What Is LIV Golf?

Some people see LIV Golf as the solution to professional golf. Others view it as the problem. Almost nobody, seemingly, falls in between. Love it or hate it, LIV Golf comes with at least as many questions as answers.

LIV Golf is an upstart professional golf tour and rival to the well-established PGA Tour. The name “LIV” comes from the Roman numerals for 54, the score a golfer would shoot if they birdied all 18 holes on a par-72 course. It’s also the number of holes in a LIV Golf tournament.

LIV Golf is often criticized for being a sportswashing attempt by the Saudi Arabian government, whose Public Investment Fund (PIF) bankrolls the league. One reason LIV Golf has gained so much traction in such a short time – the league formed in October of 2021 and held its first tournament in June of 2022 – is because of the seemingly endless budget available to lure top-ranked players (more on that later) and fund purses other tours, including the PGA Tour, cannot match.

While LIV Golf tournaments abide by the traditional rules of golf, tournament formats differ in some significant ways from the PGA Tour and most other recognizable professional golf competitions.

The LIV Golf format includes just 54 holes, as opposed to 72 holes on most other high-level professional tours. LIV Golf tournaments utilize shotgun starts instead of tee time starts in an effort to get every player on the course simultaneously and create a more watchable viewing window for fans. 

Fields in LIV Golf tournaments are much smaller than PGA Tour events, with just 48 players as opposed to 156 in a full-field PGA Tour event, and LIV tournaments do not have a cut.

RELATED: How LIV Golf Payouts Compare to the PGA Tour

In addition to the 48-player individual stroke play element, LIV Golf tournaments include a parallel team competition. In each tournament, the 48-player field comprises 12 four-person teams. Over the first two rounds of each tournament, the two best stroke play scores from each team count toward the team score. During the third (and final) round, the lowest three scores count. At each event, $5 million from the $25 million purse is reserved for team payouts. The winning team from each event shares $3 million, while the second-place team shares $1.5 million, and the third-place team splits $500,000, on top of individual winnings. 

The LIV Golf format is a replica of another upstart golf league, the Premier Golf League (PGL), which published its plan but didn’t secure funding to get off the ground before LIV duplicated the model, lured top players, and began running tournaments.

A start-up business saw an opportunity to improve a market, and went after it. It happens every day on this planet, so what’s the big deal? When it comes to LIV Golf, it’s not that simple.

The LIV Golf controversy begins with the source of the league’s funding, the PIF. The Public Investment Fund is Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, defined by Investopedia as “a state-owned investment fund comprised of money generated by the government, often derived from a country’s surplus reserves.” 

The source of LIV’s funding has been a hot topic since the league’s inception, given the country’s human rights record, which has led to LIV Golf's poor approval rating. On top of the lack of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, it’s been reported that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, and that the Saudi government was responsible for the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. These details are troubling to golf fans who refuse to comply with the country’s sportswashing attempt. Others point out that the same money helps fund Uber, Capcom and Nexon, Boeing, Facebook, Disney, and Bank of America, among other companies, making a boycott against LIV Golf a hypocritical stance. 

The PGA Tour, which has forced its players to make an all-in or all-out decision, is guilty of hypocrisy itself when taking the moral high ground against LIV. The PGA Tour has an alliance with the DP World Tour, which hosts the Saudi International, which is funded by the PIF. It’s just one example that illustrates the muddy waters of taking a hard moral stance against Saudi Arabia and the PIF.

LIV Golf’s strategy for filling its roster has become evident: attract the biggest names and the top players from all over the globe, with a spattering of up-and-comers. The current LIV Golf roster includes former World No. 1 players Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer. LIV has also attracted major champions Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Cameron Smith, Charl Schwartzel, Patrick Reed, Louis Oosthuizen, Graham McDowell, Sergio Garcia, and Bryson DeChambeau.

The complete lineup includes more than just some of the most accomplished active golfers. LIV has rounded out its roster to appeal to golf audiences all over the world, with notable players from Australia, South Africa, Mexico and the United States and from all over Asia and Europe. LIV, and polarizing CEO Greg Norman, has bolstered its off-course lineup as well with the addition of broadcaster David Feherity.

To give you an idea of the level of players cometing in LIV Golf, here are the end of 2021 (the final calendar year before they joined LIV Golf) and best-ever Official World Golf Rankings for 30 of the top LIV Golfers. LIV Golf lured 20 of the top 60 players from the final OWGR rankings of 2021.