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What is LIV Golf? Players, field, tour schedule, news for league with Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson

Everything to know about the pga tour's newest rival.

LIV Golf is now more than halfway through its inaugural season after completion of play in Chicago. Making headlines both on and off the golf course, LIV Golf has taken its battle to the courtroom, social media and beyond. While the actual play in LIV Golf has been compelling at times, the overall structure, presence and future of the organization remains its most intriguing component in the context of men's professional golf.

Plenty of questions have been answered since its inaugural event in London from June 9-11, but still more remain without a response. What will the future of this rival tour look like? How will the team aspect of the competition clash with the individual side? Will LIV Golf be able to recruit some of the best players in the world with its Official World Golf Rankings status in the air? Is a court date with the PGA Tour inevitable?

At every step along the way, answers about this league have only produced more questions and clarification has only made the future more complicated. 

The breakdown below is our attempt to share with you everything that's known to this point as we head into the whatever LIV Golf is going to look like in the future. Whether this turns out to be a fork or bump in the road of professional golf remains to be seen (only the future will retroactively determine that), but it does feel monumental in the moment.

LIV Golf, empowered by its unlimited war chest of resources to throw at the best players, is officially at odds with the PGA Tour. It's a period of time that has been promised for a long time, and is finally taking place. Let's take a look at what we know and what we can expect in the weeks, months and years ahead as LIV Golf wraps up its first season at the end of October.

What is LIV Golf?

LIV Golf is a rival golf league to the PGA Tour where the tournaments consist of 54 holes, the fields are limited to 48 golfers and the purses are an astronomical $25 million. Twelve, four-man teams will compete in each event, and the individual purses will be $20 million while the other $5 million will be divided up among the best teams each week.

Who leads LIV Golf?

LIV Golf Investments runs the league, and its CEO is two-time major champion Greg Norman. It is funded by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which is effectively the financial arm of the Saudi Arabian government. These funds are seemingly limitless as the league has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to players just to guarantee their appearances at the LIV Golf Invitational Series events.

Who is playing for LIV Golf?

It began with Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson headlining the London event and has since grown into a respectable roster. Major champions Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed quickly followed the lead of their fellow Americans. 

More recently, and more importantly, world No. 3 and Champion Golfer of the Year Cameron Smith made the leap after the completion of the 2022 Tour Championship. He was joined by young Chilean Joaquin Niemann as two international players who chose to forgo the Presidents Cup in lieu of playing in the LIV Golf event in Boston. While the initial demographics skewed towards older players like Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Mickelson, there has been an influx of younger talent with Abraham Ancer and Harold Varner III among others.

Here's a look at the 49 men who currently play for LIV Golf and their Official World Golf Rankings (Bubba Watson is a non-playing captain and is set to compete once fully recovered from injury).

What is going on legally between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour?

Originally, 11 LIV Golf players were a part of an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. This suit also sought a temporary restraining order for Hudson Swafford, Matt Jones and Talor Gooch to participate in the 2021-22 FedEx Cup Playoffs -- which was ultimately denied and barred them from playing in the PGA Tour postseason.

Since then, slowly but surely, more and more of the original members have removed their names from the lawsuit. Previously, Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, Jason Kokrak and Pat Perez left the suit. More recently, Talor Gooch, Mickelson, Poulter and Swafford followed in their footsteps. 

This leaves only three players seeking punitive damages in a legal battle with the PGA Tour: Bryson DeChambeau, Peter Uihlein and Jones. The trial is set to begin in January 2024.

The Tour has over and over again pointed back to its rules and regulations in this matter and remains set on keeping those who have played on LIV Golf off the PGA Tour. Commissioner Jay Monahan was asked at the Tour Championship if there was any chance LIV Golf members would be welcomed back onto the PGA Tour to which he blatantly answered, "no."

How has the PGA Tour reacted to LIV Golf?

After a players-only meeting at the BMW Championship led by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, sweeping changes have been made to the PGA Tour schedule and the treatment of its star players. Here are the spark notes of this new-look PGA Tour starting this season.

• Top players will commit to at least 20 PGA Tour events:  These tournaments will include the eight elevated events as previously designated, four additional elevated events with purses of at least $20 million (to be announced), The Players Championship, the four major championships and three other FedEx Cup events of players' choosing.
• The PIP will be expanded:  The PIP has been increased from the top 10 players to the top 20 for 2022 and 2023. Not only has the player pool expanded, so has the prize pool, which will now total $100 million, double the $50 million previously announced. It is from these top 20 lists that "top players" will be defined.
• Modifications  made for Lifetime Membership:  No longer will 15 seasons of membership be necessary. Once a player reaches 20 wins, he will be eligible. With this change, McIlroy has secured his lifetime membership with Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth only being a handful of wins away.

Will LIV Golf receive Official World Golf Rankings points?

LIV Golf is still awaiting the status of its OWGR application despite its best attempts to expedite the process. All 49 players recently sent a letter to the OWGR chairman requesting that world ranking points be retroactively applied to its events. Comparing the OWGR without LIV to college football without the SEC or FIFA without Belgium, it is unlikely this holds any merit. 

Meanwhile, players have begun to tee it up on the DP World Tour with some consistency on weeks in which there is no LIV Golf event. The top 50 players in the OWGR at the end of the calendar year will be invited to the 2023 Masters making it a mad dash for players to accumulate as many points as possible before then.

Will the majors allow golfers to play?

That's an even better question that has at least some clarity.  The answer in the short term is: yes . The major organizations -- PGA of America, USGA, R&A and Augusta National -- likely won't announce suspensions or bans of players who participate. There is a potential that qualifying criterias are modified in the future, however as of now if a LIV player gains entry through previous exemptions or the adequate OWGR (points which LIV has yet to secure) he should be able to compete.

What is the LIV Golf schedule?

