What is LIV Golf? Players, fields, tour schedule, tournament news with Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson

The LIV Golf Invitational Series kicks off at the Centurion Club in London, marking the first of eight stretch events for a tournament that has become a rival to the PGA Tour. At each step along the way, answering this tournament only creates more questions, and clarifications only complicate the future.

There are still a lot of unknowns regarding both the LIV Golf as well as the PGA Tour and how the two will interact as “regular seasonal” tours outside of the major championships.

The breakdown below is our attempt to share with you all we know so far as we get started with what LIV Golf will look like in the future. Whether or not this is a fork or a fork in the professional golf path (only the future will determine that), it’s truly epic for the moment.

LIV Golf, fueled by unlimited war resources to throw at the best players, will officially go to war with the PGA Tour. It’s been a long promised time, and it’s finally here. Let’s take a look back at what we know and what we can expect in the weeks, months and years ahead as LIV Golf kicks off.

What is LIV Golf?

LIV Golf is a golf tournament that rivals the PGA Tour, where the tournament consists of 54 holes, courses limited to 48 golfers, and a $25 million outlay. Twelve or four teams will compete in each event, and the individual amount will be $20 million while the remaining $5 million will be divided among the best teams each week.

Who leads LIV Golf?

LIV Golf Investments runs the tournament and its CEO is two-time major champion Greg Norman. It is funded by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which is the effective financial arm of the Saudi government. These funds are seemingly limitless as the league has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to players just to secure their appearance at LIV Golf Invitational Series events.

Who is playing for LIV Golf?

As it stands, the tournament’s best players are two-time major league champion Dustin Johnson, who is said to have been paid nine figures for his services and four-time major winner Brooks Koepka. The federation has also had a major coup d’etat recently with the pledge of Bryson DeChambeau. LIV Golf league demographics lean towards older players like Phil Mickelson, Martin Kaymer, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell. A lot of its components are European or South African, and LIV Golf is actively recruiting other top players and big names from around the world.

Here’s a look at who was in the field with their OWGR at the time they were announced.

Why is LIV Golf here?

The politically correct answer LIV Golf gives is that it wants to give players the opportunity to earn more money than they could on the PGA Tour and develop the game around the world. The actual answer, given that it’s a Saudi Arabia-run league, is known as a sports league – a term for normalizing a country or entity through sport. Saudi Arabia has attempted to do this through other sports leagues, including F1 and football. If you want a more basic understanding of sports laundry, perhaps McDowell and Westwood accidentally offered it recently.

What is the schedule of LIV Golf?

Two events took place in 2022, with six remaining. Here’s what’s left of the schedule for the inaugural season.

• Bedminster, New Jersey: July 29-31
• Boston, Massachusetts: September 2-4
• Chicago, Illinois: September 16-18
• Bangkok, Thailand: October 7-9
• Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: October 14-16
• Miami, Florida: October 27-30

Does the PGA Tour allow its golfers to play?

In short, no. The tournament has time and again pointed out its rules and regulations and mentioned suspending or banning players who choose to play in this tournament. It denied players an exemption to play in the first event – PGA Tour players get three exemptions per season – and more severe disciplinary actions are expected after the first event. The first in London really begins. In response to this, many players, including Dustin Johnson, have simply abandoned the Tournament and will continue to play LIV Golf which is essentially their regular seasonal golf tournament.

Will the majors allow golfers?

That’s an even better question. The immediate answer is: yes. The major organizations – PGA of America, USGA, R&A and Augusta National – may not announce the suspension or ban players from participating. However, it is also the organizations that control the points of the Official World Golf Rankings that put players in the majors in the first place. LIV Golf has signed up to have its events become OWGR events (LIV Golf Investments also invests money in the Asian Tour, accredited by OWGR), but whether they will be granted status remains to be seen and that is the thing that all this can hinge on. If LIV Golf events are given OWGR points and silly sums are thrown at players to lure them into the tournament, then some other top stars could end up making the leap ahead of the competition. of the PGA Tour.

What do players think about LIV Golf?

It’s clear that the people who have been paid extravagant sums – and a total of $500 million combined for Mickelson, Johnson, Koepka and DeChambeau – think one thing, but most others think otherwise. Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy – two of the PGA Tour’s biggest stars – it was clear that their intentions is to stay on the PGA Tour and play against the best players in the world. However, there are real concerns inside and outside of the PGA Tour. A player who spoke to CBS Sports spoke of this week as a major fork in professional golf and deeply concerned about how the PGA Tour might evolve in the future. That remains to be seen, but it’s clear that the topic is more serious – and more imminent – than most people previously thought.