\t\t\t\tLIV Golf\u2019s unexpected summer break has forced some players to look elsewhere\u2026<\/p>\n
Forty-five days. That\u2019s how long LIV Golf players will need to wait between starts on the breakaway league during the height of the season. <\/p>\n
The postponement of LIV\u2019s event in New Orleans<\/a> has created an uncomfortably long gap in the calendar as uncertainty surrounding the league\u2019s longevity continues. That there is no LIV tournament until the return to JCB Golf & Country Club in late July has at least enabled chief executive Scott O\u2019Neil to focus his attention entirely on securing the $300 million in funding the league needs to survive beyond 2026. <\/p>\n But while those investor calls take place in the background, several LIV players have been forced to scope out other tournaments to remain sharp during a lengthy hiatus at a critical juncture of the season.<\/p>\n Bubba Watson headed a cast list of over 20 LIV players at a recent International Series stop in Morocco on the Asian Tour, while Joaquin Niemann is the biggest name of the seven playing in this week\u2019s DP Italian Open on the DP World Tour, which would have otherwise coincided with the scrapped tournament in Louisiana. <\/p>\n Intriguingly, meanwhile, one of LIV\u2019s brightest talents is taking a different path to get some competitive reps. Caleb Surratt, who made the cut in his US Open debut last week, will now play two tournaments on the HotelPlanner Tour, the second-tier of the European game. <\/p>\n The American is listed in the field for next week\u2019s Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge in France, which carries a $300,000 prize fund, a world away from the $30 million LIV events. TG has learned that Surratt, who plays on Jon Rahm\u2019s Legion XII team, will also play the German Challenge on the HotelPlanner Tour in the following week.<\/p>\n Alongside Tom McKibbin, Jose Ballester and David Puig, Surratt is viewed among LIV\u2019s finest young talents and has received tournament invites for each of his first two starts on the feeder circuit. Surratt, the world No. 274, is also among the notable names listed for Open Final Qualifying<\/a> at Burnham & Burrow on England\u2019s South West coast on June 30, two days before his HotelPlanner Tour debut in France.<\/p>\n Some LIV players, including Surratt\u2019s LIV colleague Rahm, will have spent a month on the sidelines after the league\u2019s last stop in Valderrama before returning at the Genesis Scottish Open<\/a> the week prior to the final major of the season. But those LIV players without status on the DP World Tour have had to consider options elsewhere.<\/p>\n TG reported in April<\/a> that several of the LIV playing contingent have contacted both the DP World Tour and HotelPlanner Tour as part of contingency planning after Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund announced it would be pulling its multi-billion dollar funding from the league at the end of the season.<\/p>\n Since then, LIV boss O\u2019Neil has been working tirelessly on what is being called \u2018LIV 2.0\u2019, a remodeled circuit with fewer events with a focus on locations in which they have enjoyed the most success, like Australia and South Africa. The model is currently being pitched to potential investors.<\/p>\n Back in April, TG asked DP World Tour chief executive Guy Kinnings about the possibility of more LIV players joining his circuit next season. \u201cWe will wait and see how things evolve, but we\u2019re obviously listening\u00a0and we\u2019re listening to players and agents and others who have questions about what the future may hold\u00a0and we\u2019ll handle it as we go forward,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cBut for sure, I think there\u2019s opportunity for us to continue to grow the strength of the tour,\u00a0which is my only job really.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LIV Golf\u2019s unexpected summer break has forced some players to look elsewhere\u2026 Forty-five days. That\u2019s how long LIV…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-725558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725558","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=725558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}