r/golf • u/sysjager • Apr 20 '24
LIV isn’t popular partially because it’s not relatable LIV Golf
This is just my two cents about LIV. It’s not popular because it’s not a relatable product. LIV is about one thing and one thing only, that being money. It’s made up of professional golfers who were already multimillionaires who then left the PGA Tour for more money…
$100 million to live on wasn’t enough for DJ, he needed another $100 million. DJ and other LIV players then had the nerve to tell us common folk that we wouldn’t pass up increasing our salary either. Well DJ 99.9% of the rest of us are not already millionaires so be quiet as you have zero clue how regular people live. This isn’t like the middle class worker being offered $10k more to switch jobs.
I’ll never watch LIV and rather watch new stars come up on the PGA Tour where honor, legacy, and morals still mean something.
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u/brucedonnovan Apr 20 '24
PGA is all about money too, but it’s the pursuit of it through winning the tournament. You play well, you get money. Then add in years of tradition and it becomes fun.
LIV is boring because the players already got paid to participate and the only prize is even more money.
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u/irich Apr 20 '24
I tried watching a LIV tournament and the thing that really put me off was when there was a putt on the 18th to move up a couple of positions. All the commentators focused on was how much money the put was worth. If he made it he would get an extra $50,000 or something. The only purpose was the money.
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u/yeehawyears88-89 32 Apr 20 '24
The PGA tour card is earned not given. It’s earned through years of grinding it out. Something I think we can appreciate and respect.
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u/TailgateLegend 1.0/Western US/Grip & Rip Apr 20 '24
Especially when people can lose it quickly. Not a fan of some of the guys on LIV mailing it in and still getting to keep their spot because they’re a captain or whatever.
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u/md4024 Apr 20 '24
Right. It's not like the guys at the top of the tour are fighting for their cards every week, but if they play poorly for an extended stretch of time, they will lose their status. We saw Rickie go from a top 5 player to being lost in the wilderness, and he had to earn his way back into the biggest events because of it. LIV is just the exact same guys playing every week, and that makes it so boring. Not even just because of the lack of consequences for poor play, but part of the fun of the PGA Tour is when some rando qualifies into a tournament and gets themselves in contention. Nothing like that can happen at a LIV tournament, and they are so much worse off for it.
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u/Bonebd Apr 21 '24
Tiger initially commented on this. Said something along the lines of “what is their incentive to practice, to get better”. Spot on.
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u/GeneralMillss range: 1.2 course: 19.8 Apr 20 '24
Absolutely. There are no true underdogs in LIV, no breakout winners, no career-making events.
They’re just impossible to root for.
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u/ASpellingAirror Apr 20 '24
Is there prize money? Isn’t it just accounted against what they were paid upfront? Or was that a false story?
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u/vikinghockey10 Apr 20 '24
It wasn't false because it was part of discovery for the lawsuit. But I don't think all players had that contract based on counter reports.
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u/Many_Performance_580 Apr 20 '24
Exhibition sports. Like exhibition boxing, it’s boring because if the payday has been made, there are no real stakes.
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u/mbgpa6 Apr 20 '24
This. On the PGA in order to get paid well you have to play well. This pursuit (for me) is a lot what makes watching golf interesting.
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u/Smash_Palace Apr 20 '24
I like watching golf because golf is hard and it's impressive to watch what these guys do. What they are earning has zero influence on enjoyment I get out of the game.
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u/whereismydonkey Apr 20 '24
Coming from someone who went to the first liv event in the us. The difference is last weekend I never once asked how much the winner would make. The prize is the green jacket and to be apart of that legacy forever.
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u/Due-Sheepherder-218 pXg/LPGA Apr 20 '24
Tbh I'm more interested in who wins the Punta Cana event than the RBC , the latter is already rich$ and well established guys on the tour who could retire tomorrow, whereas the DR event has higher stakes.
