LIV Golf Explained
It’s fair to say that LIV golf has truly shaken up the world of men’s professional golf, especially with the signings of Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton for its third season in 2024. But, how does it all work? In this video, we’re going to find out.
Transcript
00:00It's fair to say that Live Golf has truly shaken up the world of men's professional golf,
00:04especially with the signings of Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton for its third season in 2024.
00:10But how does it all work? In this video, we're going to find out.
00:13The Live Golf League consists of 14 events across the world,
00:20starting in February and running until the closing event in August.
00:23While five of its tournaments are held in the US, the league will also visit Hong Kong,
00:29Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Spain and the UK for its 2024 season.
00:37Each event is three days long, featuring 18 three-balls,
00:40all starting simultaneously with a shotgun start, and there is no mid-tournament cut.
00:45For 2024, the league has 54 players, 13 teams of four each, along with two wildcard entries
00:52each week. These wildcards can earn points in the individual standings and,
00:56if they perform well, could earn a future spot on a Live Golf team.
00:59In 2024, each tournament has a $20 million purse for the individual event, divided up
01:05between all 54 players, and a $5 million purse for the team event going to the top three teams.
01:12To give you an idea of how that is all split out, let's take a look at the Live Golf Las Vegas
01:16event that took place in February 2024. Justin Johnson won that event and took home $4 million,
01:23while second-placed Taylor Gooch won $1.875 million. With no cuts at Live events,
01:29it still means that last-placed Brendan Steele and Charles Wartsall took home $50,000 each,
01:34despite finishing 22 shots behind the winner. The team prize money is divided between the top
01:40three teams, and at the Live Las Vegas event, Smash GC won the team event by having the best
01:45combined score over the three rounds. Its four members, Graham McDowell, Taylor Gooch, Brooks
01:51Koepka, and Jason Kokrak, split the $3 million between them. The second-placed team was Four
01:57Aces GC, they split $1.5 million, while third-placed Range Goats GC split $500,000.
02:04Aside from tournament weekends themselves, players and teams are battling it out across
02:09the season for two titles, the Individual Championship and the Team Championship.
02:15The Individual Championship runs throughout the season. So, at each tournament, players finish
02:20with their three-round total score to pars we're sort of used to, and then the top 24 finishers
02:26earn points corresponding to their finishing position. The player with the most points at
02:31the end of the season wins the title. So, first place at a tournament gets 40 points,
02:37second place gets 30 points, and third place gets 24 points. Points are given out to players
02:42finishing inside the top 24 only. These points gather cumulatively through the whole season.
02:48So, in 2023, to give you an example, the individual title went to Taylor Gooch,
02:52who amassed 192 points across the whole campaign. At the end of the season, non-exempt players who
02:58finish 45th or lower in the individual points table are relegated from the league. So, last
03:05year, Lee Westwood and Martin Keimer finished 45th and 49th, respectively, but because they're exempt,
03:11because they're team captains, they did not get relegated. Jediah Morgan, James Pyatt,
03:16Chase Koepka, and Siwon Kim were relegated from the league for finishing outside of the top 45.
03:22In 2024, the league introduced a transfer window and free agency period to allow for movement
03:27between rosters and trades to take place in the off-season. You can visit the Golf Monthly website
03:33for a separate explainer on how the live transfer system works. The team competition works in a very
03:39similar way to the individual championship. So, each of the 13 teams builds a cumulative score
03:45across a tournament weekend, and the top eight teams at the end of the weekend earn points
03:50corresponding to that finishing position. So, the team in first place for a weekend is awarded 32
03:56points, second place gets 24 points, and third place 16 points, all the way down to the team
04:02finishing in eighth that week. For example, after two events of the 2024 season, John Rahm's new
04:08Legion 13 team finished first in one event and fifth in the other. With 32 points being awarded
04:14for first place and eight points being awarded for fifth place, the team currently has 40 points,
04:20leaving it in first place in the order of merit after two events. In one final twist, leading the
04:26league table after 13 events won't actually win you the team championship outright, as the league
04:31table simply decides the seedings for the final round of the year. The Live Golf League team
04:37championship finale takes place at the final event of the season in a knockout format that combines
04:43both match play and stroke play. So, to give you an example, last year, 2023, while four aces GC amassed
04:50the most points over the season, they didn't win the final team knockout because Bryson DeChambeau's
04:55Crushers GC won that final event of the year and claimed the team championship for 2023.