Five events have already taken place in 2022, with three remaining. Here's a look at what's left on the schedule for the inaugural season.

• Bangkok, Thailand: Oct. 7-9
• Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: Oct. 14-16
• Miami, Florida: Oct. 27-30

LIV Golf has released a tentative schedule for 2023 with 14 stops around the globe spanning Washington D.C., Spain and Australia.  This is unofficial as details have yet to be confirmed.

• February: Florida (course TBD)
• February: California (course TBD)
• March: Tucson (Dove Mountain or the Gallery)
• April: Australia (Sydney or Queensland)
• April: Singapore (Sentosa)
• May: Washington D.C. (CBS Sports can confirm Trump National DC the week after PGA Championship)
• June: Philadelphia (course TBD)
• July: London (Centurion)
• July: Spain (Valderrama the week before The Open)
• August: New Jersey (Trump National Bedminster)
• August: West Virginia (The Greenbrier)
• September: Chicago (course TBD)
• September: Toronto or Mexico (course TBD)
• September: Florida (Trump National Doral)

What does LIV Golf's season finale look like?

It will not look like the Tour Championship, that is for certain. Taking place from Oct. 28-30, the top four teams in LIV will receive a bye on the first day while teams 5-12 will compete in match-play competitions with the higher-ranked teams selecting their opponents. For each matchup, three matches consisting of two singles matches and one alternate-shot match will take place.

The same format will be used for Day 2 of competition with the four victors from Day 1 and the four teams which received a bye all playing. From there, the four winners from Day 2 will advance to the final stage which will be different.

The four winning teams will compete in stroke play on the final day of competition. All 16 players will compete and all four scores will count towards the team's score. The lowest team score will be crowned the LIV Golf Invitational Series Team Champion.

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PGA and LIV Merger Deal Increases Saudi Arabia’s Influence in Golf

The partnership is a major victory for Saudi ambitions in sports, but the announcement split players. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan described his meeting with golfers late in the afternoon as “heated.”

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Alan Blinder

The alliance between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf ends a bitter fight in the sport.

The PGA Tour, the dominant force in men’s professional golf for generations, and LIV Golf, which made its debut just last year and is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in Saudi money, will together form an industry powerhouse that is expected to transform the sport, executives announced Tuesday.

The rival circuits had spent the last year clashing in public, and the tentative agreement that emerged from secret negotiations blindsided virtually all of the world’s top players, agents and broadcasters. The deal would create a new company that would consolidate the PGA Tour’s prestige, television contracts and marketing muscle with Saudi money.

The new company came together so quickly that it does not yet even have a name and is referred to in the agreement documents simply as “NewCo.” It would be controlled by the PGA Tour but significantly financed by the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund . The fund’s governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, will be the new company’s chairman.

The deal, coming when Saudi Arabia is increasingly looking to assert itself on the world stage as something besides one of the world’s largest oil producers, has implications beyond sports. The Saudi money will give the new organization greater clout, but it comes with the troubling association of the kingdom’s human rights record, its treatment of women and accusations that it was responsible for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a leading critic.

The agreement does not immediately amount to a Saudi takeover of professional golf, but it positions the nation’s top officials to have enormous sway over the game. It also represents an escalation in Saudi ambitions in sports, moving beyond its corporate sponsorship of Formula 1 racing and ownership of an English soccer team into a place where it can exert influence over the highest reaches of a global game.

“Everybody is in shock,” said Paul Azinger, the winner of the 1993 P.G.A. Championship and the lead golf analyst for NBC Sports. “The future of golf is forever different.”

Since LIV began play last year, it has used some of the richest contracts and prize money in the sport’s history to entice players away from the PGA Tour. Until Tuesday morning, the PGA Tour had been publicly uncompromising: LIV was a threat to the game and a glamorous way for Saudi Arabia to rehabilitate its reputation. The PGA Tour’s commissioner, Jay Monahan, had even avoided uttering LIV’s name in public.

But a series of springtime meetings in London, Venice and San Francisco led to a framework agreement that stunned the golf industry for its timing and scope. Monahan, who defended the decision as a sound business choice and said he had accepted that he would be accused of hypocrisy, met with PGA Tour players in Toronto on Tuesday in what he called an “intense” and “certainly heated” exchange.

The deal, though, proved right the predictions that there could eventually be an uneasy patching-up of the sport’s fractures. The PGA Tour’s board, which includes a handful of players like Patrick Cantlay and Rory McIlroy, must still approve the agreement, a process that could be tumultuous.

It was only a year ago this week that LIV Golf held its inaugural tournament, prompting the PGA Tour to suspend players who competed in it. But by the end of the year, even though the circuit was locked in an antitrust battle with the PGA Tour and its stars were confronting uncertain futures at the sport’s marquee competitions, LIV had some of the biggest names in golf on its payroll. Its players have included the major tournament champions Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith.

The players were familiar, but LIV’s 54-hole events — the name derives from the Roman numerals for that number — were jarring, with blaring music and golfers in shorts not facing the specter of being unceremoniously cut midway through. The PGA Tour, meanwhile, defended its 72-hole events, where low performers do not compete into the weekend, as rigorous athletic tests that adhered to the traditions of an ancient game.

The less-starchy LIV concept drew plenty of headlines, and the league won even greater attention because of its links to former President Donald J. Trump, who hosted LIV tournaments and emerged as one of its most enthusiastic boosters. The league, however, was still largely dependent on the largess of a wealth fund that had been warned that a rebel golf circuit was no certain financial bonanza. It stumbled to a television deal with the CW Network, and big corporate sponsorships were scarce.

The league accrued some athletic successes, even as its players faced the risk of eventual exclusion from golf’s major tournaments, which are run by organizations that are close to, but distinct from, the PGA Tour.

