We Tried It: Attending A LIV Event

There‘s a lot of cool gear in the golf world that doesn’t always fit into Most Wanted Tests or Buyer’s Guides. You still want to know how it performs. In our We Tried It series, we put gear to the test and let you know if it works as advertised.

What We Tried

Attending the first round of LIV Nashville, a 54-hole tournament organized by LIV Golf.

Your Reviewer

Sean Fairholm, a longtime golf journalist who genuinely tried to come into the day with an open mind.

We Tried It: Attending A LIV Event

If you’ve been reading MyGolfSpy for the past six months, you will know that I’ve been critical of the divide in professional golf. In my opinion, the game is not big enough to be fractured and still have success over the long haul.

I’ve voiced my displeasure with LIV for multiple reasons, but the overarching frustration is that the product appears to be a watered-down version of PGA Tour golf. LIV has created a league of 54-hole exhibition events that the masses don’t seem to gravitate to, as evidenced by minuscule TV ratings. I have probably watched no more than 30 minutes of LIV coverage over the past two years. I have no emotional connection to the tournaments, results or most of the players—so I haven’t made it far with my viewing experience.

Having said all of that, it feels like LIV is going to be a part of the golf ecosystem moving forward. It might look different in the future if the Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund strike a deal, but LIV is acting like it will be around for many years.

Given that LIV is now in Year Three and has had the opportunity to settle in as a league, I’ve found myself curious about the experience of attending an event—and being a media member at an event. I’ve published some negative articles about LIV and its players (to be fair, I’m plenty critical of the Tour as well) and wasn’t even sure if they would grant my credential request.

Well, I applied for a credential last week and it was approved within 24 hours.

The LIV Nashville tournament was played at The Grove, a Greg Norman-designed (right, that makes sense) private club about 45 minutes from where I live. There would never be a more convenient time to attend a LIV tournament so I figured it was worth a shot (also, the Instagram ads were relentless).

I was also particularly interested to see the response to Bryson DeChambeau just a handful of days after winning the U.S. Open in dramatic fashion.

In this unusual installment of the “We Tried It” series, I will take you through my day at LIV Nashville. I will also compare the overall experience (including from a media member perspective) with what it’s like to cover Tour events, which I’ve done a few dozen times.

Getting There/Check-In Process

The Grove is in College Grove, some 45 minutes south of Nashville. It’s about 13 miles southeast of Franklin, a pleasant city of 83,000 known for its festivals. I wouldn’t say The Grove is in the middle of nowhere but it’s not a quick trip for Nashvillians as we manage the potential horrors of I-65.

Nashville has not hosted a Tour event since 1946. The PGA Championship came to Louisville this year (about two and a half hours away) and the FedEx St. Jude Classic is held in Memphis each year (three hours away), but the best golfers in the world have rarely competed in Nashville. There is an annual Korn Ferry Tour event in Franklin—that’s about it. As for LIV, this is the first time the league has been to Nashville.

Basically, Nashville is starved for pro golf. I thought the crowds could be boisterous and plentiful, even for Round One on a Friday afternoon when temperatures reached 92 degrees with 50 percent humidity (the broadcast said the “feels like” temperature was 105). Tickets were “nearly sold out” according to press information I received two days before the event.

With that in mind, I left for College Grove around 10:30 a.m. to ensure I would make it in time for the 12:15 p.m. shotgun start.

As is typical with golf media, I was given a parking pass in a lot five minutes from the course. When I arrived at 11:15 a.m., there were about 200 cars in the lot. About 10 minutes later, the shuttle brought me to the front gates of the tournament. Once I stepped off the shuttle, the media center was 20 yards to my left. In less than a couple minutes, I had my credential and access to the media center.

The media center was on par with what you would find for a regular Tour event: professional and spacious. They did not have Diet Coke (devastated) but the food (BBQ sandwiches, roasted potatoes and carrots) was pretty good.

As for my track record for criticizing LIV and some of the league’s players, I never heard a word from anyone. It seemed like the large majority of media there were working for LIV. All 13 teams have a social media manager and I saw several carts labeled for social media staff. This is consistent with the Tour, as modern-day media centers have become less populated by local media or beat reporters.

After a quick lunch, it was time to head out to the course for the start of play.

Setting The Scene

Before I get into my day, I wanted to describe the infrastructure of the tournament.

The buildout is every bit as impressive as a middle-of-the-road Tour event. There were massive grandstands on holes 15 and 18. The merchandise area had its own tent. There were hydration stations and dozens of fans blasting cool mist. The practice area was incredibly nice with team logos spray-painted on the grass. There were tons of volunteers and staff working the tournament.

