What is Going on in Golf?

The brand new LIV Golf tour is a rival golf league to the PGA Tour where the tournaments consist of 54 holes, the fields are limited to 48 golfers and the purses are an astronomical $25 million. Twelve, four-man teams will compete in each event, and the individual purses will be $20 million while the other $5 million will be divided up among the best teams each week. The new league will bring a lot of speculation and controversy to the PGA tour as LIV continues to throw massive amounts of money at the best of the best in the PGA.

How will this affect the major tournaments? That is still unknown. As of now, the major organizations, PGA of America, USGA, R&A, and Augusta National, likely won't announce suspensions or bans of players who participate. But as the new Saudi-backed tour gets underway it is safe to assume more sanctions could come from the PGA tour and its major events. The PGA has repeatedly pointed back to its rules and regulations and will begin suspending or banning players from PGA tour events who choose to play in this league.

The star-studded cast joining LIV contains some of the most successful golfers in the world like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson Dechambeau, Patrick Reed, Martin Kaymer, Sergio Garcia, Charl Schwartzel, Louis Oosthuizen, Lee Westwood, and Ian Poulter have all decided to join the LIV tour.

Golf needs its best players in one place to help grow the game and bring more eyes to the sport, not controversy and division. Hopefully, the major tournaments won’t ban players who choose to play for LIV, if they do we may see golf fall off completely. When you tune in on a Sunday, you’re looking for an exciting and competitive field with familiar names, not a sense of disappointment because of potential bans and suspensions. Losing Johnson, Dechambeau, Mickelson, Reed, and potentially more is going to hurt the sport.