Ever since LIV Golf sprang onto the professional golf scene, tensions have risen between them and the PGA Tour. In the past ten months, 32 PGA Tour Professionals have joined the controversial LIV Golf Series, backed by the Saudi Arabian Government. Immediately, the PGA responded, forcing any player who signed with LIV Golf to terminate their PGA Tour card. Since that announcement, the battle lines were drawn, and the professional golf civil war began.
At face value, LIV Golf is a very different league compared to the PGA. LIV’s format is created to make watching golf more exciting, and fast paced, in an attempt to evolve the game so more people gain interest in it. Many top ranked players liked this idea and decided to sign multi-million dollar contracts with LIV to play the tournaments and help promote the up and coming league. Headlined by former Masters and US Open champion, Dustin Johnson, LIV Golf announced their eight tournament slate for 2022. After that, many more big name PGA stars signed on with the most notable names being Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, and Patrick Reed.
LIV Golf is intriguing to golfers due to the increased amount of money available for golfers to win. Despite playing in only eight tournaments, Dustin Johnson made 13.6 million dollars, while the leader in total money for the PGA, Scottie Scheffeler, made 14 million despite playing in 17 more tournaments than Dustin Johnson. The PGA has responded to this money issue by increasing the possible purse at eight of the PGA’s biggest tournaments.
Led by Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, golfers of the PGA formed an alliance against LIV Golf in an attempt to work together to get bigger names in more tournaments, and make different types of competitions throughout the offseason. Despite reportedly being offered 700-800 million dollars, Tiger and Rory announced the forming of a new, stadium based, virtual league that will take place on Monday Nights during the season in an attempt to bring in new audiences.
Despite the PGA’s constant attempts at bringing down LIV Golf, they keep on growing, making it that much more important for the PGA to attract to new audiences. This brings us to where we are today, as both leagues get ready for their seasons to get going, with perhaps the most important year of professional golf ever right around the corner.