It felt like a legitimate, professionally organized event. The PGA Championship at Valhalla (which is held by the PGA of America and not the PGA Tour) felt more disorganized overall.

I came away with very few gripes about LIV’s logistics. The only glaring weakness I found was that lines for concessions were consistently long and not moving quickly, although I was told this improved on Saturday and Sunday. Prices seemed pretty standard relative to other sporting events I’ve attended.

The centerpiece of the buildout was a fan village designed specifically in Nashville style, complete with hay and picnic areas. Most of the stations in the village mentioned the city. There were …

• A sweet tea dunk tank where an accurate throw of a football sent the willing (or unwilling) volunteer into a red Solo cup full of sticky, sugary sweet tea. There was no line for this and I never saw anyone try it over the 20 minutes of being in the village. Understandable. This one might have been a miss.

• A “Game of Thrones” chair with all 13 LIV teams included.

• A mural wall with wings, which is an ode to a similar style of mural in downtown Nashville.

• The “Drive Down Broadway” station where spectators could hit balls.

• The “Knockin’ Boots” station, a beanbag toss in the style of a carnival game.

• Food trucks from local restaurants.

Overall, I think the fan village makes sense for this type of an event. There were a lot of kids attending, so the village offered some activities for them to do, even if it was only for a few minutes. A lot of families camped out near this area, especially due to the excessive heat.

Another key area of the buildout was on the 14th and 15th holes.

The 14th hole had a giant mini-golf guitar, a large food truck park and a stage for local artists to play music. When I stopped by, a band was playing “Hotel California” to a group of 40 or 50 people eating lunch. There was also a screen next to the stage where you could watch the golf.

The par-3 15th was the party hole. Grandstands surrounded most of the hole and blaring music was played throughout, even while golfers were hitting. When players came to the tee box, they were announced in the style of a baseball player coming up to bat. There was a large screen that served as a de facto Jumbotron and sometimes panned to the crowd.

The course featured several screens where golf could be watched. There were more large screens than the typical Tour event I’ve attended.

Atmosphere

Have you ever seen the movie “Everything Everywhere All At Once”? The title of the movie is accurate. There is a lot going on and I’m not sure I understand it all.

LIV Nashville gave me a similar feeling. It’s constant stimulation. Which, to be fair, is a trademark of downtown Nashville where tourists are met with a wall of persistent noise, flashing lights and drunken stupor.

Once I came out of the media center, a throng of spectators was milling around the main entrance near the first tee and 18th green. A man on a loudspeaker started to shout excitedly.

“We only have 13 minutes remaining until LIV Nashville gets underway!” he said. “The greens have been double-cut and the players are ready to go. Our rounds only take four and a half hours, so make sure you keep up with the pace!”

A few minutes later, there was a parade of some 60-plus Icon golf carts, each carrying one player and one caddie to their respective holes.

Immediately after the processional, four parachuters came down from the sky. Two of them landed on the 18th green and two of them landed on the first fairway.

Fans started to line the first hole where DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Carlos Ortiz would be starting. I’m a poor judge of guessing how big crowds are but it was a significant number of people. My estimate would be at least a couple of thousand people from the tee box through the green.

In terms of the number of people attending, it slightly exceeded my expectations. The turnout was strong but nothing crazy. It was very manageable to walk around and watch golf.

The gallery was enthusiastic and engaged with DeChambeau as the clear favorite. Greg Norman walked the entire hole right next to the U.S. Open champion, taking stock of the crowd as they chatted. The following day, Norman tended the flag for DeChambeau’s tee shot on the 15th. Yes, Norman loves attention.

I left DeChambeau after this hole but the bulk of the gallery followed him. When I caught back up with the group on No. 9, the gallery was still just as large. Watching on the broadcast, the crowd seemed to dissipate for parts of the back nine.

There were some areas of the course where nobody was out there. I later followed a random group on 16 and 17—maybe 10 people were watching. The majority of people congregate at the party hole, No. 18 or following a couple of the star players.

If you are a golf fan interested in following a professional golfer with very few people around on the majority of the holes, LIV would be great for you.

One narrative I don’t think is accurate is how LIV players interact with the crowd more than Tour players interact with a gallery. Other than DeChambeau, every other player pretty much went about their business.

On the flip side, another narrative is that LIV players don’t care about their performance because they have guaranteed contracts and none of it matters. While there is validity to this, I saw several players getting frustrated after shots, working through AimPoint techniques and talking at length with their caddie. I think golfers are naturally competitive when they are on the course. Even if the results don’t necessarily matter that much, pros don’t want to be embarrassed.

Is the intensity level lower? Of course. But I don’t think the intensity level is zero.