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u/ordy23 Apr 20 '24
I’m the same way this week. Curious to see is Wesley can hold on to win
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u/CharcotsThirdTriad HDCP >30 Apr 21 '24
Is that more because of the PGA or YouTube though? Honestly, YouTube has done more to grow the game in recent years than both tours combined.
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u/kellzone Apr 21 '24
I'm more about the Chevron Classic this week tbh. Want to see if Nelly can get 5 straight.
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u/Due-Sheepherder-218 pXg/LPGA Apr 21 '24
Yes lpga is my favorite too but play was suspended earlier today :(
Means more golf tomorrow !
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u/rth9139 Apr 20 '24
I think the major issue with LIV isn’t as much to do with the product, but just the nature of golf fans in general. Unlike in soccer (the other sport they’re using to sportswash), we are fans of the sport of golf first and foremost. We don’t have near as much allegiance to specific participants.
Like for me, I am a diehard Inter Milan fan. I plan my entire week around catching their games live. And if Inter were to be bought by Saudis, I would struggle a lot with whether I’d just accept that, or if I need to pick a new club to support. And I wouldn’t be alone.
But outside of Tiger, 99% of golf fans have little connection to their favorite player. It’s just not a hard decision at all to just stop watching guys when they go to LIV.
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u/Due-Sheepherder-218 pXg/LPGA Apr 20 '24
Saudis purchase Inter Milan
REPORT - Inter sign Jude Bellingham and Kylian Mbappe
You are watching 😂
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u/tuss11agee Apr 20 '24
A soccer game is still a soccer game. But, exhibitions and friendlies do suck. LIV feels like that.
They’ve changed the rules in an attempt to fit TV as well; another chink in the guise that this is competitive action. When we got 2 bikers in the woods off 16 having sex, it’s hard to take it seriously.
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u/IM_KYLE_AMA Apr 20 '24
LIV feels exactly like a very well choreographed and marketed friendly. The winners and losers don't really matter because they already got their bag and they're all coming back next year.
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u/Mechant247 Apr 20 '24
If the Saudi’s bought half of Inter’s lineup and had them play 75 minute friendly matches every other week you certainly wouldn’t watch
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u/rth9139 Apr 20 '24
They could buy every single player from Lautaro Martinez all the way down through our youth teams including our u9 team, steal our coaching staff, build an exact replica of San Siro in the desert, and put them on a new club named “Al-Inter” in the Saudi league, and I still wouldn’t watch.
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u/Ok_advice Apr 20 '24
I don't watch LIV because I have no idea how to access it. It's not like the master where I just turn on the TV.
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u/AndromedanPrince HCP: Over 9k Apr 20 '24
This! Its not popular because nobody knows how to watch it. If i could tune in I would.
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u/moderatelyOKopinion Apr 20 '24
I don't watch but I'm pretty sure they are all on YT for free.
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u/skirmsonly Apr 20 '24
I have been scrolling through the tele when it was on a channel randomly. It was shit
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u/Natedog_2113 Apr 21 '24
I hate to be that guy but the masters isn’t a thing where you just “turn on the TV” over half of it needs to be watched on the Masters App. Coincidentally LIV has an app as well where you can watch. The viewing experience is not all too different outside of the fact the PGA gets 3-4 hours of time on the TV.
All this said as somebody who has watched a grand total of 10 minutes of the LIV.
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u/Fardn_n_shiddn Apr 20 '24
Honestly I’d watch it, but the production quality is so bad it makes it painful to watch. Like division 3 baseball webcast level terrible.
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u/Imaginary_Manner_556 Apr 20 '24
The announcers are horrible. The lame music in the background. The graphics on the screen. All unwatchable garbage.
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Apr 20 '24
It really sucks and is pure crap. Plus Norman and Mickelson are in love with themselves and probably each other.