Last month, Koepka won the P.G.A. Championship , which was organized by the P.G.A. of America. Koepka, Mickelson and Patrick Reed were among the LIV players who fared especially well at the Masters Tournament, administered by Augusta National Golf Club, in early April.

Within weeks of the Masters, though, after a run of mutual overtures and months of bravado, PGA Tour and Saudi executives were convening in secret to see if there was a way toward some kind of coexistence, in part, Monahan suggested, because he did not think it was “right or sustainable to have this tension in our sport.” The result was an agreement that gives the tour the upper hand but is poised to make permanent Saudi Arabia’s influence over golf’s starry ranks.

Monahan, the tour’s commissioner, is in line to be the chief executive of the new company, which will include an executive committee stocked with tour loyalists. But al-Rumayyan's presence, as well as the promise that the wealth fund can play a pivotal role in how the company is ultimately funded, means that Saudi Arabia could do much to shape the sport’s future.

In a memorandum to players on Tuesday, Monahan insisted that his tour’s “history, legacy and pro-competitive model not only remains intact, but is supercharged for the future.”

That was hardly a consensus view. Mackenzie Hughes, a PGA Tour player, acidly noted on Twitter that there was “nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with.” And Terry Strada, the chairwoman of 9/11 Families United, who had assailed the Saudi foray into golf because of misgivings about the kingdom after the 2001 terrorist attacks, said Monahan and the tour had “become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation.”

The tour and the wealth fund both had incentives to forge an agreement, besides the prospect of concluding a chaotic chapter marked by allegations of betrayal and greed.

LIV had faced setbacks in civil litigation against the PGA Tour that threatened to drag al-Rumayyan into sworn testimony and force the wealth fund to turn over documents that could have become public. The tour has been under scrutiny from Justice Department antitrust investigators , who had examined in recent months whether the tour’s tactics to counter LIV had undermined golf’s labor market.

The litigation between the tour and LIV will end under the terms of the agreement announced Tuesday. The fate of the antitrust inquiry was less clear — experts said the new arrangement would not automatically immunize the tour from potential legal trouble — but LIV’s standing as its leading cheerleader evaporated.

For this year, the world’s professional golfers are unlikely to see seismic changes in their schedules or playing formats, with LIV and the PGA Tour expected to hold competitions as planned. There may be far more consequential changes later, though, chiefly because the new PGA Tour-controlled company will determine whether and how LIV’s team-oriented format might be blended with the tour’s more familiar offerings.

LIV players are expected to have pathways to apply for reinstatement to the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour, circuits from which some had resigned when faced with fines and suspensions, but they could face residual penalties for leaving in the first place. Through a spokeswoman, Greg Norman, the two-time major tournament champion who has been LIV’s commissioner, declined to be interviewed on Tuesday.

No matter what comes of the LIV brand or style, Tuesday’s announcement is a singular milestone in the Saudi quest to become a titan in global sports. With the deal, the kingdom can move, at least in golf, from a well-heeled disrupter to a seat of power at the establishment’s table.

Saudi officials have repeatedly denied that political or public relations motives undergird their eager pursuit of sports investments. Instead, they have framed the investments as necessary for shoring up the resource-rich kingdom’s finances and to enhance its standing on the world stage.

Beyond its imprint on golf , the wealth fund previously purchased Newcastle United, a potent English soccer team, and a company with close ties to the fund has eyed investments in cricket, tennis and e-sports. And Saudi Arabia has tried to become a host of major sporting events, from boxing matches to its pending bid to host the World Cup in 2030.

But when Saudi Arabia barged into golf last year, it was nearly unthinkable that al-Rumayyan would so swiftly become a formal ally of Monahan and the sport’s other power brokers.

“Anybody who thought about it logically would see that something was going to have to happen,” Adam Hadwin, a PGA Tour player, said on Tuesday. It was inconceivable, he suggested, that the world’s best players would only compete against each other at the four major tournaments, but an armistice “happening this quick and in this way is surprising.”

For much of the last year, LIV players have deflected questions about Saudi Arabia’s history on human rights and other matters that helped make the kingdom’s surge into golf an international flashpoint. They were, they often said, merely golfers and entertainers.

Until Tuesday, Monahan had tried to use the stain of Saudi Arabia to undercut the new league and its golfers.

“I would ask any player that has left, or any player that would ever consider leaving: Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?” he said last year.

On Tuesday, when Monahan declared that the leaders of golf’s factions had “realized that we were better off together than we were fighting or apart,” it was his tour’s players facing questions about lucrative connections to Riyadh.

“I’ve dedicated my entire life to being at golf’s highest level,” Hadwin, the tour player, said. “I’m not about to stop playing golf because the entity that I play for has joined forces with the Saudi government.”

Reporting was contributed by Andrew Das , Kevin Draper , Lauren Hirsch , Eric Lipton , Victor Mather , Ahmed Al Omran and Bill Pennington .

Kevin Draper

The PGA Tour commissioner acknowledges secrecy and hurdles on the deal.

Tuesday morning’s announcement from the PGA Tour hailed its deal to merge operations with LIV Golf as a “landmark agreement to unify the game” and end the contentious litigation between the competing golf tours.

But when Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, finally spoke to news reporters eight hours later, the agreement sounded far more tentative. He described his meeting with players about the agreement as “intense” and “certainly heated.” Monahan also acknowledged that most of the PGA Tour’s policy board — which is made up of five independent directors and five golfers — was kept in the dark about the tour’s negotiations with LIV over the last seven weeks.

He called the deal a “framework agreement” and said there were numerous issues that needed to be worked through before a “definitive agreement” was presented to the policy board to ratify, raising the possibility that it could be rejected and golf’s cold war could stretch on.

Among the issues that Monahan said were still unsettled included the future of LIV itself as an independent golf tour; the pathway for LIV players to rejoin the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour in Europe; whether PGA Tour players who declined to join LIV would somehow be financially compensated; and whether LIV players would have to forfeit some of their compensation.

