LIV Golf just took another massive hit—and this one might be a knockout blow.
The short summary here is that the PGA Tour is smoking them out.
The Tour has announced a multi-year partnership with the DP World Tour and Asian Tour through 2029. The Asian Tour, which used to serve as a secondary circuit for LIV, now is partnered with the PGA Tour.
The news was first reported by Golf Digest.
Asian Tour players will now have direct access to the DP World Tour and at least two events per season will be co-sanctioned by both tours. The Asian Tour will no longer have the multi-million-dollar backing from LIV for their International Series but they will now be a part of pro golf’s larger ecosystem.
Now an Asian Tour player has the ability to earn their way to the European Tour and European Tour players continue to have a direct pathway to the PGA Tour as they play for 10 full-time cards each year.
“I think the timing is just right now; it’s all about timing,” Asian Tour CEO Cho Minn Thant told Golf Digest. “We’d kept in touch [with the DP World Tour] over all these years. Six years ago, it was right for us to do a partnership with LIV Golf but given the circumstances now, we’ve had to look at other options.
This is very damaging for LIV.
First of all, the Asian Tour was critical for LIV’s promotion and relegation system. It created a qualifying pathway and that was important for LIV’s ability to earn Official World Golf Ranking points.
You can kiss that goodbye. LIV could create their own Q-School but they won’t have the Asian Tour talent pool to draw from.
Even more importantly, LIV has publicly stated that, following the announcement of the Saudi Public Investment Fund pulling funding at the end of this season, the league was looking to pivot to more of a “national open” schedule, creating an international tour of events from Australia to South Africa and beyond.
Well, guess who controls essentially all of the national opens around the world? The DP World Tour and/or the Asian Tour. The DP World Tour alone has 17 national opens.
Golf Digest reported that national opens on the Asian Tour—such as events in Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan—were a part of LIV’s proposals to new investors.
Those events can no longer be offered.
This is not to mention that the PGA Tour recently announced its first-ever formal partnership with Golf Australia to help elevate the Australian Open. They are committing to increase the prize money and finding a meaningful spot for the tournament on the men’s golf calendar. The tournament isn’t becoming a PGA Tour event. The DP World Tour and Australasian Tour will continue to co-sanction the tournament.
LIV’s greatest success has been in Australia. The PGA Tour, which has mostly ignored Australia over the years, is lifting up the biggest tournament in Australia.
With this move, the PGA Tour not only strikes a dagger into LIV but creates better inventory for the September-December time frame. It’s really a win-win on their end.
As for the Asian Tour, it needed to secure its future given where LIV is going. Smart move.
As for LIV? Let’s listen to Jon Rahm who was just asked point blank about the future of the league.
“I’m not going to share anything that I can’t share with you guys right now … We know a lot of what’s going on, yeah. Not that I can share with you guys right now.”
Inspiring!
Guys, LIV is clearly on the verge of bankruptcy. Even if they somehow string together some form of a tour for 2027, the league is on borrowed time.
There is no future here. There are even rumblings that LIV can’t get through this current season.
The jig is up.
Majduffer
3 weeks ago
I always thought LIV was a defective product as pros got paid no matter how they played. They could RIP (Retire In Place) and still earn millions plus sponsor money. Golf is a competitive sport where your play is rewarded based on your score. Also LIV when they couldn’t attract just a few marquee players and then resulted in giving mediocre pros a contract. They also thought playing loud music and crowd noise was an attraction. I was surprised LIV didn’t do more market research before rolling out the format. Instead they let Greg lead it who has had a grudge against the PGA for years.