{"id":427937,"date":"2026-01-23T11:33:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T11:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/427937\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T11:33:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T11:33:06","slug":"dumped-liv-golf-star-left-blindsided-by-surprise-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/427937\/","title":{"rendered":"Dumped LIV Golf star left blindsided by surprise departure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tThree players in the LIV Golf \u2018Open Zone\u2019 were not retained this season \u2013 and one of the departures has raised eyebrows\u2026<\/p>\n

LIV Golf\u2019s tumultuous offseason was dominated by Brooks Koepka\u2019s return to the PGA Tour<\/a> \u2013 but another surprise departure from the league has also caused some consternation.<\/p>\n

It can be argued that one of the most unlucky men in professional golf right now is Jinichiro Kozuma. <\/p>\n

The Japanese golfer was one of four players who finished outside the top-24 in the league\u2019s standings for the 2025 season \u2013 meaning he was vulnerable to being replaced.<\/p>\n

Kozuma was not relegated, but discovered he would not be retained by the league despite being the highest ranked player from the Iron Heads GC in the standings. <\/p>\n

Despite missing the first five events of the season, he managed to finish 32nd in the standings, with the highlight a joint runner-up finish in Dallas.<\/p>\n

But Kozuma was dispensable and has been moved on as part of a major shake-up to the rebranded Korean Golf Club<\/a>. Longtime captain Kevin Na was dumped in favour of former PGA Tour player Byeong Hun An, with 2025 reserves Young-han Song and Minkyu Kim joining Danny Lee to complete the team.<\/p>\n

It appears that Kozuma was informed he would not be retained after LIV Golf Promotions, the qualifying event on which he first earned his spot onto the league in 2024. <\/p>\n

In an email exchange translated by his manager, Kozuma told Sports Illustrated<\/a> he had been blindsided by some of the changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were definitely a few parts of the process that surprised me,\u201d Kozuma explained. \u201cFor example, I only found out recently that Kevin Na would no longer be the captain, so that was unexpected for me as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, since last year, I personally didn\u2019t receive any direct communication from the Iron Heads organization. Because of that, there was a period where it was difficult to fully understand what the situation was.\u00a0So overall, the way things unfolded was a bit unexpected, and I was simply trying to stay patient and figure out the best next steps.<\/p>\n

\u201cToward the end of last year, I heard that there was a possibility the Iron Heads might transition into a Korean-based team. At the same time, I was also told that if that happened, there was a chance I wouldn\u2019t be able to remain with the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that, however, there were a lot of rumors and the situation seemed to change from time to time. So for a while, I wasn\u2019t completely sure what the final decision would be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment I clearly understood that I wouldn\u2019t be playing for the Iron Heads moving forward was when I saw the official Instagram post announcing the Korean team [on January 12]. That was when everything became clear for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Kozuma now plans to play this season on the Japan Golf Tour, where he is a three-time winner. In a post on X<\/a> after his exit was confirmed, he pointedly wrote: \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to seeing if they\u2019re a better player than I am.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kozuma called his two years on LIV a \u201ctruly valuable experience\u201d, but his unusual case has drawn criticism by fans as the league\u2019s continues its pursuit of Official World Golf Ranking accreditation.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than receiving a clear, official explanation like, \u2018this is the specific reason we are not renewing your contract\u2019,\u00a0I felt that team restructuring and overall direction played a major role in the decision,\u201d Kozuma added.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo better understand what the options might be for next season, I reached out directly to several general managers to see whether there could be an opportunity for me to join their teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I found was that teams seemed to be building their rosters not only based on results but also based on team identity and the type of player profile they were looking for. In that sense, I think it was simply difficult to find the right fit for me within the available team openings at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three players in the LIV Golf \u2018Open Zone\u2019 were not retained this season \u2013 and one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-427937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}