“Ultimately, everything needs to be considered,” Monahan said.

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Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, said that many members of the PGA Tour policy board — more or less its board of directors — were kept in the dark about the negotiations. The agreement reached with LIV is only a framework agreement; once there is a finalized agreement, the policy board, which includes players, will have to vote to approve it.

Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, says there is no definitive agreement on whether PGA Tour players will somehow be made whole for money they turned down when they declined to join LIV, or whether LIV players will somehow have to give up money to rejoin the PGA Tour. “Ultimately, everything needs to be considered,” Monahan said.

Monahan is being asked repeatedly about his past criticism of the morals of taking LIV and Saudi money. “I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite,” the PGA Tour commissioner said. “Anytime I said anything, I said it based on the information I had at the moment, and based on someone trying to compete for the PGA Tour and our players. I accept those criticisms. But circumstances do change.”

The PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan on his just-completed meeting with players: “I would describe the meeting as intense. Certainly heated.”

More details about the merger, and how PGA Tour players feel about it, should be emerging soon. Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, is hosting a players meeting in Toronto at the site of this week’s RBC Open. After that, Monahan will take questions from the news media.

The talks of a merger began in secret meetings after the Masters in April.

For month after month, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf were content to bludgeon one another in news conferences and court filings. But in the weeks after the Masters Tournament in early April, rival executives began a series of private meetings.

Convening first in London and then Venice and ultimately San Francisco, PGA Tour leaders met with representatives of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, including Yasir al-Rumayyan, the golf fiend who is the wealth fund’s governor. According to a person familiar with the discussions, who insisted on anonymity to describe private talks, the sides effectively reached an agreement around Memorial Day but kept word of it secret from even leading executives and players until Tuesday.

The nature of the agreement — for now — keeps the PGA Tour in control, thanks to a provision that allows it to have a majority of board seats in the new company that will house the tour and LIV Golf. The wealth fund will control a minority stake in the new company, but its exclusive right to invest in it going forward opens the door for Riyadh to grow its influence in the years ahead.

But in the interim, the fate of the LIV Golf league itself appears to rest most clearly with the PGA Tour and its allies, with the new company expected to undertake an extensive analysis of the LIV format to determine whether and how it can coexist with the long-dominant tour.

A group of 9/11 relatives called the PGA Tour’s planned merger with LIV a ‘betrayal.’

A group of relatives of people killed on Sept. 11 issued a blistering criticism of the planned merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series and the PGA Tour, calling the tour and its commissioner “paid Saudi shills” for agreeing to it.

Relatives of 9/11 victims have been vocal in their opposition to the Saudi-backed LIV series almost since its inception. Most of the hijackers of the planes used in the 2001 attacks were Saudi. The 9/11 families have saved some of their harshest criticisms for those who have taken part in LIV events and hosted its tournaments. The latter group includes former President Donald J. Trump and his family, who were urged last year to cancel an event at a Trump golf course in New Jersey.

On Tuesday, one group of relatives, called 9/11 Families United, declared that its members were “shocked and deeply offended” by the merger deal. In a statement, the group called it a “betrayal” by the PGA Tour and its commissioner, Jay Monahan.

“The PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation,” said the 9/11 Families United chairman, Terry Strada.

Critics of Saudi Arabia frequently deride its investments in teams and leagues as “sportswashing” and say it is a thinly veiled effort to rehabilitate the kingdom’s reputation amid accusations that it has financed terrorism and murdered a Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi .

Strada criticized Monahan for “co-opting” the 9/11 community last year in the PGA Tour’s initial and strident opposition to the Saudi-backed golf tour, only to cut a merger deal this week.

“Mr. Monahan talked last summer about knowing people who lost loved ones on 9/11, then wondered aloud on national television whether LIV golfers ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour,” Strade wrote. “They do now — as does he. PGA Tour leaders should be ashamed of their hypocrisy and greed.”

Members of Congress from both parties weighed in.

“So weird. PGA officials were in my office just months ago talking about how the Saudis’ human rights record should disqualify them from having a stake in a major American sport,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, in a message posted on Twitter . “I guess maybe their concerns weren’t really about human rights?”

And Representative Chip Roy, a Republican of Texas, added : “In the end, it’s always about the money. Saudi Arabia just bought themselves a one-world golf government.”

During the 2020 presidential campaign, President Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for human rights abuses, most notably the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia and was a columnist for The Washington Post who wrote critically of the Saudi crown prince and the country’s government.

As one of his first foreign policy actions in office, Mr. Biden authorized the release of a U.S. intelligence report that said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the killing.

Mr. Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents while visiting Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 to get documents for his upcoming wedding. He was strangled by Saudi agents and then dismembered.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken happened to be in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks this week with Saudi leaders and other Gulf state officials about the possibility of the kingdom normalizing ties with Israel. It wasn’t clear if the PGA-LIV merger would be a part of discussions.

An earlier version of this blog item incorrectly stated Chris Murphy’s position in Congress. He is a senator, not a representative.

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The deal sets up a structure combining nonprofit and for-profit entities.

The merger establishes an unusual structure for how golf will be governed going forward.

The PGA Tour, which is a nonprofit organization, will remain that way and retain oversight over the “sanctioning of events and administration of the competition and rules” for the tour, according to the release announcing the merger. Basically, the PGA Tour will still have full control over how its tournaments are played.

But all of the PGA Tour’s commercial businesses and rights — such as the rights to televise its tournaments, which garner hundreds of millions of dollars annually — will be owned by a new, as-of-yet unnamed for-profit entity. That entity will also own LIV Golf as well as the commercial and business rights of the PGA European Tour, known as the DP World Tour.

The board of directors for the new for-profit entity will be chaired by Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, who also oversees LIV. Three other members of the board’s executive committee will be current members of the PGA Tour’s board, and the tour will appoint the majority of the board and hold a majority voting interest.

