Products You May Like
On the eve of its fourth-season debut, LIV Golf received some very welcome news. The U.S. Open became the first of the four majors to offer a distinct pathway for LIV Golf players into the field.
The U.S. Open’s move, combined with a new broadcast agreement that puts LIV tournaments on broadcast television, further legitimizes and broadens the breakaway tour, which claims many of the golf world’s most notable and charismatic stars. LIV players aren’t able to amass Official World Golf Ranking points in their tournaments, and since OWGR points are the primary metric for determining eligibility for majors, LIV players who haven’t already won majors are finding themselves slowly boxed out as their world rankings decline.
The USGA announced Tuesday that a player in the top three of the 2025 LIV standings as of May 19 will receive an exemption into the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont, as long as that player isn’t already exempt via other means. Last year’s top three were Jon Rahm — already exempt because of a previous U.S. Open win — Joaquin Niemann and Sergio Garcia. In addition, the top 10 players in LIV’s standings as of April 7 will be exempt from local qualifying and can immediately advance to final qualifying, if they’re not already exempt.
The importance of the U.S. Open’s action is significant, because the lack of a pathway to the majors has been a substantial drawback for LIV. Players like Niemann who don’t have existing exemptions into majors have found themselves in limbo — playing well enough to compete in majors, but without the opportunity to do so. Granted, LIV players are compensated in other ways — the vast paychecks that the initial LIV players received were drafted in part to hedge against the possibility that the players wouldn’t have a route to majors — but this action moves golf toward a world where the game’s best players continue to gather.
LIV Golf will begin its fourth season on Thursday at Riyadh Golf Club in Saudi Arabia. The tournament will be played at night local time, meaning it will be on in the daytime in the United States. Player debuts this season include Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin, a highly touted young player. The series will also have a format change: All four of a player’s scores will now count toward a team’s total each day, meaning every player is under pressure to perform every round.
Fox Sports will begin broadcasting LIV Golf this year. Initial tournaments will be shown on FS1 or FS2. The LIV Golf tournament at Trump Doral in early April will be the first of several tournaments shown on Fox’s broadcast channel.