Why a shotgun start? Why play music when players are teeing off? Why make purses as high as $30 million? Why limit field size?<\/p>\n
There may well be legitimate answers. The inquiries are weightier, though, because there is currently no guarantee there will be a 2027 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re in a pretty good spot,\u201d said veteran Dustin Johnson, the captain of 4Aces. \u201cI mean, just look at our events. Look at the players we got.\u201d<\/p>\n
Start there, and ask a question: Which LIV players would the PGA Tour \u2014 or any other elite tour \u2014 consider assets it would want back should LIV dissolve?<\/p>\n
DeChambeau and Jon Rahm are obvious needle-movers. Tyrrell Hatton is a personality who can play. Kim has a story of redemption. Joaquin Niemann is young enough to be ascendant. Garcia? Johnson? They\u2019re on the wrong side of 40. It\u2019s a fun challenge.<\/p>\n
But this isn\u2019t LIV\u2019s obituary. Not yet, anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident in the people running the show that we will continue on,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI think all the guys, we really love being out here, and it\u2019s very enjoyable. We love competing against each other, and we\u2019re only getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday, LIV CEO Scott O\u2019Neil was left to greet the players who led the tournament at the first tee wearing a red baseball cap with white lettering that read, \u201cMake LIV Great Again.\u201d Trump\u2019s grandiose clubhouse loomed over the proceedings behind him. The music was relentless, less golf club on a Sunday than Miami club on the other side of midnight.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to overstate how un-golf-like the environment at a LIV event is, even before the shotgun start. This isn\u2019t just intentional. It slaps you in the face. Moments before noon Sunday, as the 57 players scattered to the 18 tees spread across this gorgeous, massive property along the Potomac River, a public address announcer blared, \u201cVirginia! Make some noise! Let\u2019s do this!\u201d<\/p>\n
At the Masters, the starter says plainly, \u201cFore, please. Bryson DeChambeau now driving.\u201d Maybe that\u2019s stuffy. At LIV Virginia, DeChambeau\u2019s appearance on the first tee was preceded by four military parachuters landing in the first fairway \u2014 two carrying flags of the Legion XIII and Fireballs GC LIV teams. When DeChambeau stood over his ball to hit his first shot of the final round, AC\/DC\u2019s \u201cBack in Black\u201d thundered over the crowd. \u201cGolf, but louder\u201d is a slogan and a choice, and even if the tour is on life support, it\u2019s leaning into it.<\/p>\n
That includes the team element. This much is true: A team playoff in LIV is kinda fun. Because Garcia \u2014 Fireballs GC\u2019s captain \u2014 bogeyed the 18th, the 4Aces\u2019 Thomas Detry and Kim competed against David Puig and Josele Ballester of Fireballs GC for the title. The winner: lowest combined score.<\/p>\n
When the regular tournament is playing out, it\u2019s nearly impossible to follow the team element simultaneously. When everyone else is off the course, it\u2019s cool. DeChambeau stood to the side, watching it play out, and quietly said, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to keep this team thing going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if the fans who gathered couldn\u2019t list the rosters of the RangeGoats or the Southern Guards or anyone in between, the players seem to like it.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cWhat kind of question is that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, it\u2019s the kind of question that has dogged LIV from the start. Yet with all the issues about exposure and competitive format \u2014 and, now, finances \u2014 it\u2019s important not to lose sight of the fact that LIV\u2019s money was filthy to begin with. The PIF is so prevalent in sports \u2014 it owns English soccer club Newcastle United and has invested in both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s tennis tours \u2014 that Saudi backing seems normalized. It shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The Saudi ruling regime of Mohammed bin Salman is murderous<\/a> and has a long list of human rights violations<\/a> on its record. That should color any evaluation of LIV\u2019s legitimacy \u2014 and protesters appeared outside Trump National this week to serve as a reminder of just that.<\/p>\n \n Protesters have reminded golf fans about the human rights record of LIV\u2019s Saudi funders. (Ben Hsu \/ Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/p>\n So in a best-case scenario, maybe this is a chance for LIV to cleanse itself \u2014 not that any of the players that came for hundreds of millions of dollars feel particularly dirty anyway. O\u2019Neil said early in the week that his phone was ringing with people interested in pouring funds into the enterprise. In a few weeks, he said, he might be able to make a PowerPoint presentation on LIV\u2019s new business plan. He\u2019s either a shrewd salesman or a huckster. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n For now, the spectacle continues. The tour resurfaces in South Korea later this month, then in Spain in June and the United Kingdom in July before closing with three stateside events in August. Maybe by then, LIV\u2019s future \u2014 if there is one \u2014 will be clearer. (The future of the Louisiana event that was postponed<\/a> last month is unknown.)<\/p>\n Sunday, Herbert celebrated his maiden LIV win by soaking up the Champagne his Australian teammates sprayed on him.<\/p>\n \u201cWinning golf tournaments (is) hard,\u201d Herbert said. \u201cIf it was easy, it wouldn\u2019t be so gratifying.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, he, Garcia and DeChambeau \u2014 as the top three finishers \u2014 stood on a podium as the same public address announcer belted out their names. Sparklers shot into the air behind them. The few hundred fans who had waited out heavy rains took photos. The people who came and stayed had fun.<\/p>\n The problem: That\u2019s not a business plan to maintain and propel a sports enterprise with a serious competitive element going forward. We\u2019re about to find out if the brashness with which LIV has carried itself as an alternative to golf\u2019s staid history has a market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"POTOMAC FALLS, Va. \u2014 This is how LIV Golf would like the story of its tournaments to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99,1794],"class_list":["post-637617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2275015153-scaled.jpg\")
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