LIV golf: What did Saudi-backed competition ever do for golf? A lot, actually

When the radical overhaul from Ponte Vedra HQ comes into effect in 15 months’ time, it will be incredible to look back and see the differences between the tour now and the tour in June 2022, when LIV launched.

Back then, the US circuit was set in its ways and entirely comfortable as the game’s premier competitive destination. It had all the best players and all the best money; it was unchallengeable.

But then the upstart, with coffers brimming to bursting point courtesy of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), started to lure big names and launch anti-competitive lawsuits, and from nowhere the former superpower was under existential threat.

Initially, the tour executives tried to play the moral card, but that could only go so far in retaining talent who were more interested in their own washing than sportswashing. The PGA Tour was left with no choice but to more than double the prize pots, to US$20 million and more, and to set up limited-field “Signature Events” that ensured the heavyweights received a bigger slice of the pie.

Yet with ever-mounting lawyer fees, the previously replete funds were vanishing and then-chief executive Jay Monahan felt forced to reach out to PIF governor and LIV chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan. In June 2023, the pair shocked the world by announcing the “framework agreement” to unify the sport.

It sounded simple. It was anything but. Al-Rumayyan’s valuation of LIV was far greater than the PGA Tour’s, both in appeal and in actual worth, and the framework was doomed.

Cue the PGA Tour bringing in US private equity to effectively turn a non-profit entity into a financial behemoth and cue a chief executive being hired from the NFL, one who knows how to extract every last cent from a sporting enterprise. As soon as Brian Rolapp took the hot seat, it was clear a drastic revamp focusing on the top names would follow.

Rolapp’s simple mantra is that broadcasters and the golf audience want the best against the best on a more regular basis. So from 2028, there will be two divisions, the Champions Series and the Challenger Series, with upwards of US$20m purses for the former and downwards of US$5m prize funds for the latter. There will be relegation and promotion and there will not be sponsors’ invites. The cosseted cabal has thus been torn apart and pure meritocracy will reign.

Yet it will come at a giddying cost. The outlay on rewards will carry on being ridiculous and there are fears that it will all too soon be unsustainable, particularly if TV is anything less than hugely impressed. Private equity will not be long in insisting on a return on its investment and Rolapp’s task, in an almost unimaginable scenario, will be to deliver on so many undertakings and promises.

It is plausible to argue that LIV Golf came to the DP World Tour’s rescue, even if Wentworth stood firm against the Saudis’ efforts effectively to take over the European circuit.

The tour was in desperate shape after the pandemic, as its global appeal became a hindrance because of the new restrictions on travel. Sponsors disappeared and with American consultants advising Ponte Vedra that its former rival was “an underinvested and borderline distressed asset”, the future appeared bleak.

But the emergence of LIV gave it leverage. Granted, LIV gobbled up a cast of European Ryder Cup legends that dismantled the captaincy conveyor belt – LIV even managed to capture Henrik Stenson, who was just beginning his tenure as captain – and went after venues such as Valderrama and sponsors such as HSBC.

Yet it also allowed Keith Pelley, the then chief executive, to trade with the Americans, who could not let the Europeans join forces with LIV. The “strategic alliance” was born and, in return for the PGA Tour being permitted to hand memberships to the DP World Tour’s top 10 players on an annual basis, the circuit’s purses were protected.

What a deal it has been. In the latest financial year, Wentworth received more than £60m ($143m) from the PGA Tour and still made a profit of only £3m. That illustrates the extent of the benefits of the alliance.

Furthermore, 2027 should be a bumper year with the likes of Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and perhaps Bryson DeChambeau playing regularly on the DP World Tour as they wait for their PGA Tour suspensions to expire. Viva Europa!

Yet will it last, especially with LIV no longer in the picture? The details of the alliance are being renegotiated at the moment and there is no question that Rolapp will insist on more advantageous terms for his tour.

However, Rolapp has pledged to Rory McIlroy that the support will remain in place and Telegraph Sport revealed in August that, in tandem with the PGA Tour and its superstars, the DP World Tour is looking to set up a global series in the last third of the season that would transform the schedule. That is the big hope, but it would be wrong to suggest there is not deep concern about the long term.

They will always exist and, unless something goes terribly wrong, will always prosper. But what the game’s great split offered the “big four” was the opportunity to be the only platforms on which all of the best did compete. That will no longer be the case, but the five-year run did afford their championships yet more credibility.

At the advent of LIV, there were theories that the biennial contest could suffer badly because of the rules of the tours prohibiting the captains from picking their best teams.

As it turned out – mainly because of the PGA Tour not being in control of the US arm of the Ryder Cup – the contest was largely unaffected as ingenious means were employed to get the right players into the respective team rooms (although Sergio Garcia would not agree).

However, another byproduct is that the PGA Tour has become stronger and now has a greater influence over the European circuit and there can be no doubt Rolapp craves a share of the Ryder Cup’s extraordinary financial action.

With the US players already being paid, many blanch at the prospect of what the PGA Tour and its private equity backers would do to the beloved transatlantic battle.

PIF piled hundreds of millions into the Asian Tour and this could be the biggest plus. The Asian Tour was often overlooked, if not bullied into submission, by the two main tours, but LIV gave the circuit renewed and elevated status, as reflected in the deal it recently signed with Wentworth and Ponte Vedra.

As the DP World Tour seeks to become the global power outside the US, the co-operation and partnership of the Asian Tour will be required. The same applies to Australia. Adelaide was LIV’s biggest event and, with the help of the PGA Tour and its superstars, the DP World Tour must now build on that momentum to ensure that the audience Downunder is not dismissed again. It is a huge opportunity and one that LIV, at the very least, underlined.

Well, here, overwhelmingly, are the winners in this civil war. Golfers have never been paid so much and, by the sounds of Rolapp’s pledges, the party will continue.

Scottie Scheffler and others have earned more than the best quarterbacks in the NFL and even though that is clearly absurd, the professionals seem to believe they are worth every dollar.

Their entitlement has fuelled this entire LIV era, from the ones who sold out to the ones who stayed, but demanded buck for their loyalty, and now they have the spoils, they are not about to let them go.

McIlroy sees the potentially ruinous direction of travel and declares that “a reset” is needed, but, alas, his is the lonely voice of realism as his colleagues continue the rush towards the payout counters.

And this could be the most notable downside of the extraordinary LIV chapter. It brought opulence and it left greed. The ancient game will never be the same.

– Daily Telegraph UK