
“I think it’s a peculiar move because I think they could have got ranking points with three rounds,” Rory McIlroy said last week in Abu Dhabi. “I don’t think three rounds versus four rounds is what was holding them back.”
Rory McIlroy offered his thoughts last week on LIV Golf moving from 54 to 72 holes. / Brett Davis-Imagn Images
He’s correct about that but perhaps off on another comment he made.
“I think what’s hard is you’ve got the LIV guys, and say potentially they get World Rankings, but because their strength of fields are going to be so weak because a lot of the guys have fallen already in the rankings because they have not had ranking points for so long, I don’t know if the ranking points are really going to benefit them,” McIlroy said.
And yet, Joaquin Niemann would likely be a top 10 player in OWGR if his five LIV victories counted this year—he is outside of the top 100.
A close follower of the OWGR intricacies is an X (formerly Twitter) account called @robopz who did a simulation of where LIV players would be had they been getting points at a projected level based on their field strengths for the past two years. There would be 15 players ranked among the top 100 in the world, as opposed to just four now. DeChambeau, Niemann and Rahm would be in the top 10.
As the account pointed out, the OWGR uses strokes-gained world rating to help set its field strengths. So where a player is ranked in OWGR is not necessarily a detriment. LIV events would generally receive in the neighborhood of 22 to 26 points to the winner, given a full allotment of points and based on various projections of their fields.
The PGA Tour’s World Wide Technology Open and the DP World Tour’s Abu Dhabi Championship each had in the 35-point range for the winners. Most PGA Tour events are above 40 and many are above 50.
Still, a LIV event would outdistance several regular DP World Tour events, as well as Korn Ferry Tour and International Series events. The Singapore tournament on Sunday gave less than 10 points to the winner.
The point is a LIV player who dominates or consistently finishes in the top five or even the top 10 is going to make up ground. Winning more than once comes with an OWGR win bonus. And any modicum of success outside of LIV only enhances a player’s standing.
The idea that LIV players were too far gone in the rankings or that the points would not be enough to matter was a misjudgment that has cost the league at least a year of possible ranking points.
What’s unclear is if LIV Golf has done enough regarding other issues that OWGR made public two years ago when its initial bid was denied. It has doubled its number of players who will ascend to the league via a Promotions event and the International Series. It stuck true to its bow to relegate the bottom six players out of the league, including one of its captains, Henrik Stenson.
Is all that enough? It’s possible and it might be that changing to 72 holes is what gets it done.
The DP World Tour’s season-ending event, the DP World Tour Championship, takes place this week in Dubai, with Rory McIlroy in position to claim his seventh Order of Merit title—just one behind the record set by Colin Montgomerie.
The 50-player field will play for a $10 million purse and McIlroy has a comfortable although not insurmountable lead over Marco Penge—despite playing in 15 fewer events.
Marco Penge has an outside shot at the DP World Tour title and is all but assured a PGA Tour card for next year. / Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images
The tournament will also determine the top 10 players—not otherwise exempt—who will earn fully exempt status next year on the PGA Tour. The players with the PGA Tour logo beside the name in the Race to Dubai rankings are in position to earn one of the spots at the conclusion of this week, led by Penge. Alex Noren, who is also a PGA Tour member, is in the top 10 as is former LIV Golf player Laurie Canter.
In theory, anyone in the field has a mathematical chance of moving into the top 10.
Players who earn a PGA Tour card in this way will be fully exempt into all regular events and all but assured of playing in each of the full-field tournaments they wish to compete in, with perhaps the WM Phoenix Open and its smaller field being an exception.
When new PGA Tour CEO talked about “scarcity” during his first official news conference during the Tour Championship, the belief was—and remains—that there will be some contraction in coming years on the PGA Tour.
But that is apparently not happening in the fall. The Tour announced Monday a new event next year in Asheville, N.C., that will be played in September one week prior to the Presidents Cup. It recently announced another tournament sponsored by Good Good to be played in Austin, Texas. And the plan has been to move the Mexico Championship—which has been moved out of the spring schedule due to a new event at Doral—to the fall.
That’s three extra tournaments. It’s possible that the Procore Championship in Napa, Calif., as well as the Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi will not return. Their sponsorship deals are up. Even if they don’t, that is still a net gain of one event next fall from seven to eight. And these are not short-term deals.
Brian Rolapp appears to be leaning into the fall schedule as key part of the PGA Tour season for players to secure status for the following season. / Tracy Wilcox/Getty Images
So what gives? Well, it’s quite possible that while Rolapp is looking to strengthen the FedEx Cup part of the schedule with a “less is more” approach, he is leaning into the fall as a place for those who miss the playoffs to have a legitimate chance to keep or regain their status for the next season.
And—this is probably the most important part—these deals are coming with smaller purses than the regular season and allow the Tour to make money. In a for-profit world, that is key. Likely gone are the days when purse levels in the fall are close to what they are during the regular season. It doesn’t make sense for tournaments that attract few television viewers in the fall to have a big purse. This week’s Bermuda Championship is $6 million. Next week’s RSM Classic is $7 million.
During the regular season, there was just one tournament—the Mexico Open—that had a purse less than $8.4 million (not including opposite events). Mexico was $7 million. Fall events will be in that range or lower.
All of this is good news for players who are feeling the squeeze with a new format that has reduced the number of fully exempt playing cards to 100 as well as field sizes. The Tour is leaning into playing opportunities over commercial viability—fall events do miniscule TV ratings—at a time of year when it might have been tempted to cut back.
