Writing from Bolingbrook, Illinois
Sunday, August 10, 2025
This is the fourth year of LIV Golf, which today wraps up its fourth visit to the Chicago area, the first two years at Rich Harvest Farms, and the more recent two years at Bolingbrook Golf Club, a course as public as Rich Harvest is private.
Galleries have been reasonably large all four years – Saturday last year set what LIV said was a record for a round of their rodeo in the U.S., with 15,000 on hand, and that was surpassed yesterday by a throng of some 18,000 – and the crowds have seen some fine play. The three victors here – Cameron Smith, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm – all have undeniable pedigree in the game at large. All three have at least a decade more of being a threat in major championships.
That pedigree is something LIV still lacks. The supposed agreement to somehow meld the PGA Tour and LIV into one happy professional golf family only ended up ending legal hostilities, and the invoices from the law firms that come with it. That benefited the PGA Tour, which, unlike the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV operation, doesn’t have oil wells to draw on for excess expenses. (And the animus toward those who bolted continues, if the report of a five-year suspension of Hudson Swafford from PGA Tour play is any indication.)
What LIV doesn’t have in the golf universe is a sense of importance. Never mind the glitz associated with a LIV weekend – the skydivers, the techno music, the Saturday night concert (something adopted by the John Deere Classic, as traditional a tournament as there is, on weekends the past three years), and the Formula One TV leaderboard that proves we all need better eyesight or bigger televisions. All that, if changed or abandoned, wouldn’t make a difference in what LIV golf really is.
It is golf’s version of the Savannah Bananas. That concoction of baseball, created nine years ago by Jesse Cole, a fan of Bill Veeck, has swept the nation in popularity the last three years. Fans love the dancing, the music, the wacky rules changes – a fan catching a foul ball counts as an out – and the atmosphere. But the Bananas and their companion teams in the Banana Ball Championship League, the Firefighters, the Party Animals and the Texas Tailgaters, know where they stand in the firmament of baseball. They are the convivial sideshow, introducing new fans to the game as much as entertaining old fans.
Nobody sees the Bananas as a threat to the majors, or even the minors.
LIV has the same fun vibe in person, fans having a good time even in sweltering heat, but from the start, the PGA Tour has seen LIV as a threat. While the Tour made many missteps, starting with commissioner Jay Monahan’s refusal to talk to the Saudis, an error which has cost the Tour dearly, LIV’s signing a galaxy of stars certainly hurt the established circuit in the short run.
LIV’s misstep was in believing all the notables would add up to instant credibility. It has not. The stubborn reluctance to tweak its rules enough to gain a seat at the world ranking table has meant LIV’s results are essentially irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Joaquin Neimann has won five times this season and is undeniably one of the world’s best players, but that’s gotten him bupkis in the point system.
Just why the world golf ranking bosses – now led by CBS commentator Trevor Immelman, a former Masters and Western Open winner – is so dead-set against team play being a component of LIV tournaments is baffling, but that’s a major sticking point. And the LIV leadership, right up to the Saudi crown princes, thinks team golf is the greatest thing since the drill bit, so the stalemate is likely to continue. (One idea being whispered in LIV circles is dumping the silly team names – we’re looking at you, Majesticks – and lining up players by country or region, and playing a tournament in each country/region annually for a world team championship.)
The current stalemate leaves someone like Neimann in limbo, 103rd in the world rankings when he should be in the top 25 – despite finding more high grass Friday than a herd of elephants – and potentially adrift when it comes to next year’s majors unless he tries to qualify for the Opens. (That ranking will get worse when his fifth and first in a pair of 2023 Australian PGA tournaments goes off the board late this year.)
DeChambeau, 16th in the world, has a remarkable seven top-10 finishes in his last nine non-LIV starts, eight of them majors, including the 2024 U.S. Open win at Pinehurst, so he’s safe for the nonce.
Tyrrell Hatton is 27th at the moment, the next-highest LIVer, but Rahm is 75th and dropping like a rock. He was as high as third before leaving for LIV, but even a pair of top-10 finishes in the PGA and U.S. Open got him no higher than 59th. At least he has a green jacket and the permanent invitation that comes with it.
Until LIV and the Tour make a deal on team play, and on how LIV can co-exist with Tour play in the U.S., and presumably the lifting of sanctions on players like Swafford, the LIVers will be where legendary Beverly Country Club caddie master Eddie Barr said you don’t want to be in golf. They will be on the outside looking in.
– Tim Cronin