TV series puts MIA players back in public eye
I’m biased; I admit it. So, forgive me if I call LIV Golf’s “All-access” series debuting on Fox Sports 1 “The Empire Strikes Back.”
The series, “LIV to Win,” which airs starting on April 7, aims to humanize the handful of professional golf stars who defected from the PGA Tour in 2023 for – in some cases – hundreds of millions of dollars. It also makes the breakaway league’s case to the viewing public that its goal wasn’t to destroy professional golf.
The creation of the series makes sense, since LIV has largely been painted as the bad guy, and its players have been MIA since they disappeared into the black hole of a golf circuit that doesn’t have a major TV deal.
Its stars exist, with rare exceptions, solely in the world of YouTube and social media. Bryson DeChambeau, who won the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst and was seen by millions on NBC Sports, is one of those exceptions. But for the rest of the league, its former PGA stars mostly have been MIA from the public eye since they left. People are justified in wondering, “I wonder whatever happened to Dustin Johnson?”
‘LIV to Win’ will humanize PGA Tour’s defectors
“LIV to Win,” covering what goes on behind the scenes among players and officials, was announced on Friday in a trailer teased on LIV Golf’s social media.
“Most notably, Rahm is seen addressing claims that he no longer ‘cares’ about golf following his decision to give up his PGA Tour card,” the Daily Mirror newspaper wrote. “The Spaniard became LIV’s biggest signing at the end of 2023, after the former world No. 1 put pen to paper on a deal worth a reported $600 million.”
At Alabama Golf News, when the breakway league tore the world of men’s professional golf asunder, we laid out our position that the Saudi Public Investment Fund was making a hostile bid to take over professional golf in the tradition of the Wall Street corporate raiders of the 1980s.
We still hold that position, although we’ve developed a more nuanced view that there is legitimate criticism of the opacity with which the PGA Tour handles its finances, and we recognize there is a real dissatisfaction among some players who didn’t defect with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan’s running of the organization.
Now, two years after the schism, LIV is making its case that its players do care about the game and hope for a reproachment and a deal with their former PGA Tour comrades, even as ongoing talks between the PIF and PGA Tour behind the scenes continue with no apparent progress.
So, while unification remains elusive, and as the TV golf season gets underway with most LIV golfers not on TV, “LIV to Win” aims to make their case for them.
“Rahm will get the chance to reunite with some of his PGA Tour rivals next month when teeing it up at the Masters alongside the likes of Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. Before then, he has one LIV event to play, with the league heading to Miami the week before the opening major of the season,” the Mirror wrote.
Dan Vukelich is the Online Editor of Alabama Golf News.
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Featured image courtesy of LIV Golf
