LIV Golf Invitational League...... NO Political/Ethical conflict posts, see Post#2

What a shock, Rory McIlroy a man known for making big pronouncements and then back tracking has done it again in relation to LIV

I wonder how much he is going to get from them?

Rory has the increasingly rare humility to admit making a mistake or misjudgment.

I can see why that wouldn't be respected on a message board.

Talk that Hatton is on his way too.

They are hoovering up some serious talent to be fair.

3 of the last 5 major winners now play on LIV and also the DP World Tour player of the year.

Any word on the money?

Hatton confirmed.

Their "strategy" doesn't seem to rely on interest or viewing numbers of LIV events, it's all about depriving PGA of its best players to strengthen its position in negotiations for a new/combined tour or venture. Or to kill off the PGA tour entity entirely by a thousand cuts.

Wonder are we heading (eventually and with much wailing and gnashing of teeth) to much more clearly defined "seasons" almost ? Like a 3 month PGAT block of events, a 3 month LIV block and a DPWT block, with the winter off. Not great if youre not in the top echelon of players.

I dunno, I think the PGAT really messed up, prior to LIV, when they brought the PGA forward into May. Having all the Majors over at the Open in July is too condensed IMO. Leaves the door way too open for a LIV or similar competitor to grab the other 8 months around the Majors.

Oh I agree, they were definitely arrogant about it. A small part of me kinda likes the fact that they're getting a taste of their own medicine in a way, even if I've no great feeling for LIV either way. Hard to know what else they could have done really though at the same time. They can never match the Saudi money and the ultimate sanction was banning them, which they did, and the guys still didn't care. Maybe it really is as simple as "pro golfer, plays golf for money" and goes where the most money is. Probably its because I'll never have that kind of cash, but I can't understand how a guy who already has 50 million in the bank is swayed by another 50. I get that greed is a human emotion and all that but still......

I do think the DPWT massively messed up by taking the same position as the PGAT. I know there are/were politics and stakeholder issues at play, but still, from a purely European Tour perspective, if there's a ET event in Ireland or Germany or wherever, and one of your top talents is not playing - what does it matter if he's playing a LIV event or say, Jack's Memorial event in the States ? He's still not at your ET event. I think they should have stayed right out of it, and as long as Rory or Sergio plays their minimum number of events, so be it. The top Europeans have always gone to the States to play most of their golf, why is playing LIV different when they're still not playing the Portugal Masters either way ?

Lucas Herbert just announced he's joining LIV now.

They have to come to some sort of compromise to let them back on the PGA Tour. Otherwise professional golf is in big trouble. Even with Rahm and Hatton I still don't see LIV growing their audience that much in it's current form but it's still a massive blow to the PGA tour.

Has there been any talk of Rahm or other big names playing DP World Tour events? Oosthuizen and Schwartzel played a few events at the end of the year and Joaqiun Niemann played some DP world tour events recently too.

Exactly this. Lots of poor PGA events - look at the leaderboards at the events in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago. There's Junior Scratch Cups with better fields 😁

Its a strange one, very few are actually watching LIV, yet arguably bar Rory, there are no "stars" left on PGAT. Even Scheffler, world no.1, super golfer, but would you cross the street to watch him ? JT & Spieth maybe could be classed as big names. If Tiger does tee it up once a month at least those events will get some traction, but expecting a small few to carry the tour won't work imo. I know people have jokingly (or not) mentioned a Ryder Cup style match between the two, but at this stage would it even be close ?

if you have a way to counter 300 million quid lets hear it

the hell what

you think they were slow an arrogant is it, there no way to counter that kind of money

no one said you were the pga obviously

The hell at the tone of your comment.

There are other ways to counter it I'm sure; that unfortunately we don't get to see. I'd like to see what they tried to counter, rather than threats of banning from Majors/World Ranking issues etc.

So ya, I do think they were slow and arrogant about it. They definitely didn't forsee the movement of this many players.

The vast majority don't care about the rich getting richer, as evidenced by the failure of the FedEx cup playoffs.

People want to see the best players playing against each other regularly. The splintered nature of the sport is really harming it I feel.