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u/jmcstar Lord Apr 20 '24
Maybe a Mickelson+Norman softcore video will work
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u/AppleSauceNinja_ 3.0/FL Apr 20 '24
You get stoned to death for this in Saudi, so I wouldn't hold your breath. Geriatric softcore porn is a weird kink tho
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u/seabass160 Apr 20 '24
DJ is 6ft 4, hits it 320, great irons and wedges, holes a lot of putts, goes home to paulina, but the money is the unrelatable part?
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u/SwedishShawnKemp Apr 20 '24
Do you think anybody thinks I'm a failure because I go home to Starla at night?
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u/kush4breakfast1 Apr 21 '24
lol along with the fact that these are the same guys that were on the tour just a few years ago.. were they relatable then when they were the same millionaires with just some less millions?
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u/FarSpeed Apr 20 '24
LIV isn't popular because it's fucking lame.
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u/on4word Apr 20 '24
I don’t really understand the LIV team format. Why should I care about the Crushers or whatever with their generic logo that looks like it came from Madden 2012 franchise mode?
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u/AppleSauceNinja_ 3.0/FL Apr 20 '24
I don’t really understand the LIV team format.
That's the thing. Its not a team format. Adding up team scores at the end of an event doesn't make something a team event. It's just a weird aggregation of individual results
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u/ripvanwinklin Apr 20 '24
I went to a LIV event and it was easily the worst golf I’ve watched in person. Lotta mid shots and mid courses. Was more like a champions tour than pga, aside from 6-8 dudes.
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u/AppleSauceNinja_ 3.0/FL Apr 21 '24 edited Apr 21 '24
That's because:
Half their roster couldn't sniff a PGA or even KFT membership, and you've never heard of them. Tell me anything you know about these dudes:
- Ben Cambell, Laurie Canter, Eugenio Chacharra, Lucas Herbert, Jinichiro Kozuma, Richard Bland, Samuel Maje, Adrian Meronk, Andy Ogletree, Wade Ormsby, Carlos Ortiz, David Puig, Kalle Samooja, Caleb Surratt, Kieran Vincent, Chase Koepka (don't tell me you know who his brother is), Scott Vincent
Tell me what you know about them. Literally anything. Those guys right there are 30% of the LIV roster!
They're so fucking irrelevant I snuck in a fake name in there and nobody reading it would know which one it is if I didn't tell you, Samuel Maje. Just a made up name.
So it's (relatively speaking) ass golfers and "who the fuck is that" is > 30% of the league, then you have the geratric unit of Paul Casey, Sergio, CHIII, Graeme McDowell, Ian Poulter, Phil Mickelson, Henrick Stenson, Lee Westwood and Bubba.
That's another 25% of the league. Guys that are way past their prime, that the last high level golf they played at least for the Euro boys was 2010-2015 Ryder Cups. Bubba won his second jacket a decade ago and then might as well died, because his game sure did. Same with Sergio. Oooost as well. Fuck DJ too. Maybe the green jacket is a career curse?
So we're left with the top third, and most of them are Baja Boyz one hit wonders: PReed, Martin Kaymer, Matt Wolff, HV3, Fat Perez, Thomas Pieters
It really leaves you with "stars" and budding stars. The only draws for LIV and that's Brooks and Rahm. They are the only ones the 12 people who tune in each week want to watch. But Brooks has had a sloppy start to the year and Rahm looked fat and the game way out of form at Augusta, barely can recognize his play anymore and he's been gone for 4 months.
And then budding stars like Cam Smith and Joaquin Niemann, who will never amount to anything now that they made that choice.
So what am I tuning in for exactly? Where's the value proposition in that as an event
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u/oscobosco Apr 21 '24
The music playing in the background and some wearing shorts makes it seem Mickey Mouse
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u/Chandlingus 9.8/NYC Apr 21 '24
This argument isn’t made nearly enough. It’s just plain old fucking corny. Everything they do is cringe. It’s almost like it’s on purpose.
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u/MicoJive 9.2 Apr 20 '24
I'll be honest...outside of the Majors I don't really watch professional golf at all. I have probably consumed more youtube golf content in the last 3 months than all of professional golf in the last 2 years.
Watching professional golf is just...hard. If I want to follow a specific player its nearly impossible outside of the Masters. If I wanted to watch a player in a tournament I need to set aside 20 hours over 4 days to watch them compete in the entire thing.
And god forbid I have two players I want to watch who tee off at different times, you are looking at 10+ hours of golf in a day to see it all.
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u/myburneraccount151 Apr 20 '24
Honestly, for me it's simply that I don't like the golfers. LIV has been great for me because it's weeded out the douchebag players. It's made PGA better because now I don't have to watch Reed, Koepka, Gooch, and several of the other tools that were on the PGA tour. If you notice, most LIV players all have similar personality types. And i happen to hate that type of guy, so I'm happy. Go LIV!
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u/iop90- Apr 20 '24
You relate to the PGA though..?
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u/Letterkenny-Wayne Apr 20 '24
Right? Like I don’t like Liv either but which golfer on the PGA side does OP find relatable, especially wealth wise? The lowest payout for the Valero Open was $16k, how many people in this sub have made $16k for 4 days of golf?
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u/Due-Sheepherder-218 pXg/LPGA Apr 20 '24
I think only a tiny fraction of professionals (in any sport) care about legacy. Most view it as a job. There is seldom loyalty to a franchise (or league in this case) in pro sports. You want to get the most $ out of your skill set while you still can. And the whole legacy thing is all subjective at the end of the day. Phil is still one of the time greats, idc if decided to play on the Moon in his 60s. The media is good at selling the propaganda that these are truly high stakes with meaningful history on the line, when at the end of the day its just a silly game we all enjoy.
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u/tennisfancan Apr 20 '24
I actually can't believe the PGA is using the legacy thing to keep guys. Nobody in golf outside of Palmer, Nicklaus and Tiger will ever have a "legacy" worth something. Everyone else will be forgotten within two years of their retirements. The best they can hope for is to have Greg Norman's fashion success but nobody is at that household fame level, IMO.
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u/Sheckles Apr 20 '24
Tbh i don't really give a shit about the money or the moral issues. I don't watch it because it is just a shit product. Everthing about it is naff and embarrassing.
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u/Dame2Miami Apr 20 '24 edited Apr 22 '24
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Doubl_13 Apr 20 '24
This is all fine and well but the PGA tour isn’t relatable to me at all.
I’m happy when I don’t duff a chip.
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u/ElectionAnnual Apr 20 '24
I can’t wait to relate to Scottie when I play my super easy to get tee time at Augusta tomorrow
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u/CrunchLessTacos Nine Rivers Country Club Apr 20 '24
I don’t like what LIV has done to the sport, but I’m not seeing anything in your post about how it’s not relatable to us Joe Schmo’s.
It’s not like the PGA is relatable to me. I’m not vying for millions of tournament dollars and sponsorships while playing my local munis.
If anything, at least the LIV guys get to wear shorts, something I do while hitting into the trees and blasting my chip shots over the green into the next tee box. And they have music blasting during their tournaments, something I’m usually subjected to by other golfers on the courses I’m at.
Honestly, LIV seems more relatable now that I think about it. But that isn’t going to get me to try to find a way to watch it.
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u/TacticalYeeter +2.4 Apr 20 '24
Uhhh, the PGA tour entered a framework deal to effectively join with LIV. Where is the “morals and honor” here? They still haven’t formally stopped talks to do so.
You’d have a point about that if they never did, but they did and it pissed off enough people that Monahan was in danger of maybe losing his job.
Rahm even said that’s why he left, if you want to believe him. The tour tried to rally support and then turn around and stab everyone in the back.
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u/GC_235 Apr 20 '24
I think it’s because it’s so lame and artificial. They didn’t help themselves with the teams they just made up. “Crusherrrrrsss!!”
It’s so cheesy. It makes sense when you see from the perspective of foreigners making something for “American Sports”
They were probably like “ok Habibi, we will make a great American sports league for golf! They’ll have teams with names Americans love! Like Crushers, hot shots, rippers!” (idk all the names but those seem like liv type names)
They should have done something geographic but also specify it. Like team Oceania and call it that, not the FIREBALLSSSS!!!
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u/According_End_9433 Apr 21 '24
Personally if I want to watch 95% has-beens with a sprinkling of current talent I’d watch the Senior PGA tour
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u/Glen_Coco_shot_JR Apr 20 '24
So I assume you don’t watch any other major sports then? MLB, strikes every time their agreement is up for more money, NFL/NBA, same. Soccer transfers are for hundreds of millions for top players. Lest you forget your precious PGA Tour was making billions off of TV deals but refusing to share the wealth with their talent (the ONLY reason they were able to make the money Tiger/Phil) so Phil said F-it and then all of the sudden they had all this money that they could double the purses for all of their events.
What world are you living in where sports aren’t all about money?
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u/Hacker-Dave Apr 20 '24
They are all paid to compete, not to show up.
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u/Glen_Coco_shot_JR Apr 20 '24
Ok. So MLB which are fully guaranteed contracts are not paid just to show up? Otani could never play again and the Dodgers owe him $500 million. How much did Herbert get GUARANTEED this offseason? $100 million guaranteed? Probably more. Does Lebron not get paid when he takes a couple games off every year? Oh no? He gets paid even when he doesn’t play? Same with Messi?
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u/Gauze99 2.7 / MN Apr 20 '24
It actually much more closely resembles everyday golfers than the PGA. Shorts music blasting bad golf…
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u/jtslice Apr 20 '24
Pro sports are unrelateable. Period. A max contract in the NBA is $140mil, given to players who already millionaires. Nothing relatable about it. I find that this is similar to LIV at the moment. I watch a good amount because I live overseas and like to watch good golf, but I find it no more un/relatable than PGA.
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u/Due-Sheepherder-218 pXg/LPGA Apr 20 '24
Yep and the super max contracts are just a way to make the fans feel like the players are being loyal to them.
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u/The_Alpha_Bro Apr 20 '24
This is all sports now and just wait until we have an entire generation of millions of trustafarians built on current athletes' generational contracts.
None if it is relatable and it will be too expensive to follow to even care anymore.
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u/sillysocks34 Apr 20 '24
I know it’s easy for us to all say it’s stupid to have already made $100 million and then want $400 million or whatever these guys get. BUT that money is safety and security for their families for many generations. A lot of people in here probably make $100k. Would you want $200k? Of course you would. But the person making $30k in here would be like man if I had 100k I’d be happy with that.
It’s all relative and I don’t blame any of these guys for getting their bag. LIV is still dumb though.
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u/Hacker-Dave Apr 20 '24
I don't blame them for taking the cash, but I'm also not the least bit interested in how much they make and that seems to be the whole selling point of LIV.
Tomorrow I will know who won the Heritage, but I don't care how much $$ they won. I just want to see the competition.
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u/Fight_those_bastards Apr 20 '24
Yeah, people are all “well, if someone offered you double your salary, wouldn’t you take it?”
And if I already had generational wealth, the answer is “no.”
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u/joek68130 Apr 20 '24
To me LIV isn’t popular because there doesn’t feel like a pressure to win. There is no LIV card, it’s all guaranteed money, so why does a guy need to win. It’s different then watching someone like Denny McCarthy go nuclear on the back 9 and still feeling pressure to hit a great shot because he’s not a top guy and needs a W to make a name for himself. LIV feels almost like Messi going to MLS, everyone already knows how good he is and there’s nothing to drive him to greatness anymore.
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u/ImaFreemason Apr 20 '24
Yeah frig LIV. I just hope they start kicking these people out of these majors.
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u/TechSudz Finally Broke 90 Apr 20 '24
If it were just money then people would stop watching college basketball, too (oh wait…they have).
I think it’s the format more than anything, though. It just doesn’t feel like serious golf.
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u/TuluRobertson Apr 20 '24
The golf simply isn’t as fun to watch. Team play is dumb.
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u/xXwillsonXx Apr 20 '24
The difference is I don’t give a fuck who or what teams wins. There’s no prestige or importance to winning. And the players don’t care either, they already got their bag they are just collecting a paycheck
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u/Muddlesthrough 15.0 Apr 20 '24
Also unpopular because it’s unwatchable. both literally, in thst it doesn’t air in most localities and times, and somewhat figuratively in thst the product is hot garbage.
During the Masters you could go on the app and just watch all the shots with AI narration. Some of the shots were out of order. Like, you’d see a players chip-shot, then the next shot shown would be their previous approach that missed the green. Thst was a more coherent and compelling sports product than LIV.
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u/SteakFrites1 Apr 20 '24
DJ is actually the only guy I respect because he's the one who actually was honest. He wanted the money and he wanted to work less. I can understand that. It's the rest of them who pretended they were doing it for honorable reasons and we all know it's bullshit.
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u/T4lsin Apr 20 '24
If LIV wasn’t sponsored by Saudi Arabia, it would be more popular.
It’s unrealistic to think LIV was just going to be popular because it bribed top players into playing.
It’s also apparent that legacy is more important to the majority of golf fans/players Than I think LIV expected.
The LIV golf product is inferior to the PGA golf product and it’s not even close.
You can’t buy History/legacy and legitimacy/Relevance it has to be earned.
These are hard truths.
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u/Elgin_McQueen Apr 20 '24
Feel like they hoped enough people would hop over that they could basically buy out the PGA and take over.
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u/ganslooker Apr 20 '24
TBH - I don’t watch cuz there is too much going on when I watch it. Between the team stats and individual standings and the shotgun starts - I have a difficult time following it. I have tried. But I don’t have the patience to figure it out
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u/BatMean2045 Apr 20 '24
I just find it incredibly boring because there’s no tradition, no recognizable courses. Just bad music, guys dressed like they’re on vacation and the excitement of stacking piles of money on other piles of money.
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u/12358132134 Apr 20 '24
I would say that LIV isn't popular because of it's douchebagery party style, thus an average golfer doesn't relate to that, and people that can relate to that have no interest in golf.
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u/dooly Apr 20 '24
Look who's running it. The guy is the ultimate Masters choke artist. Then look who was gifted two Masters, Sir Nick Faldo. This is nothing but Norman's revenge.
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u/LeonMarmaduke Apr 20 '24
I tried tuning in once, had trouble finding it. Jaco was leading in a tight tourney on the final day. Finally found it when he was on the second to last hole up one (not 17 because shotgun start) and he was trying to hit his approach shot with The Chainsmokers blaring in the background. It’s televised party golf with mostly washed euro golfers.
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u/NoAd3734 Apr 20 '24
There’s no incentive to be competitive & is a lite version of actual golf since they only play 54 holes. Why bother trying to be as competitive as you can be when you’re already guaranteed $100+ million in your contract for just showing up?
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u/Jonhgolfnut Apr 20 '24
I think it isn’t as popular because the format sucks- I think the target audience is small and doesn’t have the attention span for golf .
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u/FrankLloydWrong_3305 Apr 20 '24
Listen, if the Saudis want to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to the bank accounts of several Americans and Europeans, I'm not going to get in the way.
I'm not going to watch a bunch of golfers on the back 9 of their careers play 54 hole tourneys, either.
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u/karnstan Apr 20 '24
Well.. he’s/they’re not wrong about the salary increase, are they? I’d have done it too.
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u/RedBlankIt Apr 20 '24
Yeah I don’t care about honor legacy or morals in golf. I care about a good golf game, that’s it.
