LIV Golf is dead, LONG LIVE....The PGA TOUR and DP World Tour?

On Tuesday PGA TOUR Commissioner and CEO Brian Rolapp confirmed the next element of reshaping the PGA TOUR for the modern era, announcing long-speculated changes to the PGA TOUR season-finale.

This week's TOUR Championship will be the penultimate to be played using Stroke play, and the penultimate to be played over four days at East Lake. From 2028 the event will become arguably the most unique in all of golf.

The leading 32 players on the PGA TOUR's season-long standings, confirmed after the final Championship Series event of the season will qualify for a match play tournament unlike any other, played over the course of two weeks and on two of America's iconic golf courses. In week one the 32 players will be drawn into 8 groups of 4, with matches played over three days, Friday to Sunday, and the leading 2 players qualifying for the final 16.

The final 16 will then head to a second venue in the following week to play 4 consecutive days of match play, with all 16 players playing for position over the 4 days, and the player who wins every match will win the TOUR Championship. The format is compelling, and to have consecutive weeks of match play is almost revolutionary, but perhaps the greatest aspect of it is the fact it will be played over two iconic golf courses. The New TOUR Championship has the potential to become one of the truly exciting, dynamic and impactful events created in years.

"From the beginning, the goal of the Future Competition Committee was to create an easier-tofollow competitive model for our fans with greater consequence and a stronger season-long narrative," said PGA TOUR CEO Brian Rolapp. "Throughout this process, we listened carefully to our fans, players and partners. One message came through clearly: the culmination of our season should be worthy of the journey it takes to get there. The result is a season-ending structure that rewards excellence over the course of the year while building toward a reimagined TOUR Championship. We are creating something di erent, something distinct within professional golf that can resonate far beyond it."

"The New TOUR Championship has the potential to become one of the truly exciting, dynamic and impactful events created in years"

World Number One Scottie Scheffler said "It can be a really fun, interesting way to end the year." Defending FedEx Cup Champion Tommy Fleetwood said "I think it's exciting, any time there is change I think it is fresh, and I think it is exciting." Adam Scott said "I think match play was pushed hard by a lot of people around the TOUR, I came around to it, I like the fact it is over two weeks and the fact the TOUR had the courage to really step outside the box on this"

"This is new and exciting, and from a playing standpoint I hope it is going to be a really fun end to the season"

"It is completely different to anything we have in this sport, I feel like there is an opportunity for people to really buy in with it being over two weeks. I think it could work well for what should be an important event."

"The event seems like it can be flexible (in terms of host courses), it maybe won't tire people over the course of the format".

The NEW TOUR Championship could be played at some of the truly bucket-list courses in the USA, and be staged in a similar fashion to the US Amateur, with fans inside the ropes on the fairways with the best golfers in the world. Over the first three days there will be 16 matches on the course per day, and over the course of the final four days there will be 8 matches on the course, meaning the event will be much more intimate than we see regularly on the tours of the world.

Pine Valley Penn State Turfgrass

You could play the tournament over courses in the West and the East, raising the potential of week one at Cypress Point, and week two at Pine Valley, or you could play the tournament across courses in the Midwest and the East with Chicago Golf Club and National Golf Links of America playing host. You could take the TOUR Championship to a dedicated host city for the two weeks with Las Vegas staging the event over Shadow Creek and Wynn Golf Club, or Boston hosting the event over TPC Boston and The Country Club, or New York hosting the event at Winged Foot and Bethpage State Park.

You could also take the New TOUR Championship to places the PGA TOUR has largely ignored in recent years, such as the Pacific North West (Bandon Dunes and Chambers Bay), Jackson Hole, Wyoming (Snake RIver Sporting Club and 3 Creek Ranch), San Francisco (Pasatiempo and TPC Harding Park), or be even more daring and take the event to spectacular and remote courses such as Rock Creek Cattle Company in Montana, Sand Hills in Nebraska, and Gamble Sands in Washington state.

I believe this is the greatest change the PGA TOUR has ever made to their schedule and platform, and only other thing can top that, and that is going global.

Brian Rolapp confirmed on Tuesday that the PGA TOUR are working on a global series of tournaments with the DP World Tour which could feature as many as 8 of the world's great championships. James Corrigan reported in the Telegraph that these may be the BMW PGA Championship, Amgen Irish Open, FedEx Open de France, Open de Espana, Hero Dubai Desert Classic, Abu Dhabi Championship, Australian Open and the Nedbank Golf Challenge.

Questions over the future of the Genesis Scottish Open and the RBC Canadian Open have yet to be answered, as do those over the future of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, but there is no doubt this is a positive move in the right direction for men's professional golf around the world. This is a once in a generation opportunity to elevate the great championships around the world to a new height, and it must be taken. The PGA TOUR and DP World Tour recently announced a new alliance with the Asian Tour, following its alliances with the Japan Golf Tour, Sunshine Tour and PGA Tour of Australasia, so there is plenty of scope for the series of co-sanctioned tournaments to be played right across the calendar, including during the months the PGA TOUR's new Championship Series is running.