With the PGA Tour controlling the for-profit holding company and remaining in charge of administering its own tournaments, it may seem as though the PGA Tour will forever remain the dominant voice in men’s professional golf. But that could change.

The Public Investment Fund will invest “billions,” according to al-Rumayyan, into the new for-profit entity, and it will also hold “the exclusive right to further invest in the new entity, including a right of first refusal on any capital that may be invested in the new entity, including into the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and DP World Tour,” according to the release.

If the Public Investment Fund invests more money — because the economy goes south and sponsors pull out of tournaments, for instance — in the for-profit entity, it will surely demand more board seats and greater voting rights, potentially tilting control of men’s professional golf toward Saudi Arabia.

The merger doesn’t end the U.S. antitrust inquiry into the PGA Tour.

What does this merger mean for the Department of Justice’s antitrust inquiry into the PGA Tour ? In short: Not much.

For about a year, cheered on by LIV Golf, the Justice Department has been investigating the tight-knit relationship between the PGA Tour and other powerful entities in golf, and whether there has been any collusion within the Official World Golf Rankings. A number of high-profile LIV players, like Phil Mickelson, have been interviewed in the inquiry, and lawyers representing the PGA Tour met with Justice Department officials in Washington as recently as last month.

But while Tuesday’s merger will end litigation between LIV and the PGA Tour, it will not necessarily change the Justice Department’s case. The department’s inquiry has looked into allegations of past conduct; if there was any illegal conduct, a merger does not prevent the PGA Tour from being punished for it.

“The announcement of a merger doesn’t forgive past sins,” said Bill Baer, who led the Justice Department’s antitrust division during the Obama administration.

In fact, the merger could cause the Justice Department to even more closely scrutinize the PGA Tour, for a separate but related reason.

The federal government, through the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, reviews over 1,000 mergers for approval each year. It is not yet clear which agency will lead the review of the PGA Tour and LIV’s proposed merger, but if it is the Justice Department, it will certainly scrutinize what looks to be on its face “a merger to monopoly, eliminating competition between these two competing professional golf organizations,” Baer said.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the merger announcement.

Victor Mather

Here is what tour leaders and players are saying about the merger.

PGA Tour officials and LIV leaders hailed the announcement on Tuesday that their competing golf series would be joining forces, but players were split on the news. Here’s what they were saying:

“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love.” — PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan , who is expected to be the chief executive of the new entity.

“There is no question that the LIV model has been positively transformative for golf. We believe there are opportunities for the game to evolve while also maintaining its storied history and tradition.” — The Public Investment Fund governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan , who will become chairman of the board of the merged tour.

“Awesome day today.” — Phil Mickelson , who left the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf.

“Nothing like finding out through Twitter that we’re merging with a tour that we said we’d never do that with.” — Mackenzie Hughes , PGA Tour player.

“Very curious how many people knew this deal was happening. About 5-7 people? Player run organization right?” — Michael Kim , PGA Tour player.

“This is one of the saddest days in the history of professional golf. I do believe that the governing bodies, the entities, the professional entities, have sacrificed their principles for profits.” — Brandel Chamblee , a Golf Channel analyst who has been sharply critical of the LIV Tour.

“Welfare check on Chamblee.” — LIV golfer Brooks Koepka , referring to Chamblee, who last week declared that “any yielding to or agreement with them is a deal with a murderous dictator.”

“Now that we’re all friends, is it too late for us to workshop some of these team names?” — Max Homa , PGA Tour player, referring to LIV teams like Crushers, Iron Heads and Majesticks.

While the merger is a tectonic shift for golf, nothing will change immediately in how fans watch golf. The PGA Tour, LIV Tour and DP World Tour are expected to proceed as scheduled and separately, at least through 2023. Afterward, it is unclear whether LIV will continue, and whether LIV golfers will apply to re-join the PGA Tour or DP World Tour.

Ahmed al-Omran

Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, the Public Investment Fund, said the agreement was reached after he held talks with PGA Tour officials in London. “The way we’re doing our partnership, it’s gonna be really big in many senses,” he said during an appearance on CNBC.

“We will be investing in the game of golf and doing many new things that I think will have better engagement from the players, the fans, the broadcasters, the sponsors, everyone else,” Al-Rumayyan said. He added that the PIF would invest “billions of dollars” into the sport without giving a specific timeline. “Whatever it takes,” he said.

Eric Lipton

Trump praises the PGA and LIV golf merger.

The Trump family, which has been the host of LIV tournaments in the United States and a big booster of the series’ efforts to break away from the PGA Tour, expects to continue to see tournaments played at its golf courses once the merger is complete.

“This merger is a wonderful thing for the game of golf,” Eric Trump said in an interview on Tuesday. “I truly believe that.”

His father, Donald J. Trump, also praised the deal. On Truth Social, the former president’s social media platform and personal megaphone, he wrote: “Great news from LIV Golf. A big, beautiful, and glamorous deal for the wonderful world of golf.”

The LIV series has been a boon for the Trump family, which lost major tournaments after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the capitol, including the one of golf’s four majors, the 2022 P.G.A. Championship. That tournament had been scheduled to be played at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey, but its organizer, the P.G.A. of America, stripped the club of the hosting rights days after the capitol attack.

Last July, just before the first LIV tournament was played at Trump National Bedminster, Mr. Trump predicted that the series would ultimately merge, and he suggested that players that stayed loyal to the PGA Tour were making a financial mistake.

“All of those that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you will get nothing but a big ‘thank you’ from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social in July 2022 . “If you don’t take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were.”

LIV has tournaments scheduled this year at Trump-owned golf courses in Florida and New Jersey, and it just completed a tournament at a Trump course in Virginia. Negotiations are underway for more potential tournaments at Trump-owned facilities next year, though it is now unclear if the series will continue in its current format.

