Making The Cut

Looking back and forward with LIV Golf

THE CURTAIN FALLS ON A FIREWORK-FILLED FIRST SEASON FOR THE INNOVATIVE SERIES, WITH BIGGER THINGS ON THE HORIZON

BY MATT SMITH

Individual Championship winners

LONDON

Centurion Club June 9-11 Charl Schwartzel (-7)

PORTLAND

Pumpkin Ridge June 30-July 2 Branden Grace (-13)

BEDMINSTER

Trump National Golf Club July 29-31 Henrik Stenson (-11)

BOSTON

The International September 2-4 Dustin Johnson (-15)

CHICAGO

Rich Harvest Farms September 16-18 Cameron Smith (-13)

BANGKOK

Stonehill Golf Club October 7-9 Eugenio Chacarra (-19)

JEDDAH

Royal Greens Golf & Country Club October 14-16 Brooks Koepka (-12)

The tumultuous fi rst LIV Golf Invitational Series season fi nally came to an end with the $50 million Team Championship in Miami at Trump National Doral from October 28-30.

It may have only been eight three-day events, but it will be a campaign that will long live in the memory and the golf history books as it altered the face of the sport.

With record-breaking prize money on off er, top players moving over from the PGA Tour — and earning a ban from the tour in the process — and an ongoing legal dispute between the rival circuits, LIV Golf was never far away from the headlines.

Then there was the new format that grew on the players and fans alike as they got used to the threeday, no-cut, shotgun-start competitions, and free-toair broadcasting online at sites such as YouTube.

We saw some thrilling landmark moments, such as Matthew Wolff ’s stunning hole-in-one in Boston, the gripping victories for Henrik Stenson and Cameron Smith on their respective LIV debuts in Boston and Chicago, the sheer consistent play and steely determination of 4 Aces captain and eventual Individual Championship winner Dustin Johnson, and the newlook team concept that came with the package as players were grouped into fours and worked for each other on the team leaderboard, while also fi ghting it out on the individual front.

Looking ahead, LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman has already promised to make the second season bigger and better, with the schedule expanding from eight

FINAL INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS

(Top 10, including victories and countback)

1. Dustin Johnson 135 pts

2. Branden Grace 79 3. Peter Uihlein 79 4. Patrick Reed 79 5. Charl Schwartzel 66 6. Matthew Wolff 66 7. Joaquin Niemann 66 8. Brooks Koepka 62 9. Sergio Garcia 62 10. Cameron Smith 57

Tentative 2023 LIV Golf schedule

February

Florida, TBD

February

California, TBD

March

Tucson, Dove Mountain or Gallery

April

Australia, Sydney or Queensland

April

Singapore, Sentosa

May

Washington, TBD

June

Philadelphia, TBD

July

London, Centurion

July

Spain, Valderrama

August

New Jersey, Bedminster

August

West Virginia, The Greenbrier

September

Chicago, TBD

September

Toronto/Mexico, TBD

September

Florida, Trump Doral

events to 14 and including more stops around the globe to go with nine in the United States.

The Invitational Series will also change its name to the LIV Golf League, to help illustrate the seasonlong individual and team league standings, which are more like a football league ladder rather than a golf leaderboard.

The final touches are still being put to the official calendar of events in 2023 but a tentative schedule has been released, which see the 48 players (and 12 teams as it stands) take in new locations including Singapore, Australia, Spain and possibly Canada or Mexico, with the campaign hoping to run from February to September rather than this year’s “Don’t Blink” June-October span.

The major highlight on the calendar for many is the introduction of an Australian event (many fans there have complained for years that they get overlooked for big golf events) and Norman plans to play the event for two years at one venue before moving it around the country. Sydney and Queensland are being touted as the hosts of the inaugural Australia event, with fans guaranteed to pack the galleries with the likes of Cam Smith and Marc Leishman in the field.

While court wrangles will continue, one thing is guaranteed, and that is LIV Golf will continue to grow and take the game to crowds around the world in 2023.

LIV Golf’s expanding global platform will add a new dimension to the golf ecosystem

–greg norman, liv golf ceo

SPEAKING WITH Claude Harmon III

Top coach to LIV Golf stars such as Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson By Matt Smith

Ihave been out here at many LIV Golf events and the first thing that strikes you is it feels like a family.

A lot of people regard it as a travelling circus with its shotgun starts and it is easy to dismiss. I fi nd it interesting that many people who are ‘anti-LIV’ have never bothered to come down to an event, to any of the tournaments, and experience it for themselves. They think that when the players and the guys involved say how much they love it out here it is just lip-service.

It is not.

As I said, it feels like a family. Unlike a normal event on the PGA Tour, LIV guys on a team — everyone is together: they leave the hotel together, travel together, get to the course together, eat together, practise on the range together before each round. Thanks to the shotgun start and the unity, everything is a constant right down to signing your cards at the same time, even if you are di erent groups. The feeling is a lot of camaraderie.

It is something I have never felt before and many player will have never felt before.

It is alien to the lone-wolf mentality of many players — guys like Dustin Johnson, Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson: they got great by being lone wolves. But now as team captains, you see this whole di erent side to them as they watch the leaderboard to see how their guys are getting on and, if they get a chance, sit out on the course and watch their teammates fi nish o , like we saw in the late-fi nishing play-o s in Bangkok and Jeddah.

The structure and the way everyone is treated — I am just a coach, not even a player — it makes you feel you are part of something. The coach, the manager, the caddie, when the team goes out to eat once a week, it is for everyone. They are all part of a team, a family.

I don’t think people realise how serious the team captains take the team element of the competition. Many think it is all just about the money.

It is fun to be a part of. I have been lucky enough to be involved with players on the Ryder Cup and it is always fun to be involved in weeks like that where players come together as a group. That is week in, week out on LIV Golf.

I have spent 20 years on the PGA and on the European Tour, and it is hard to get players to agree on some things. Here on the LIV tour it is so inclusive, it makes the players feel like they are part of something.

In all my time I have never bought any PGA or European Tour merchandise. Here, I have. Before I had bought nothing with a logo on it as a coach as I never felt part of it, but now I do.

I fundamentally do not understand the PGA Tour feud. If this is where you want to play, that is your choice to make. I am good with that. If you want to play on the PGA Tour, I don’t have a problem with that either. I just don’t get the animosity and why it has become so political. No other sport is like this.

If you are a viewer and prefer the PGA, go for it. That’s OK. But every player should have the right to play where they want and earn as much money for their family as they can.

If Rory [McIlroy] gets an invitation from another organisation to play, he has earned that right. He has earned the right to make as much money as possible. I don’t get how the 48 players on LIV are the only ones who don’t get that right.

The quality on LIV is unreal, too. I have worked with DJ [Dustin Johnson] for a decade and he says he is playing the best golf of his career right now.

Players like Cam Smith? If there was a major tomorrow, Cam, DJ, Brooks Koepka, they would all be in with a chance to win it.

And the fi eld will be stronger in 2023 as they will get Bubba Watson back playing following his recovery from knee injury. I expect to see him out on the course next year and also at the Saudi International.

There may be a narrative that the quality of golf on LIV is poor, but there is no dip.

If a player signs for Manchester United and gets paid a lot more money, they don’t go down in form. They are not phoning it in. They are delivering like the guys out here.

These guys, the ones who are winning, they would be winning on the PGA Tour. It will be exciting to see what happens. The PGA will continue, of course, but now there is an alternative and that is exciting.

Claude Harmon III was speaking at the LIV Golf Jeddah event at Royal Greens Golf Club in Saudi Arabia, and is one of the world’s top golf coaches, looking after players such as Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson