LIV? Well…
This week’s US Open has been overshadowed by the upstart LIV series, and it’s only the beginning.
Earlier in June, I appeared on Adam Fonseca’s excellent ‘Golf Unfiltered’ podcast. We happened to record the pod on the first day of the first event of the LIV Golf Invitational Series. At one point, Adam asked me for my biggest takeaway from day one. My answer: the fact that it actually happened.
For those of us who have followed the lineage of what is now the LIV Golf Invitational Series, the staging of that first event is by far the series’ most significant accomplishment to date. Never mind who was playing, or who might play in upcoming events — it happened. They pulled it off. To me, that was momentous.
The stops and starts of a Saudi-funded professional golf series have been well-documented. We knew that the Saudis were keen on creating *something*, but most of the golf cognoscenti assumed it would never come to fruition. And then 48 players teed it up on a golf course outside of London on June 9, 2022, and men’s professional golf was changed forever, right in front of us, in real time.
I watched a good bit of the streaming broadcast on that Thursday. As a TV nerd, I was frankly impressed with the production, given that LIV was starting from scratch. The F1-style ‘grid’ graphic showing players’ scores is a clever innovation, even if it was sometimes hard to follow. Because it was a shotgun start, identifying each hole was useless, hence the “Holes To Play” graphic, which was also a smart fix. I have never met Arlo White, but I know his resume’, and I respect him as a broadcaster. Obviously, I know Jerry Foltz very well, and I knew he would be prepared. It wasn’t a perfect show — no such thing has ever happened — but it was solid, and more than acceptable for a startup league.
As I said on ‘Golf Unfiltered,’ the presentation was remarkable for being unremarkable. Were a golf fan to flip past this broadcast while channel surfing, it wouldn’t have registered as anything unusual. There was nothing about the broadcast that made one stop and think about the big-picture issues, like where the money is coming from, how this series will affect the legacies of the players involved, or the real threat that LIV now presents to the PGA Tour. There are a flurry of think pieces out there right now that are tackling these questions, but none of that mattered inside the ropes. Day One looked and sounded like, well, a golf tournament. It might as well have been the Dutch Open or the Czech Masters. And that is a giant win for LIV.
Think about where you were when you heard that Dustin Johnson, a two-time major champion and former world number one, was resigning his PGA Tour membership to join a Saudi-backed rival tour. Were you shocked? I think I received five text messages from golf buddies that day, all expressing disbelief. In the moment, that news was seismic.
Now: ask yourself today how you feel about it, and how much you care. See how fast that happened?
That’s what I mean when I say that the unremarkable TV broadcast is a win for LIV. As time passes, the furor over this rival series will fade, particularly once we are through the US Open. The novelty of players jumping ship has already started to wane. If and when LIV secures a linear broadcast partner — and they will — spending a few minutes watching Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau in the same group on a course in Chicago or Miami won’t feel all that strange to a casual viewer. It will just look like a golf tournament. That’s what LIV is counting on — normalcy. With enough reps, you’ll stop thinking about the bigger picture. That’s what sportswashing is designed to do.
The last few weeks have produced a torrent of content on these topics, much of it created by people I really enjoy reading anyway — John Hawkins, Dylan Dethier, and my friend (and America’s Guest) Eamon Lynch, whose commentaries have been deliciously ruthless. Rather than repeat the sentiments of writers with far better credentials than mine, here are the topics that interest me:
1. The Official World Golf Ranking. Obviously, the LIV Golf Invitational Series isn’t in the mix for OWGR points — yet. They’re trying, however, and that’s crucial. Players like Mickelson, DJ, Reed, and DeChambeau have avenues into major championships via the exemptions they earned from winning them recently enough. Phil has a lifetime entry into the Masters and the PGA Championship, as well as a bye into the Open until he turns 60, at least on paper, and for now. If, however, LIV can finagle a way to offer ranking points, that’s another seismic shift towards drawing more rank-and-file players into the series, never mind the endless well of cash.
2. The Majors. This is a large domino. Will Augusta National, the USGA, the PGA of America, and the R&A fall in lockstep with Ponte Vedra and honor the Tour’s current suspensions? What about the players who resigned Tour membership? What about the above mentioned former major champions who, according to current policy, have earned exemptions? Playing ten events per year for generational money and still having access to the majors sounds like a hell of a deal to these elite players. Will the other governing bodies allow it?
3. The PGA Tour’s ‘regular season.’ Here, I refer to any event that is not a major championship, not a FedEx Cup Playoff event, and not the Players. We’re talking about Hartford next week, and John Deere and Barbasol in the weeks to follow. Sea Island. Sony. Valspar. The stalwart, week-in week-out tournaments that form the backbone of the PGA Tour. The LIV series is an existential threat to these events. If their fields are seriously diluted by an exodus to LIV, will the local sponsors stay on? Will the local fans buy tickets? How will it affect the lucrative corporate hospitality areas? The potential lack of star power is a critical issue for each tournament’s bottom line.
The LIV Golf Invitational Series is exactly one tournament old, and we already have far more questions than answers.