When asked if the Trump family had played a role in urging the PGA and LIV groups to merge, Eric Trump on Tuesday declined to comment. But he did say that the family has close friends developed over many years in the golf world, including those associated with the PGA and LIV groups.

Ahmed Al Omran

reporting from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

The merger is seen as a victory for Saudi Arabia.

The deal to merge the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the rival league financed by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, was seen as a victory for Saudi Arabia on multiple levels.

The merger marked the greatest success to date of Saudi Arabia’s ambition to become a player in global sports. From the outset, its billion-dollar play for control of golf seemed like nothing less than an attempt to seize control of an entire sport.

Now, by merging with the PGA Tour, the oil-rich kingdom has gained a foothold that guarantees it outsize influence in the game’s future. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, the Public Investment Fund, will become chairman of the new golf organization. The sovereign wealth fund will have right of first refusal on new investments in the merged tour, according to the statement announcing the merger .

The rival tours had clashed for months in litigation that will now draw to a close, so the deal will protect Mr. Al-Rumayyan, a golf aficionado, from the prospect of being deposed and scrutinized in American courtrooms. He also serves as chairman of Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, which has been a major sponsor of Formula 1 racing.

The deal could also lend legitimacy to the kingdom’s entry as a major player in global sports in the form of a serious partner and not just a well-funded disrupter.

Critics have accused Saudi Arabia of using its spending power in sports to distract from its poor human rights record, but Saudi officials have repeatedly rejected these allegations.

At the same time, this deal could serve as a blueprint for future moves as the kingdom grows its ambitions to further expand its influence and reach in sports and entertainment. ‌‌

By establishing a start-up golf tour that rose rapidly to become enough of a threat for the PGA Tour and bring them to the negotiation table, Saudi Arabia could see potential to do the same in other arenas. Under the terms of the deal, the Public Investment Fund holds veto power on bringing any new investors, giving themselves insurance from any possible dilution of their power in the new arrangement.

The sovereign wealth fund has already managed to achieve a quick return for their investment in Newcastle United as the English soccer club qualified for the UEFA Champions League merely 18 months after it was purchased.

The announcement of the merger with the PGA Tour comes less than one year since LIV’s first event in June 2022 .

In addition to soccer and golf, Saudi Arabia is eyeing investments in cricket, tennis and e-sports via Savvy Games Group, which is backed by the sovereign wealth fund. The group plans to invest $37.8 billion to make Saudi Arabia a global hub for gaming.

The kingdom has also served as host to major sports events including Formula 1 races, major boxing matches and WWE as part of plans to diversify its economy away from heavy reliance on oil.

Saudi Arabia is making a major push in soccer, too.

Golf is not the only sport where Saudi Arabia is looking to increase its influence: It is also making a major play in soccer.

Its most prominent investment to date was its purchase last year of the English Premier League team Newcastle United, a deal that gave the kingdom, through its huge Public Investment Fund, a foothold in the world’s richest soccer competition. But Saudi Arabia is also bidding to host soccer’s World Cup in 2030, and this week the country’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, announced that the PIF would invest more than $1 billion in the country’s domestic league in hopes of making it one of the 10 best leagues in the world.

As Tariq Panja and Ahmed Al Omran reported in The Times last week, the plan is focused on attracting more than a dozen of the world’s best players to the Saudi league by offering them some of the richest deals in sports history. Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time world player of the year, moved to Saudi Arabia in January, and reports of nine-figure offers to others — including Lionel Messi — are rampant. The French striker Karim Benzema accepted one this week : He will join the Jeddah-based club Al-Ittihad in a multiyear deal that will make him one of the world’s best-paid players.

Similar in ambition to the Saudi-financed LIV series in golf, the kingdom’s plan for soccer involves the PIF. This week it took a controlling stake in four of the Saudi league’s biggest clubs in what appears to be a centralized effort — supported at the highest levels of the Saudi state — to turn the country’s domestic league, a footnote on the global soccer stage, into a destination for top talent.

The basics of the sweeping golf merger.

After two years of sniping, lawsuits and ill will, the major men’s golf tours agreed to merge on Tuesday. The blockbuster announcement came as a surprise given the fierce competition and legal action among the tours. Here’s what we know, and don’t know.

What happened on Tuesday?

The PGA Tour, which runs golf in North America; the PGA European Tour, which is known as the DP World Tour and holds events in much of the rest of the world; and the upstart LIV Tour agreed to merge their operations.

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which spent billions to launch the LIV Tour, will invest in the new company, and the governor of that fund will become its chairman.

All the lawsuits among the tours will be ended as part of the deal.

How did we get here?

The LIV Tour started last year and offered big-name players from the other tours huge sums to jump ship. Many did, notably Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Cameron Smith. Some veterans like Phil Mickelson also joined. Those players were suspended from the PGA Tour as a result.

Others, including Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, did not take reported offers. Many players and officials of the PGA Tour were sharply critical of LIV, both for dividing the golf world and for associating with the Saudi government and its poor human rights record.

How will things change?

There is a lot we don’t know at this point. The LIV Tour had team events as a focus of its model, and in its statement, the PGA Tour mentioned that the tours planned to “grow team golf going forward.”

But there are many unknowns. Will the tours continue to operate separately? The statement referred only to “a cohesive schedule of events.”

Will the enormous disparity between the LIV purses and the purses on the other tours remain? Will LIV continue to hold 54-hole, three-day tournaments with shotgun starts and no cuts, while the other tours maintain their traditional four-day formats?

The PGA Tour did say that the tours would develop a process for LIV players who want to reapply for membership with the two older tours after the 2023 season.

New DP World Tour boss provides worrying merger update as LIV Golf saga goes on

N ewly appointed DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings stressed that "significant changes" to the top of professional golf would not be in place until after 2025.