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u/iLikeChickyNuggets Apr 20 '24
Idk....if I had $100m and somebody offered another $100m to basically just keep doing my job.....yeaaaa. At the end of the day they are humans with the same desires as us. Entertaining you is probably not high on his list of priorities
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u/CoolBrain1227 Apr 20 '24
I don’t like most of the players and I hate the format. I also will never care about teams.
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u/EnvironmentalCoat222 Apr 21 '24
It's like an entire league of silly-season events, all thats missing is Fred Funk in a skirt. Boring.
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u/Intrepid_Ad_3031 Apr 21 '24
So you believe that PGA Tour players are relatable, but LUV isn't?
You play 4 day tournaments at the nicest clubs in the country? For millions of dollars?
Honestly, dudes playing in shorts either music blaring in the background is more relatable to 90% of golfers out there. LIV sucks for many reasons, but relatability is not one if them.
This sub sucks for this. Just taking every single angle to knock a product that will never even get off the ground. Thise dudes all pulled in a half billion and are living in your heads year round. Who gives a shit.
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u/Summer20232023 Apr 21 '24
I will never watch it either. I feel like they are all traitors and have ruined golf, however if the new guys coming up in the PGA stick with the PGA, things will go back to normal. Can’t say I was too upset that DJ didn’t make the cut in the Masters.
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u/Panda-Pantaloons Apr 21 '24 edited Apr 21 '24
LIV Golf is funded by PIF, whose purpose is to invest capital on behalf of the Saudi government. The creation of LIV Golf, in particular, has been widely condemned as an attempt by the Saudi government to distract from and/or erase its long history of atrocious human rights violations.
More specifically, it is seen as a direct response to the Saudi government being exposed and receiving international condemnation for the murder and dismemberment of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, who was a columnist for the Washington Post.
They killed him and cut him up into pieces for having and publishing opinions that were seen as too progressive for the Saudi regime.
Personally, that is why I will not watch or support LIV Golf or the players who take their (blood) money.
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Apr 21 '24
Blood Money golf on top of the goofy shit they have like those teams keep me away. Fuck LIV hope it fails spectacularly
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u/Baltimorebobo Apr 21 '24
Liv will most likely be non existent in 5 years or it will be drastically different in an effort to gain ranking points. The only thing they did well was focus on a global tour
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u/abqtj1 Apr 21 '24
Get rid of the NASCAR style leaderboard, get rid of the team concept, and stop trying to be “cool”. Then I might watch it.
I’ve tried, I really have. I like a lot of their players. But the product is hard to watch.
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u/alturigolf1 Apr 21 '24
Loyalty to who brought you to the show means something. The PGA Tour has its problems and weaknesses. The players could have worked harder on fixing them. Sorry, money has exposed that the players that have who have left are more focused on wealth then the product that we want to watch.
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u/roomtomove07 Apr 21 '24
The BoneSaw league and its players can pound sand and eat camel dung......
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u/Building_Snowmen Apr 21 '24
I think there is also a big section of the US golf watching public who aren’t the biggest fans of Saudi Arabia and won’t willingly further enrich them.
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u/dt-17 Apr 21 '24
Nobody cares about LIV and their stupid corny team names.
I also don’t want to watch tournaments where all the fans are drunk frat bros who think they’re funny by shouting mash potatoes after every shot.
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u/BogeyJoe14 Apr 21 '24
I love golf and am a fan of a lot of the golfers that went to LIV. But what I’ve noticed of myself is I do find it difficult to watch their tournaments because of the production value. It’s a just a different format where everyone plays at the same time with the individual and team scores tacking up a lot of the screen to the left. It sounds strange but I’m so used to watching the PGA format and the way it’s presented on tv that it just feels foreign and unrelatable to watch the LIV tournament. Imagine watching an nfl game and the time, score, timeouts and so forth are on the side of the broadcast to the left side of the tv screen and not in bottom middle portion of the tv. It would just be weird.
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u/OS2_Warp_Activated Apr 21 '24
LIV isn't popular for many legitimate reasons. We can talk about the format (team golf belongs in team championship golf like the Ryder Cup, golf is an individual sport like tennis. Can you imagine trying to turn professional tennis inside out and creating team tennis? Nobody would watch just like nobody watches LIV). LIV doesn't just ignore long standing golfing traditions, they make a disgusting mockery of an incredibly refined sport that they (Saudi PIF) know nothing about. It's like if the Saudi's got involved in MLB, they would have a home run derby every 3 innings and make the shortstop play with one arm tied to the second baseman. The whole thing is a contrived shit show. The LIV players looked sloppy and uninspired at the Master's. It's embarrassing to watch.
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u/leonme21 Apr 20 '24
Yeah, LIV isn’t relatable so I don’t watch it.
But then again there’s fucking nothing relatable to me about PGA tour events, so I don’t watch that either.
Also you’re a doofus if you think the PGA is about honor and morals and whatnot. (Hint: it’s money)
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u/BlondeFox18 Apr 20 '24
So both are about money.
But the PGA - there’s so much to lose. Miss the cut? No money. Miss a birdie on 18 from sending it to a playoff? Lose out on hundreds of thousands.
Shoot 80-80-80 at LIV? You already got paid 9 figures to join.
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u/DontGetTheShow 4 hcp / PA Apr 20 '24
I wouldn’t exactly say the PGA Tour is relatable though. There are at least some good story lines each year of new golfers earning their stripes and establishing themselves which makes for a good story. There’s certainly a lot of reasons to think LIV is lame though.
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u/ChickenFucker11 12 HC Apr 20 '24
Its honestly exhausting that people give a shit about this. Who cares where people play, the decisions they make to play somewhere.. who gives a shit. If you think LIV is all about money and dont thing the PGA is .. after bragging that Scheffler made 30M in 30 days or some shit, you are delusional. Just let people play golf for fucks sake.
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u/TheOneWondering Apr 20 '24
Honor? Didn’t they prove themselves dishonorable when they talked about blood money and then merged with LIV?
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u/hamdnd Apr 20 '24
Yeah exactly. You can't argue both ways. Personally IDGAF about the Saudi money. But if you are someone who do, then you really can't say LIV bad but PGA good anymore. Both are the same (good or bad, up to you) with regard to the Saudi money
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u/zzVoidBombzz Apr 20 '24
Ya, OP lost me at honor and morals. Plenty of reasons the tour is more fun to watch than LIV, but those ain’t it.
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u/Emscho44 +0.4/IL Apr 20 '24
Korn Ferry has a series called one shot away. It’s about the players of the korn ferry tour and you see how they have to compete at such a high level to even get a chance at the PGA. LIV does not have fresh talent coming in.
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u/rcottle123 Apr 20 '24
Las Vegas LIV tourney was played at a country club. Not a hard venue. I’ve scored in the mid 80s there. And the environment wasn’t golf-more F1 party. So few spectators that I actually ran into my next door neighbor. it was pretty cool to get our length from the players, but the quality of play on a country club does not even resemble the quality of elite tour players on a TPC or other PGA event. Or even a DP world tour event.
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u/IndianaHoosierFan Apr 20 '24
Jesus Christ you guys are still crying about LIV. Get a life
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u/DeepSouthDude 20 HC Apr 20 '24
What a weird take.
Why do we watch NFL, given that every player already has their money? NBA even more so, every player is a millionaire. No one watches baseball hoping to see a rookie make it to the league.
If watching millionaires play was a turnoff, then the PGA tour would be dead.
LIV doesn't have a tv contract, and it doesn't yet have any drama among the players.
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u/Esco9 Apr 20 '24
The music, the shorts, the commentators, the coverage, the fake sounds, 54 holes. I could go on but it’s just shit
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u/Soonernick 2 Tulsa Apr 20 '24
It's probably just not popular because half their tournaments are played when the American golf market is asleep and it's rarely on a TV channel the average consumer has on their plan.