\t\t\t\tScott O\u2019Neil has opened up on the news that has blown the golf world wide open in the past few days\u2026<\/p>\n
Forty-eight hours is a long time in this sport. First Brooks Koepka revealed he was returning to the PGA Tour after more than three years with LIV Golf, then the Tour themselves got involved by introducing a\u00a0Returning Member Program<\/a> that stated any major winner since 2022 could reapply for membership. That put Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cam Smith under the spotlight.<\/p>\n Smith was the first to push back, telling reporters in his native Australia that he \u201cmade a decision to come here and I stand by it\u201d. He added that he will be a LIV player \u201cfor years to come\u201d.<\/p>\n The other two, though, were less convincing. <\/p>\n During interviews during LIV Golf\u2019s \u2018teams week\u2019 to preview the 2026 season, any mention of the news to Rahm was immediately kiboshed. Twenty-four hours later, the league were more open to DeChambeau talking about it with TG<\/a>. <\/p>\n Later, in a press conference featuring all of the team captains, the duo reiterated their stance that they would be playing on the LIV Golf League in \u201926. Beyond that? Time will tell. But if LIV Golf\u2019s CEO and commissioner Scott O\u2019Neil is concerned, he certainly isn\u2019t showing it.<\/p>\n Addressing a small gathering of the world\u2019s golf media in West Palm Beach, Florida, O\u2019Neil opened up on his thoughts about the PGA Tour\u2019s bombshell, as well as a number of matters concerning his league.<\/p>\n Scott O\u2019Neil on\u2026\u2026why Brooks Koepka was allowed to leave LIV Golf <\/p>\n \u201cI believe in free agency \u2013 call me old fashioned. I believe in open pathways, I believe that people should be where they want to be, and I believe that our 57 players actually have the opportunity to play PGA Tour events. They\u2019re not restricted by us. Like if they said tomorrow, \u2018Hey, The Players is open\u2019, our guys can go play, because that\u2019s what we\u2019ve believed since day one, and we continue to believe that.<\/p>\n \u201cThe DP World Tour, we\u2019ve had some friction with them, and it\u2019s been a bit costly financially for us, and yet our players, they\u2019re not restricted from playing DP World Tour events. We encourage them to play. We do everything we can to make sure that the game of golf is growing from our players and their experience around the world. I\u2019ve actually cherished that.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think this was where [Koepka] wanted to be. He talked about some of the challenges publicly, as did his wife, and I want people in the room that are going to wrap their arms around us and say, \u2018This is what I want.\u2019 When you choose LIV, you\u2019re not choosing easy. There\u2019s not one person who chose this. [We have] players from 26 countries. How about that? Think about that being even possible 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, that there would be players from 26 countries good enough to play at an elite level globally, and there is no elite platform outside the US.<\/p>\n \u201cSo if you do not want to play your 20 events in the US and you are a global citizen and you believe in growing the game, that means getting on a plane and flying 20 hours. How far is Riyadh? Fourteen hours? Or 22 hours to Korea, or flying for a day and going to Australia. That\u2019s not for everybody. It isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what\u2019s not for everybody? Delivering on social and making sure fans know you. You know what\u2019s not for everybody? Making sure that at the event when we see these little kids, those same little kids that were our players 20, 30 years ago, touching them, taking photos with them, taking selfies, signing autographs, engaging, this time with the media. It\u2019s not for everybody. Our expectations are higher. What our players are asked to do is a lot, and I don\u2019t apologize for it to you or to them. I will tell you I\u2019ve got 57 guys that are running towards the light, and they understand the mission. They understand what\u2019s expected of them, and they jump in and dive it and do it extraordinarily well.<\/p>\n \u201cBut if guys don\u2019t want to be here, that\u2019s OK with me. I want guys who are going to do it differently, engage sponsors differently, want to build businesses. When we talk about building billion-dollar franchises, it\u2019s not going to be from sponsors. Sponsors will help and they\u2019ll build a great baseline, but this is work. Do you have a home golf course? Do you want to build a line of equipment? Do you want to build a clothing business? Do you want to have sim businesses all over your market? This is real work.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re starting to see some of that from Bryson and Jon and some of these guys are embracing it and leaning it and saying there\u2019s actually something here. But is that for everybody? No, it\u2019s not, and it has to be OK. It has to be. And it certainly is with me.<\/p>\n \u201cI talked to Brooks [on] Friday just to put things in perspective. There is no holy war, at least from our side. We are about LIV Golf and growing the game globally. I love Brooks. I root for Brooks. I am hoping the best for him and his family.<\/p>\n \u201cIf this is what he wants, there will be no better cheerleader for him than me. I\u2019ll tell you what, good for him if he\u2019s getting what he wants and we get what we want. I couldn\u2019t be happier for him and for us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026the agreement to let Brooks Koepka leave LIV Golf<\/p>\n \u201cEven if I could legally tell you about the separation agreement, I probably wouldn\u2019t, to be honest. I would stay up here and I would talk for three minutes and not say much. But, just to be direct, we agreed consensually that we were not going to release any terms of the separation agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026on his reaction to the PGA Tour\u2019s swift announcement<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d be really hard-pressed to get in the mind of an organization that\u2019s so different than we are. I don\u2019t want to comment on what they think, what they do, what their process is, the pace, the creative rule making or any of that stuff. That is what it is.