Another part of the experience I was curious about was the music. The 15th hole had non-stop blaring music, which I expected. The part I didn’t think about was that every hole has speakers at the tee and green. And they are all playing different music. This definitely feeds into the member-guest feel of the tournament.

As for the crowd itself, it’s about what you expect. It’s golf catered to Morgan Wallen fans, if you know what I mean. I do think there were a a significant number of people from Nashville who came out to see DeChambeau and other top players without putting much additional thought into it—which is totally fair in my book.

However, LIV absolutely attracts a specific demographic.

As an aside, there were country concerts after the Friday and Saturday rounds. Dan and Shay, a well-known band in the genre, performed on Saturday night. I didn’t attend but was told by a friend that it was a great concert. It seemed like a decent amount of people came out for it based on the photos I saw (the Tour also regularly has concerts at its events, but I thought it was worth mentioning).

Merchandise

After leaving the DeChambeau group, I headed to check out the merchandise tent, which was directly across from the aforementioned fan village.

My biggest surprise of the day—and it’s not even close—is the success of the merch shop.

I had a preconceived notion that fans don’t buy LIV apparel because it’s all, you know, clip art logos and corny team names. To go along with that, I thought the fans who came were just there to get drunk while golf was played in the background. I didn’t think actual LIV fans existed in meaningful numbers.

Well, this experience has me reevaluating some of those assumptions.

The shop was only 1,500 square feet or so, but a steady stream of people moved through every time I passed that area of the course.

“What was the damage?” a spectator asked his friend after exiting the shop. “Just spent $160 on Fireballs gear.”

The hats were $40 a piece. And, my God, people were wearing them. I legitimately saw no fewer than 200 Crushers hats (for the uninitiated, this is the team DeChambeau captains).

I was particularly stunned to see how many people were wearing generic LIV gear. How often do you see a fan sporting a PGA Tour shirt? Not often. But people wanted the LIV merchandise. This spanned all demographics, too. Little kids, old ladies, frat bros—everyone got involved.

I would guess that 25 percent of the gallery wore some form of LIV gear. And more than half of that gear came with a Crushers logo—a golf ball “skull” with two tees crossed below.

This had me confused, so I went and talked to a few fans who were wearing Crushers hats.

“People say that nobody cares about LIV but look at all of the people out here,” one person explained while pointing to the gallery surrounding the 15th. “We just want to watch golf and have a good time.”

The conclusion I reached is that people have exponentially more affinity for players rather than teams.

People love Bryson. The logo represents Bryson more than anything else someone could wear. So people wear the logo.

This goes for a few other players. Brooks Koepka has made an upside down “Smash” hat popular. And I must have seen 20 to 25 people wearing that. It’s more symbolic of their Koepka fandom rather than their love of the actual team. The RangeGoats apparel, led by Bubba Watson, also seemed to be a main choice.

As for people wearing the LIV logo itself, I got the impression that it carries an anti-establishment connotation. There is definitely appetite for LIV-goers to be contrarian.

Regardless, I’m legitimately impressed that the merchandise is so successful.

Did Attending Change My View Of LIV?

Yes, it did. LIV Nashville slightly exceeded my expectations.

Some of the positives I saw:

• Infrastructure, buildout and logistics were well executed for the most part.
• Successful merchandise shop.
• Fans were plentiful and more engaged with the golf than I thought they would be.
• Tremendous access to watch golf shots outside of areas where fans congregate.

Some of the negatives I saw:

• Too much competing music throughout the course.
• Exhibition nature of the event can make it a little boring after a while if you are just there for the golf.
• Concession lines seemed excessive relative to the number of people.
• The course, while well-conditioned, had virtually no personality.

I think it’s fair to say that some people do care about LIV—or at least they care about some of its players. And when you have a golf-starved area like Nashville, a lot of people are going to come out to watch.

LIV should focus on these parts of the country/world. Going to a place like Houston is a miss—that is a city that already has a women’s major and a regular Tour event. Nashville has way more of an appetite for something like LIV.

My primary concern moving forward is that LIV is a pretty bland TV product. A solid in-person experience is important but you can’t have success without nailing down the TV aspect.

I’m writing a story for next week that talks about some of the tweaks LIV could make to improve. I’m cynical about the long-term success of the league but that doesn’t mean it can’t make some realistic strides in the right direction.

Ultimately, LIV isn’t something I’m interested in watching on a consistent basis. I go to golf tournaments to watch meaningful golf and it doesn’t feel like meaningful golf. That doesn’t mean other people can’t enjoy it.

Have you been to a LIV event? Would you want to try one? Let me know below in the comments.