LIV Golf saw smaller crowds for some of its international tournaments, like the early October event in Bangkok Getty Images
A room full of writers "couldn’t script a more compelling result for LIV Golf at its team championship and 2022 finale,” according to Sean Zak of GOLF.com. The “two best golfers in the entire series” in Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith were the last two on the course, their teams separated by a single stroke. Its operating purpose “for the next three months is to commercialize its teams, even if your Saturday foursome doesn’t know exactly who is playing for the Niblicks.” LIV “dreams of a day where each team is sponsored, with its own operating budgets and staff.” Zak: “Making a Torque GC Instagram account is one thing. Convincing a Fortune 500 company of team valuations is another” (GOLF.com, 10/31).
ROOM TO GROW: SI's Bob Harig writes LIV Golf ended its inaugural season yesterday in Miami, something that "hardly seemed possible even six months ago." That is “far from saying” that the LIV Golf Invitational Series “is or will be a rousing success.” There remains “numerous hurdles,” perhaps “chief among them a good bit of skepticism in a golf world that has looked down on 54-hole events, shotgun starts and the huge guaranteed sums that have locked in more than two dozen players.” But even after LIV Golf announced its eight-tournament schedule, it was “hard to envision” a season-ending event at Doral that “brought out more fans than at any other venue and created an atmosphere that actually seemed on a path to what they want to achieve.” Harig: “Remember, there was a time when we wondered if LIV Golf would be able to fill its 48-player fields.” Now LIV execs say that they “have more players who want to join in 2023 than there is room” (SI, 10/31).
REFLECTING BACK: GOLF.com's weekly editorial roundtable discussed LIV's finale. Josh Sens wrote “a year ago, most of us on this forum would have said LIV had little chance of taking shape at all. And even less chance after [Phil] Mickelson’s ... comment in February.” That it “not only exists” but has “drawn a bunch of green jackets counts as a surprising success.” Zak: “I wanted LIV to exist for strict chaos purposes. I saw the potential it could inject into the ecosystem for change on the PGA Tour. Unfortunately, I think it all has gone a bit too far. ... At this point, I’m sad that there wasn’t a bit of cooperation between the two sides, but I don’t actually care to blame [PGA Tour Commissioner] Jay Monahan. If you give LIV an inch, it’ll want to take a mile” (GOLF.com, 10/30).
DREAMS TO REALITY: In West Palm Beach, Tom D'Angelo notes the weekend was a “snapshot of LIV's inaugural season with the biggest purse ($50 million) in the history of the sport and a champagne celebration on stage with The Chainsmokers as the entertainment.” This was everything LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman “dreamed of coming together” (PALM BEACH POST, 10/30). REUTERS' Steve Keating wrote LIV proved at Miami that it can “produce an entertaining product appealing to a younger audience who descended on Trump National as much for the party as the golf.” All three rounds of the team final “delivered some drama” but those moments over the course of the season were “rare with the Saudi cloud hanging over the U.S. stops” (REUTERS, 10/30).
