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The R&A will be very thankful that the LIV Golf Invitational Series didn’t entirely overshadow the build up to the 150th Open in the way it did at last month’s US Open.
LIV has certainly been on the agenda here at St Andrews, but the focus has largely and quite rightly been on St Andrews, its baked fairways and the magical aura around the town and tournament in what is a truly historic week for the game.
However, being in and around St Andrews this week has inevitably led to the odd LIV chat with other journalists and amongst the wider industry, and I keep coming back to the same argument. I simply don’t know where I stand on it, and actually I’m not even standing… I’m sitting on the fence.
Video: What is LIV Golf?
I listened to Tiger Woods talk about “earning it in the dirt” and R&A chief Martin Slumbers hammering LIV versus golf’s traditional ecosystem. The men’s game has tended to be a meritocracy where the only way to make it to stardom and fortune was to come up via the likes of the Korn Ferry or Challenge Tours and keeping your PGA and DP World Tour cards by earning points, earning money, making cuts and grafting. I completely get where they’re coming from, they’re 100% right but times are changing and they already have.
LIV is slightly different, as Woods and Slumbers clearly criticised. It rewards everyone in the field, with $120,000 going to the last-placed finisher. It hands out signing on fees for at least a number of the field. Will it lead to players practising less and not “earning it in the dirt”? That’s a definite possibility, especially for those signed on huge contracts with ageing or injured bodies.
The current golfing ecosystem is ridiculously competitive. If you aren’t grinding on the range, spending hours on the putting green and days on end ensuring no leaf is left unturned, you will simply fall by the wayside. You’ll miss cuts, you’ll lose your card, you’ll be overtaken by any of the thousands of talented youngsters coming up through the feeder tours, US colleges, South Africa, Korea, Japan, Australia, South America, just…
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