LIV Golf may be reflecting on a hugely successful inaugural event in South Africa this past week, but the league has been warned that it has missed a big opportunity to make fans really care about the team format.
There was very nearly a fairytale ending in Steyn City, with Southern Guards coming agonisingly close to winning the team event on home soil.
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Ultimately, they were beaten by one shot by Crushers. Of course, Bryson DeChambeau also ended up winning the individual title following his playoff with Jon Rahm.
LIV Golf have been encouraged to make a significant change to the team format
LIV Golf will argue that the event in the Rainbow Nation once again highlighted the league’s potential. Paul Casey claimed that South Africa put on the best event yet in LIV’s history.
However, the league has been accused of not leaning into the team format anywhere near enough.
Speaking on the Golf Channel Podcast, Ryan Lavner insisted that LIV should be doing a lot more with their teams than simply have them all contribute to a single score over the four days.
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“I do want to mention the team concept, which again was on display on Sunday in South Africa because again, the South African team was vying for the title. It ended up being Bryson DeChambeau‘s Crushers team that won. I’m still having a hard time getting behind this concept, even though LIV launched back in 2022,” he said.
“It’s still too college golfy, which is where you simply add up the scores and whatever number you have, that is your team total for the week. I know Bryson DeChambeau is financially motivated to do so as the head and the owner of the Crushers, but he made an interesting remark earlier in the week when he essentially seemed to be daring Tiger Woods‘ TGL team, Jupiter Links to take on his Crushers in a made-for-TV event on Netflix. I don’t know if the team concept has really passed muster with TGL either and getting behind those teams.
Photo by Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images
“What I still think is really lacking in the regular golf season, that’s what we’re talking about on the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, these are regular season golf tournaments, there is still a lack and a need for a one-off. A one-off would be some sort of matchplay week. Maybe I’m just nostalgic as I sit here on March 23rd and this is the week that the WGC-Matchplay at Austin Country Club would have been played, a tournament that has been dropped from the PGA Tour schedule, the fact that LIV has at least not sprinkled a couple of these matchplay tournaments throughout the course of its schedule feels like such a big miss to me.
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“Fans love it, as long as it’s not every single week, and as long as there’s some sort of meaning. If you’ve been trying to build up this team concept, and you’re trying to get fans to get behind certain groups, you need to pair them head to head to take on another team. Just sprinkle it one to three times throughout the year.
“That could be a really big win for LIV, because I know it was somewhat exciting for Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau going head to head, the whole team concept of him needing to make par on the last hole without the actual mano a mano head to head dynamic, to me, just feels like a big miss.”
LIV Golf’s team format needs an entire overhaul
It has arguably been a fault of LIV from the outset that they have failed to establish a clear identity.
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Initially, they appeared to be determined to simply be everything the PGA Tour is not. And having the team format running alongside the individual event was a big part of that.
It does have the potential to deliver some exciting finishes. However, you can almost guarantee that no player vying for the individual title is giving any thought to prioritising the team score down the stretch on Sunday.
Similarly, LIV surely needs to establish whether they want all of their team lineups to be based on geography or not. Clearly, Ripper and Southern Guards are among their most popular sides.
However, the likes of Legion XIII, Crushers, and 4Aces are made up of players from a number of different nations. It is harder to build that tribalism throughout the season when that is the case.
It would be no surprise if LIV did overhaul their team format in the years to come. And some would clearly say that it would definitely be the right decision.
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