LIV Golf's Uniqueness is Evaporating

Since its inception, LIV Golf has been a disruptor.

The PGA TOUR’s too quiet, let’s blare music. There isn’t enough comradery, let’s play as teams. Man, it’s hot out here, let’s wear shorts. I could go on, but the jokes are losing their steam now that LIV is reverting back to the mean.

On Tuesday, the league financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced that its tournaments will be expanded to 72 holes in 2026, a move that eliminates one of LIV’s distinguishing characteristics.

I saw a tweet from my old Golfweek co-worker, Cam Jourdan, when the news dropped, and I don’t think I could have said it any better myself.

So you might be thinking, why would they do this? Why would new CEO Scott O’Neil make a move that even LIV bots on Twitter won’t defend? Well, it’s because he wants to provide his players world ranking points and this was just another step towards that goal. Respectable leadership from O’Neil, but in the end, I don’t think it’s going to do a whole lot even if LIV members start to see world ranking points come their way.

And if you don’t believe me, here’s what the second-ranked player in the world said on Wednesday ahead of the DP World Tour’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Yas Links.

“I think it's a peculiar move because I think they could have got ranking points with three rounds. I don't think three rounds versus four rounds is what was holding them back,” Rory McIlroy said.

McIlroy continued: “Yeah, I don't—it certainly puts them more in line with traditional golf tournaments than what we've all done. It brings them back into not really being a destructor and sort of falling more in line with what everyone else does. But if that's what they felt they needed to do to get the ranking points, I guess that's what they had to do.

“Yeah, I think what's hard is you've got the LIV guys, and say potentially they get World Rankings, but because their strength of fields are going to be so weak because a lot of the guys have fallen already in the rankings because they have not had ranking points for so long, I don't know if the ranking points are really going to benefit them.”

Let’s take a second to summarize everything. LIV’s uniqueness is all but gone—it still has shotgun starts and teams(!)—the league features far less high-level talent and incomparable venues to what the TOUR has to offer, and even if they start to receive world ranking points, it’ll be close to nothing.

That’s, uh, well that’s not great.

Who knows, maybe O’Neil and friends will figure something out to save the league’s relevance. But with a player and course roster lacking in power rankings from an organization that launched with promises of modernization of the sport to generate more excitement with global golf fans, we'll have to see it to believe it.