MISTAKES AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Why the finger of failure is pointing in multiple directions

LIV stopped reporting their viewing figures in May 2023. This implied they were so poor on the CW Network that there was nothing to be gained from sharing the information. Coverage of their penultimate event in Saudi Arabia was shown on tape delay in the USA, where viewers are expected to pay for their Youtube coverage. Live action was available on the LIV Plus app for free worldwide, but its impact has been difficult to measure.

Daring to be different has certainly been one of the hallmarks of LIV Golf. Their team formats have yet to realise the investment envisaged to provide a return on the billions ploughed into the project. But the format has its merits and the end-of-season Team

Championship provides LIV Golf, perhaps, with its most compelling form.

And shotgun starts. With players starting simultaneously all around the course, it shows it is possible to broadcast golf in a shorter, more manageable window. “They were bold,” said former manager and tournament promoter Andrew ‘Chubby’ Chandler (below, left) to me. “I was remembering the late referee John Paramor. In about 2008, he stopped us from having a shotgun start at the Belfry after a fog delay. He said, ‘That’s not golf.’ Now shotgun starts are there, aren’t they?” The weather-affected Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in the autumn of 2023 was only completed because a shotgun start was used for what proved to be the third and final round at Carnoustie. That tournament was also shortened to 54 holes.

Chandler insists great opportunities were missed by the golf establishment when the offer of Saudi money first arrived. “LIV should have been the European Tour with 10 designated events inside the tour,” he told me. “They should have had 10 $20m events on the European Tour and on the same week they should have played for two and a half million in smaller tournaments for the lads who didn’t get in it. That would have worked. You could have had those 10 events in all the right places, like Australia.”

There persists a feeling that the bitterness and rancour could have been avoided if the main tours had been more receptive, starting with (Andy) Gardiner’s Premier Golf League proposals. “In hindsight, one of the (PGA) Tour’s biggest mistakes throughout all this was not just to ignore the Premier Golf League group, but to really go out of their way to not take a meeting,” leading golf observer Geoff Shackelford said to me. “Had they done that, who knows, maybe something happens? Instead, it opens the door for the Saudi element to lose patience.” He told me that by doing their own thing, it has been a disaster for the tours. “They should have taken a meeting and they should have been more open to the franchise concept,” he added.

Shackelford, whose coverage of Andy Gardiner’s efforts to transform the professional game has always been sympathetic, believes mistakes were made on all sides. He believes the franchise concept for team golf has been left in tatters. “Andy’s approach was to build slowly,

‘I REMEMBER US ASKING FOR A SHOTGUN START IN 2008. WE WERE TOLD: “THAT’S NOT GOLF”’

start with players and then franchises,” the American blogger and podcaster told me. “There would be an identity created in that team. But LIV comes along, takes the concept and gives these teams horrible names. And now I don’t see the franchise concept being as attractive because of the way they forced it.”

Sports sponsorship expert Giles Morgan agrees. “The way that LIV has done it looks very odd to me,” he said. “I don’t feel like I could belong to one of their teams. The commitment of the golfer to a brand (equipment manufacturer) is absolutely huge. Fandom is like a feudal army; it’s that you belong somewhere. Look at the Ryder Cup. It works. Give me something to hang my hat on.”