The sport has found itself split following the launch of LIV Golf in summer 2022, prompting both the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour to rally against players who chose to side with the Saudi-backed league. In an unexpected twist last summer, however, an initial agreement was laid out by the PGA Tour along with the PIF of Saudi Arabia.

The inclusion of the DP World Tour further indicated a potential accord which could mend professional golf's division, but ten months on, no such final agreement has been reached.

READ MORE: Golf Power Rankings as Scottie Scheffler asserts dominance over Rory McIlroy and LIV Golf rivals

READ MORE: LIV Golf praised for doing what PGA Tour couldn't as Greg Norman gets last laugh

Assuming Keith Pelley's mantle at the top of European golf, Kinnings provided insight into what lies ahead for the sport, emphasizing the gradual nature of upcoming transformations. "We know [a deal] has to be done ASAP," he explained. "I don't see too much changing in 2025. 2026 is when we will see significant changes.

"For us to achieve this, we need 2025 to lay the groundwork. I'm not setting any deadlines. But to devise a new product for 2026, you really need to have it complete by the end of this year. Everyone needs to demonstrate flexibility and willingness to compromise. Once we've identified the appropriate solution, we need to act swiftly.

As it currently stands, the PGA Tour has taken a hardline stance against players who have joined forces with Greg Norman's LIV Golf, resulting in bans for big names like Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, and Jon Rahm. The DP World Tour has followed suit but with slightly less severity.

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The European Tour has been granted authority to impose fines and suspensions on its members who participate in LIV Golf events that clash with DP World Tour tournaments. This has led several golfers, including Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia, and Lee Westwood, to resign their memberships, consequently forfeiting their Ryder Cup eligibility.

This move has sparked concerns that Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton might miss out on representing Europe in the USA next September, despite playing key roles in Team Europe's victory in Rome last fall.

However, CEO Kinnings has offered some reassurance, clarifying the current eligibility criteria for 2023. "If we look at the eligibility criteria for 2023, I think there has been a slight misconception," he stated. "The reality is that, under the current system, if a player is European and is a member of the DP World Tour and abides by the rules in place, he is eligible."

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Golf Australia signs deal with LIV in first partnership with Saudi-backed tour

• Cameron Smith’s Ripper GC and LIV to help fund junior program
• PGA of Australia still aligned with DP World Tour

LIV Golf has struck a deal to help fund Golf Australia’s junior program, in the first formal relationship between the steward of the game in Australia and the Saudi Arabia-backed entity.

The arrangement – which involves LIV and its Ripper GC franchise of Australian players led by Cameron Smith – has been in negotiations for weeks.

A formal announcement is expected in the coming days to coincide with the LIV tournament in Adelaide, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald .

The deal sees LIV and Ripper GC make it cheaper for some children to access My Golf, the junior program run by GA.

GA also has staff working on a My Golf activation in Adelaide this week alongside the LIV tournament promotions.

In 2022-23, 33,000 children participated in My Golf, according to GA’s annual report, a figure that grew 22% on the previous year.

The cost of My Golf varies depending on the location and type of program. A single after school session can cost less than $50, but a regular hit over a school term is priced in the hundreds of dollars.

GA’s decision to accept the subsidies from LIV is the first major step by Australia’s golf establishment towards the upstart tour.

The PGA of Australia (PGAA), the body representing tournament and club professionals and organiser of the Australasian Tour, is still aligned with LIV rival the DP World Tour.

As manager of the game in Australia GA’s remit is on building participation and the body receives funding from the federal government.

However, GA and the PGAA have largely combined operations, adding a layer of complexity to the deal.

GA’s chief executive, James Sutherland, said last month Australia looked at LIV differently from other parts of the world.

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“There’s clearly an ‘anti’ or a conservative sentiment about the Saudis in the US, and the further east you go on a world map from America, the more moderate the views are,” he said.

LIV commissioner Greg Norman said on Wednesday he was “very proud” of investments his organisation was making into golf generally.

“If it wasn’t for LIV, these additional investment dollars going into the sport would never have happened,” he said.

In excess of 80,000 people are expected to attend the LIV Adelaide tournament this weekend.

Norman has described the Adelaide event as the “benchmark” for LIV worldwide. LIV golf is funded by Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund.

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LIV Golf is not going away. Neither are questions about its future

DORAL, Fla. — After the paragliders landed, unfurling flags for Aces GC and Crushers GC, the first-tee emcee set the stage. LIV Golf’s team championship was upon us. The entire season had come down to this, he said. Time to get hyped. Three women ran along the rope line, waving T-shirts in the air, the universal sign to make noise. In unison, amid the thumping beat of Khwezi’s “Cyberpunk 2020,” the emcee got things started.

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“Miami, get ready to party,” he said. “This is golf, but louder.”

Then, Talor Gooch, Charles Howell III, Mito Pereira and Patrick Reed teed off one by one to some clapping, some whooping. LIV’s finale — 12 teams playing for a $50 million season-ending purse — was underway, with a cool $14 million to the four-man winning team.

Not long ago, it was thought that this — the 2023 team championship at Trump Doral outside Miami — might serve as LIV’s final resting place. In early June, following the PGA Tour’s formal agreement to partner with the near-$700 billion Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, voices were quick to promote the presumptive demise of the tour’s chief rival.

The deal created a for-profit company combining the commercial interests of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour behind a large cash investment from the PIF. Just as importantly, it forged a ceasefire ending the expensive, prying litigation that neither side wanted. LIV, it seemed, was expendable in the deal. A person involved with the negotiation told The Athletic in June: “I don’t know that it’s going to exist. Because the PIF is not running it. Greg Norman certainly isn’t running it. He’s out of a job. Performance 54 isn’t running it. It’s Jay (Monahan). Like, that’s the deal.”

It was, until it wasn’t.