"This is a once in a generation opportunity to elevate the great championships around the world to a new height, and it must be taken"

The Scottish Open must remain a DP World Tour event, and must remain an Open, and not become the Scottish Championship on the PGA TOUR limited to 120 PGA TOUR members, and the Canadian Open must also retain its Open platform, otherwise what on earth are we doing here? These events are part of the history, tradition and fabric of the sport, and the PGA TOUR has just spent five years successfully hammering LIV Golf for its lack of history, tradition and meritocracy, so for the PGA TOUR to effectively close an Open Championship would be a crime of epic proportions.

To me there is no doubt that a 10-12 events series would not be too much if played over the course of the calendar year, with the PGA TOUR players joining the best of the DP World Tour and the best of the other tours in mainly Open Championships around the world. The events would not be mandatory but if scheduled correctly, and with the right incentives provided, they could attract many of the greatest players in the world, and LIV Golf proved that players do have an appetite for playing around the world, when provided with the right incentives and under the correct model.

The Middle East can provide a great training ground for the world's best to begin their years, ahead of the new PGA TOUR model beginning in February, and so the Hero Dubai Desert Classic can be the de-facto launch to the world golf season in January. The Genesis Scottish Open could remain as it is, in the week preceding The Open, but the Canadian Open could be moved back to the September date it held for many years around the turn of the Millennium, and be part of the new series. The DP World Tour could move the conclusion of its season back to December, leaving the DP World Tour Championship as a sole-sanctioned DP World Tour finale, but creating breathing space for the other events on the new series.

These other events could include the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament in Japan, the Australian Open and New Zealand Open, the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa, the Hero Indian Open, the Amgen Irish Open, FedEx Open de France, Open de Espana and the BMW PGA Championship, at Wentworth.

Mock up of a brand for the WGC series with the PGA TOUR identity

You could even brand it as the WGC, a hark back to the series of before, but this time executed to perfection. The PGA TOUR and DP World Tour could package it as a standalone series of events for TV, and get a new broadcast partner in the USA exclusively for the WGC. FOX currently broadcasts LIV Golf, but with its impending demise it would seem like a great and natural fit to broadcast such a unique series of events, entirely separate from the PGA TOUR's Championship Series.

It remains to be seen what details are confirmed moving forward, but one thing is for sure, these rafts of changes being made and being proposed would not have come about if the event of 2022 had not come to pass.

On Sunday the final LIV Golf event of 2026, perhaps the final LIV Golf event ever concluded in stunning fashion as Michael La Sasso overcame the challenge of Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau to win his first professional title at the Club at Chatham Hills near Indianapolis. With the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia pulling its funding of LIV Golf, the search has been on for a new investor to take the league forward, but with many issues still to be resolved, a schedule to be confirmed, vendors to be paid, and players contracts to be amended or renewed, it seems a very tall task for LIV Golf to survive past 2026.

Speculation is rife that Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Joaquin Niemann and David Puig will not be part of LIV Golf 2.0 if the league does relaunch with new investment. Michael La Sasso and Josele Luis Ballester, Luis Masaveu and Peter Uihlein have entered DP World Tour Qualifying School, and Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter have both joined the Staysure Legends Tour and paid their DP World Tour fines. Bryson DeChambeau has been the biggest proponent of the next era of LIV Golf, but his recent comments and social media posts have put a little doubt over his future with LIV Golf.

It seems likely Rahm and DeChambeau will be welcomed directly back to the PGA TOUR with a measure of punishment, and the rest of the LIV Golf roster will head to either the DP World Tour or the Asian Tour. However, it would be entirely wrong to say that LIV Golf has failed, or that it offered nothing to golf, because it has not failed in a number of areas, and has in fact helped to enhance the established golf tours of the world, and bring golf to a different audience.

"LIV Golf's legacy, will, in years to come, be appreciated for helping to force necessary changes to the landscape of men's professional golf in much the same way World Series Cricket did to Cricket in the 1970's"

In 2021, the final year prior to the launch of LIV Golf, the total prize purse for the PGA TOUR (not including Majors) was $391,950,000, which included a $75million FedEx Cup bonus pool distributed at the TOUR Championship. Fast forward five years to the 2026 season and the PGA TOUR plays for $462,000,000 outside the Majors, an increase of just more than $70million.

In 2021 there were no $20million purses on the tour calendar preceding the $75million FedEx Cup bonus distributed at the TOUR Championship, now the PGA TOUR offers 11 events with purses of $20million or more, and the TOUR Championship has a purse of $40million, and that does not include the Majors.

The 2026 PGA TOUR Money List shows that 112 golfers have earned $1million or more throughout the season, with 195 golfers earning more than $100,000, all prior to the TOUR Championship and the conclusion of the FedEx fall events. In 2021 there were 125 players which earned more than $1million, and 215 golfers who earned more than $100,000, but that was over the course of the entire 50-tournament season.

The big jump is in golfers earning $5million or more during a season on the golf course on the PGA TOUR. In 2020-21 there were 17 golfers who earned more than $5million from playing on the PGA TOUR, in 2026 so far there have been 30 golfers who have earned more than $5million.