<\/p>\n \u201cVery few things surprise me. Golf is a really small business, and so we tend to have 72 hours of heads up or so on things that are coming out of the PGA Tour, and we had that here, so it wasn\u2019t a surprise when it was announced.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019d have done the same thing, if it\u2019s any consolation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026on Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cam Smith\u2019s future <\/p>\n \u201cI will tell you that when I spent time with these players, when I\u2019ve spent time with their families, when I\u2019m with their caddies, when we\u2019re on the road together, you get a pretty good sense of who\u2019s in and who\u2019s embracing what we\u2019re doing and where we\u2019re heading.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not a shadow of a doubt in my mind \u2013 hasn\u2019t been yesterday, won\u2019t be today, and certainly won\u2019t be tomorrow \u2013 that the players have put their chips in and are all in, and I love that.<\/p>\n \u201cBryson DeChambeau \u2013 I think he\u2019s the biggest star in the game of golf. He\u2019s an elite human being. He\u2019s talented. He\u2019s wonderful. He\u2019s a social media darling. You go from Augusta to Adelaide and fans are losing their minds. He is a guy who kids absolutely adore and love. He gets the vision. He gets the mission. He\u2019s a true businessman.<\/p>\n \u201cWho in their right mind wouldn\u2019t put him on the list? This is a generational talent \u2013 and I don\u2019t mean golfer. He\u2019s a generational talent in terms of an athlete. I\u2019ve told him that privately, and I\u2019ll say it publicly. He is a really, really special human being and talent. Everything he stands for is good about the game and good about this next generation of golf, and I expect him to be at LIV for a very long time.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving him stand up and say \u2018I\u2019m in\u2019 was really nice \u2013 [and] not a surprise to me at all.<\/p>\n \u201cJon Rahm, boy, is he a talent? Cam Smith, elite talent and kind of the face of what we\u2019re doing in Australia, which is one of the great events in all of sport. <\/p>\n \u201cMe personally, I would have named a lot more of them. I think we are loaded with talent. Bryson and Jon and Cam are not only wonderful leaders and extraordinary golfers and great people and understand their role in growing the game of golf \u2013 they have all that down. But DJ, that would have been one I would have added. Dean Burmester, Carlos Ortiz, Seb Munoz? I could spend 10, 15 minutes and go down this roster of guys that I think are elite human beings, elite talent, understand the growth of the game, understand the power of the world of golf.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I love where we are. We\u2019re in really good shape as we walk into 2026. I appreciate the question, but we\u2019re really happy with where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s new for LIV Golf in 2026?<\/p>\n O\u2019Neil also opened up on a number of changes coming to the league this year.<\/p>\n We already know about the move to 72-hole events<\/a>. \u201cFor us, that was relatively simple,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe want to make sure that our players are best prepared for the majors, that it\u2019s not as much of a sprint, that our teams have a chance to recover after a tough day one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think [it is] resoundingly supported by everyone in the ecosystem and certainly at LIV.\u201d<\/p>\n First reported<\/a> back in the summer, it has now been confirmed that the purse at each LIV Golf event<\/a> will increase from $25 million to $30 million \u2013 with all 13 teams taking a percentage at each event, rather than just the top three.<\/p>\n O\u2019Neil also confirmed the rumors that changes will be made at the top and bottom of LIV\u2019s season-long standings as the league continues its pursuit to appease the Official World Golf Ranking.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll see an expanded Lock Zone [and] an expanded Drop Zone this year, which, as we\u2019re working towards world ranking points, there\u2019s some shifts you\u2019ll see in \u201926 that I think help our case and continue to give us more hope that that comes through.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cThere\u2019s several other rules changes. Fortunately, to our partners at the USGA and the R&A, they come together and lay out some rules, so there will be some rule changes that we\u2019ll enact and announce.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of that is rules and competition. Some of it is how we build value in teams, and some of it is what the execution looks like. We remade our rules committee this year, and several rules officials will be new. Some of this stuff just comes directly from feedback from our players.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a great place to be. I hear it from the players. This is the loneliest sport in the world. It\u2019s not so lonely here. I think this is the most important sport in the world. You know who else is important to players? Their wives. You know what else is important? Their children, their lifestyle, knowing there are 14 stops on a calendar that they can put in ink and get themselves mentally and physically and emotionally prepared, that they can be dads and husbands, as well.<\/p>\n \u201cSo that kind of conversation about how these things happen are done very collaboratively and very effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scott O\u2019Neil has opened up on the news that has blown the golf world wide open in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-371582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}