At the start of this year, the prospect of a new golf super league looked decidedly uncertain. Now, at the end of 2022, the LIV Golf Series is firmly established and many of the world’s best players have committed to competing on it. The main tours have taken various steps to try and scuttle the new Saudi-backed circuit, but it appears to have survived the onslaught.
As of next year, the LIV Golf Series will comprise 14 events with a total prize fund of an astonishing $405 million. Here, we consider LIV Golf’s exceptionally swift rise to prominence, the reaction of the establishment and what the future landscape of men’s professional golf may look like.
Where did the LIV Golf Series come from?
Back in 2019, the early framework for a new tour to be known as the ‘Premier Golf League’ became public. It was a clear threat and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan responded with a warning that players who joined such a league could be barred from PGA Tour events. In 2020, the PGA and DP World Tours formed a ‘Strategic Alliance’ to strengthen themselves against the threat – an arrangement set to run through to 2035.
The idea of a breakaway, rival tour was not a new one. Back in the mid-1990s, Greg Norman and Rupert Murdoch
