Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson take part in the pro-am ahead of LIV Golf’s event in Bedminster, New Jersey. AP Photo/Seth Wenig LIV Golf has improved its roster with each passing week since its debut event in June. While the field of the first LIV tournament in London left much to be desired, steady additions have led to a more competitive event this week in Bedminster, New Jersey.
LIV still isn’t nearly as competitive as the PGA Tour, but the league’s strategy of getting big names appears to be working. LIV Golf’s third event began on Friday afternoon at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey with a roster that is as strong as it’s been thus far. With the financial backing of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, LIV Golf has been able to offer players huge sums of guaranteed dollars, plus the biggest purses in the history of golf.
Early adopters like Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson cashed in on huge, reportedly nine-figure paydays to leave the PGA Tour and join the upstart league. While those superstar names headlined the competition, they only make up a fraction of the 48-man field. At LIV’s first event in London, many pointed to the incongruity of such an unimpressive roster playing for the richest prize in the history of the sport.
“I certainly don’t think the field is anything to jump up and down about,” said Rory McIlroy, one of the best players in the world who has been publicly committed to the PGA Tour. Indeed, at LIV’s first event, the field left much to be desired. Of the 48 players competing, just 18 were ranked in the top 100 in the world, according to the Official World Golf Rankings.
Just one of them, Johnson (No. 15), was ranked in the top 20. Three more — Louis Oosthuizen (No.
21), Kevin Na (No. 34), and Talor Gooch (No. 35) — were inside the top 40.
Tien Le/InsiderFurther, the same number of players — 18 in the field — were outside of the top 200 in the world ranking. Safe to say, if LIV were going to become a true force in the golf world, it needed to keep working on its roster. Over time, they have.
With each passing week, LIV has continued to add names, several of which have been star players such as Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau. LIV has also added a slew of talented up-and-coming players such as Abraham Ancer and Carlos Ortiz, to fill out its field. Heading into this weekend’s event in New Jersey, LIV’s field has indeed improved, with 22 players in the top 100, including eight from the Top 40.
Tien Le/InsiderThis improvement in LIV’s share of the OWGR Top 100 comes despite the fact that joining the ranks of LIV inherently lowers a golfer’s world ranking. As things stand, LIV events do not qualify for OWGR points, meaning that players have no way of improving their world ranking while playing on the new tour. It’s a problem that Tiger Woods made note of ahead of the Open Championship this year.
That said, top-ranked players aren’t the only ones LIV is going after. Instead, LIV has also placed a ton of value on players that could be described as “needle-movers. “Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau are both top-tier athletes with major wins to their names, but they also were set against each other in a rivalry that became the biggest story in the sport for a few months.
Henrik Stenson is far past his best playing days, but by stealing him away just as he was set to captain the European side of next year’s Ryder Cup, LIV sent a message by making news. You only have to look as far as the PGA Tour’s own list of its most popular players to see LIV’s player target strategy. Two years ago, the PGA Tour introduced the Player Impact Program, or PIP, which measures how much interest a particular player drives.
The top 10 players at the end of the year each receive a cash bonus. With LIV officially adding Bubba Watson to its roster just this week, the new league has now poached five of the PGA Tour’s Top 10 needle-movers from 2021. —Dan Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) July 27, 2022Beyond talent and attention, LIV is also clearly angling for worldwide representation across its 48-man roster.
Thus far, the team aspect of LIV has been somewhat fluid, but the league has clearly worked to pair nationalities or regions together, which in the future could help drive support and interest in teams. Right now, gathering talent is still a top priority, but with more announcements coming every week, and likely a new influx of players moving at the conclusion of this year’s PGA Tour season, LIV could someday see a field worth jumping for and about. Read the original article on Insider.
From: insider
URL: https://www.insider.com/liv-golf-top-100-players-strength-of-field-2022-7
