GAJTKA: LIV Wasn’t Around A Long Time, But Was Any Of It A Good Time?

My streak ended last week.

For as long as the LIV Golf League (or as it was known in 2022, the LIV Invitational Series) has been in existence, I managed to carve out the time to cover one event per season.

From 2022 to ’24, it was the event in Chicagoland, whether it be at Rich Harvest Farms or Bolingbrook. Last August, LIV brought what I believed was its most innovative creation, the Team Championship, to my current home state of Michigan, so I zipped down to the Detroit ‘burbs to report on that for this site.

As a pro golf follower who had grown weary of the same-old, same-old that comprises most of the modern PGA Tour, I was hoping LIV’s bombastic arrival — regardless of what motivated it or who was involved — would lead to a more interesting season outside of the majors.

I think, with a 10- or 20-year perspective in mind, LIV will eventually be remembered as the impetus behind much of the change we’ve seen in the men’s game, a significant amount of which is still pending. New PGA Tour commissioner Brian Rolapp has been taking his time unfurling various alterations to his circuit, but we know they’ll include promotion and relegation, more opportunities for top players to face off, and a postseason that concludes with a match-play version of the Tour Championship.

But, really, was all the upheaval of talent and (justifiable) geopolitical angst worth it? That’s tougher to suss out.

It was certainly literally worth it for top-level pros who either made the jump to LIV for amounts of money rarely seen in worldwide sport, or the stalwarts who held firm on the PGA Tour and were rewarded with a massive increase in purse size — especially in the elevated events that were created in a direct response to LIV’s market disruption.

For those of us who weren’t directly cashing in, though, it’s hard to say the past five years were anything but a serpentine odyssey that, while entertaining at times, robbed us of countless chances to see golf’s very best compete on the same playing field.

Now, I would argue the majors and the Ryder Cup became even more meaningful and dominant on the calendar than ever before, which was cool for those handful of weeks per year, but not for the purpose of building the seasonlong narratives that other major pro sports offerings simply do better.

Maybe that’s an unavoidable reality of where golf is. The PGA Tour got stagnant and LIV came and went, but the majors are the events that have endured and thus provide the sport’s most satisfying historical context.

I’d wager the Masters, the two Opens and, to a lesser degree, the PGA Championship are always going to be the tentpoles in this game, and that’s OK. But — and maybe this is simply nostalgia talking — I swear that when I started following golf in the late ’90s, the run-of-the-mill tour events had at least a little more resonance than they do today.

As I turn it over in my head, that feeling I have could be some combination of burgeoning Tiger-mania and a less-crowded sports landscape in general. These days, pro golf is out of the Woods business, but it’s not out of the woods in terms of carving out space in the average sports fan’s mind.

To that end, I think the dramatic developments of the past five years were necessary to turn around the corporate ocean-liner that is the PGA Tour.

I’m bullish on the idea of introducing more competitive stakes on a week-by-week basis, whether that be via aspiration to get to the top-level Championship Series, fear of dropping to the lower-level Challenger Series, or motivation to qualify for the totally redesigned Tour Championship.

In that last area, the PGA Tour owes LIV at least a little on the intellectual property front, if only for reminding that season-ending match play can absolutely work in a league that is built on stroke play. My experience last August on site for LIV’s Team Championship reinforced what I already thought: That head-to-head competition should always be a part of golf, even if the vast majority of the time we’re watching the same leaderboard-focused format.

The team aspect of pro golf is where LIV fell short in making the case. I feel there are some team-oriented elements that could freshen up the long-term product — and already have as the framework for what I consider an interesting venture in the indoor TGL — but ultimately golf is individualistic by nature. Team golf can absolutely be invigorating, but in my opinion it’s a tough sell on a week-by-week basis.

Perhaps, in a different world where LIV poached more top-end talent, pro golf would truly look different today. As it is, the renegade league probably caused just as much damage as it motivated improvements, but the final calculations will have to be done years down the line.

The biggest mystery to solve is what influence did LIV have on the contemporary performances and, ultimately, the career accomplishments of guys like Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Joaquin Niemann, Cam Smith, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka. Especially for the first two on that list, we’re talking about prime years that they spent in, shall we say, an alternative competitive path.

I suppose that’s left for those players to ponder. What’s most relevant for us spectators is the nature of the new normal, and how long it will take to get there.

I truly believe men’s pro golf will be better for all this, but that doesn’t mean we get to live (LIV?) the last five years over again.