The increase in money is not just limited to the PGA TOUR either, with significant increases across the world of men's professional golf. The Major Championships collectively offered prize funds of $49.5million in 2021, and in 2026 that number swelled to $83.25million, an increase of more than $33million and an average increase per championship of more than $7million per championship.

The European Tour has also seen its prize funds outside the Majors increase substantially from the $83.5million it offered outside the Majors and WGC's in 2021 to the $146.25million on offer during the 2026 season outside the Major Championships. That is an increase of more than $62million, meaning that the top flight of men's professional golf encompassing the PGA TOUR, DP World Tour and the four Majors has seen an increase of more than $165million since the launch of LIV Golf.

The launch of LIV Golf and support of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia also opened the door to private investment to the PGA TOUR, which the Strategic Sports Group have agreed to, so the golfers and the tours of the world are richer than ever before. None of that happens without the launch of LIV Golf and the perceived threat it posed to the PGA TOUR.

The launch of LIV Golf and its format has also been the single biggest driver in the PGA TOUR overhauling its competitive model, something which itself has been modified from the early reaction from the leading players on the Player Advisory Council. The now infamous meeting of the PGA TOUR players in August 2022 saw an idea leaked of 18 no-cut limited field events, this evolved to become the PGA TOUR Designated, and then the Signature events, featuring some with a cut, and some without a cut.

The problem with the Signature event system was and is that the top players do not necessarily commit to play in them, and the field sizes can be different, as well as the events being inconsistent regarding having a cut or no cut. The Signature events are also condensed into a short time period during the schedule, meaning the PGA TOUR's ambition of securing the world's top golfers was never going to be fulfilled. Asking them to play 16 tournaments in 28 weeks is seen as being too much by many of the golfers, especially those who are members of the DP World Tour, and are likely to play 8-10 tournaments in addition to their PGA TOUR commitments.

Now the PGA TOUR have settled on this new competitive model featuring the Championship and Challenger Series, and a relaunched postseason TOUR Championship. LIV Golf's emergence has forced the PGA TOUR to completely overhaul its model, and that can be seen as vindication for the players who made the decision to join the league.

Perhaps the most important part of LIV Golf's legacy though, will be the fact that it has finally forced the PGA TOUR to look beyond its borders, and we could be on the path towards the eventual formation of a genuine World Tour, at long last. Between June 2022 and August 2026 LIV Golf played in England, Spain, South Africa, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Korea, and Mexico, and the key difference between the other tours of the world was that LIV Golf's best players played in these countries regularly.

The 2026 season saw LIV Golf visit Saudi Arabia, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Spain and England, and the best golfers including Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, played in all of those events. Yes, the DP World Tour will play in 24 countries this year, but the leading golfers in the world and indeed, the leading golfers on the DP World Tour, are not mandated to play in any of them. Membership qualifications call for them to play 4 events outside the Majors, and to date Matt Fitzpatrick has played just 1 event - the co-sanctioned Genesis Scottish Open.

As much as they will never admit it, the leadership of the PGA TOUR, and the DP World Tour, will have seen the success of the LIV Golf events in Australia, South Africa, Hong Kong and Spain and though that would benefit the PGA TOUR in some way. Of course, it would benefit golf in many ways, we all know that having the best players play in tournaments around the world is something which should have been happening for many decades, but due to the PGA TOUR's control, power and influence, it has not, until now.

LIV Golf has shown it is possible to do it successfully. Yes, LIV Golf is set to disappear, but its legacy will be felt for generations. LIV Golf's legacy, will, in years to come, be appreciated for helping to force necessary changes to the landscape of men's professional golf in much the same way World Series Cricket did to Cricket in the 1970's.

World Series Cricket was also launched by an Australian and was viewed as being divisive, and met by a fierce establishment backlash, but eventually it grew in popularity with some, and the innovations which it led with were then adopted by wider cricket, and still seen today. These include the enhanced broadcast of the sport, coloured clothing. different colour balls, safety helmets for batters and wicket keepers, and cricket under floodlights.

Sometimes, to change something, you have to go through a period of pain. I think the saying is you have to break a few eggs to create an omelette. Men's Professional golf is moving, slowly, in the right direction, and it would never have done so without the emergence of LIV Golf. So maybe, in years to come, we will look back at the years between 2022 and 2026, and thank Yasir Al Rumayyan, Scott O'Neill, and the players who joined LIV Golf, and perhaps most of all, thank Greg Norman.

He had the vision in 1994, but he did not have the backer with the means to make it become a reality.

Nearly 30 years later he came back with the vision, albeit slightly amended, and with a controversial backer.

He believed in it from day one, and whilst LIV Golf is not set to continue, or take over the golfing world, it has changed this sport forever. There are very few golfers which can lay claim to being behind something which changed the game forever.

Bobby Jones, Augusta National and The Masters.

Gene Sarazen and the sand wedge.

Mark McCormack, IMG, Nicklaus, Palmer and Player and the evolution of golfers from sportsmen to superstar businessmen.

Tiger Woods.

Greg Norman and LIV Golf.

Thank you Greg, you did it.

SHANK, by Matt Hooper

Matt Hooper is an Associate Member of the Sports Journalists Association.