What to expect as third event at Trump Bedminster approaches

The battle royale for supremacy in professional golf between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour has been one of the year’s biggest stories in all of sports, and perhaps the most paramount in professional golf over the past few decades.

Despite covering the upstart entity led by Greg Norman — and financially backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — since it borrowed the idea from the Premier Golf League, I truly had no idea what to expect when I pulled into Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club for the first day of media access at the LIV Golf Invitational Series event in Portland.

What I learned over the next five days was eye-opening — good and bad. It doesn’t take long to realize there’s a clear market for LIV Golf, it just depends on what you’re looking for in a golf tournament. If you’re an avid fan who loves the game for the history and competition, these events likely won’t be for you. But if you’re a general sports fan who loves festivals and fanfare, it’s possible this will pique your interest.

Here’s what it’s like to spend a week in the life of LIV.

Learning on the fly: startup issues

A general view of signage during a practice round prior to the LIV Golf Invitational – Portland at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club on June 27, 2022, in North Plains, Oregon. (Photo by Steve Dykes/LIV Golf/via Getty Images)

Let’s start with my own perspective — not because the plight of the media is of any importance to you, but to paint a picture of how the week evolved. So, hear me out.

The shuttle from the parking lot to the media center each day was a hayride (OK, not really, but the van was littered with hay and clearly repurposed from a nearby farm). Workers were scrambling to build key structures around the course as well as inside the fan zone in the two days leading up to when play was scheduled to shotgun start. The Wi-Fi wasn’t working when the media center opened. These are all signs of a startup still finding its day-to-day footing, which was to be expected in LIV’s second event.

Outside of the three-at-a-time press conferences and post-round interviews – a format that takes considerable attention off each player and shortens the time we have to ask questions –  the media center experience was comparable to a PGA Tour event for the most part. Except for the robot that delivers drinks. You don’t see that at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

The media access and interactions with the players,…