Four and a half months later, it appears the framework agreement between the tour and the PIF is dead, dying, or, at best, will need to be extended past a Dec. 31 deadline for completion. The PGA Tour is in talks with outside investors, including Endeavor, the entertainment and media agency that owns the UFC and WWE, and other private entities. Publicly, officials from both the tour and the PIF will only say they’re still operating in good faith and remain committed to the framework agreement. Privately, voices on both sides cite heavy doubts building by the day. All indications say the seismic shifts in the future of professional golf are far from settled.

Where does that leave LIV? Golf’s great disruptor is now 22 events into its existence. Staff and executives like to say this year’s 14-event slate was Season 1, while 2022’s eight tournaments should be considered Season 0. That means 2024 will be Year 3, and Season 2, if you follow.

With LIV, things are never exactly as they seem.

Which is why, over the weekend, only four and a half months after a supposed death notice was in the mail, a LIV source, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, looked out over the scene at Trump Doral and told me that what was thought to be the end might’ve actually been the beginning. Think about it, he asked me, would the PIF really pour somewhere around a billion dollars into LIV and not keep going?

Suppose not.

So, if the framework falls apart, where does LIV go from here, I asked.

“I think we double down.”

As it often goes, Norman, LIV’s polarizing CEO, was front and center over the weekend at Trump Doral. The 68-year-old walked the grounds with Apollo, an English lab with an endearing disposition. Norman shook hands. He flipped hats into the crowd. He puffed his chest in a form-fitting polo. He also, more notably, made his first public comments since both June’s framework agreement, and since PGA Tour officials testified in front of the Senate that he’s disposable. In a brief session with a few reporters on Thursday, Norman said neither he nor LIV are going anywhere.

“As we go into 2024, we’ve got corporations coming in,” he said. “We’ll have them signing up before the end of the year, and we’ll have new players as well.”

So often, the perceptions of LIV’s future are tied directly to its ability to add talented players. At Doral, Phil Mickelson said another “wave” is coming this offseason. Bubba Watson backed him up. “There’s interest,” he said. “People are calling, texting. They are asking for help to try to get in the league. Phil knows it. We all know it. The higher-ups know it, and we are just working through the details.”

Simply more bluster from an operation styled by bluster? Perhaps.

Similar claims were heard around this time last year. At the time, the PGA Tour believed it held the high ground. Legacy matters in golf and it thought it had history, loyalty and morality on its side. Monahan, the tour’s commissioner, continued to call LIV an “irrational threat” from a foreign government marred by human rights violations and ties to 9/11 attackers . Things were trending the tour’s way, including a unifying meeting in Delaware getting key players on the same page.

That 2022-23 offseason, LIV didn’t raise the ante with the kind of mega-upfront-payouts it used to recruit its original 48-man roster. The result was only a trickle of middling additions, no disrespect to Sebastian Munoz or Pereira.

But dynamics are different heading into the 2023-24 offseason. The tour punted the morality card by entering into its framework agreement with PIF and infuriated its membership by making a deal without its approval, resulting in a reshaping of the policy board and addition of Tiger Woods , providing the players with a shift in power. Now, to maintain its talent, the tour is reliant on legacy allegiances, restructured elevated (some of them no-cut) events aimed to funnel money to top players and a newfound partnership with TGL, a venture headed by Woods and Rory McIlroy.

The sums needed to pare away more talent from the PGA Tour today are believed to be massive figures. Two tour agents contacted for this story both said any current high-profile tour player would demand similar sums (or more) to those early LIV enlistees received. While never officially announced, it has been reported that Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Mickelson and perhaps others received payments of more than $100 million each.

But that could be exactly what LIV is prepared to offer.

Last week marked Gary Davidson’s final event as acting COO of LIV. The co-founder of Performance 54, a sports advisory and strategy firm, Davidson came into the post in December 2022, following the departure of Atul Khosla, a longtime sports executive who left amid a wave of senior officials departing the fledgling golf league. At the time, documents obtained by the New York Times suggested LIV faced steep challenges in gaining sustained traction.

Ten months later, the framework agreement has now changed that view. As Davidson puts it, “In terms of long-term planning, it’s opened up a couple of doors and taken away some of the headwinds.” With less pushback, Davidson says, LIV is moving forward in adding new teams in 2023 (from 12 to 13, or 14, or maybe up to 15, the max LIV can field as long as it holds onto its shotgun start formula) and finalizing “long-term commitments” from venues that will host repeat events for the next two or three years. Additionally, changes are being considered in a variety of areas from branding to the broadcast product.

Davidson is stepping aside for Lawrence Burian, a former executive vice president with the Madison Square Garden family of companies who will now oversee LIV’s day-to-day business operations. Burian’s hiring (and his multi-year, multi-million-dollar contract) is the first of several C-suite appointments coming over the next few weeks, according to LIV sources. Having spent much of its existence heavily reliant on outside consultants and contracted firms, LIV should soon have a more formal executive leadership team, including a new chief marketing officer.

Challenges remain steep. LIV’s application to earn world ranking points was recently unanimously rejected by the Official World Golf Ranking. It’s unclear if or when it will reapply. As a result, pathways for LIV players into the majors will continue to dwindle. Davidson said discussions are ongoing for LIV players to receive exemptions into some majors, but such a scenario seems doubtful — the same group that denied the OWGR claim runs the major championships.

So. New executives. New teams. And, potentially, new players.

We were told earlier this summer golf’s turf war was over.

These scenarios suggest otherwise.

Walking off Doral’s 18th green after a pro-am last week, Charles Howell III looked around and acknowledged that life is good. The 44-year-old won three times in 609 PGA Tour appearances over two decades, pulling down just north of $42 million before moving to LIV in 2022. This season, in individual earnings alone, he made just more than $8 million.

Howell was thrilled when news of the framework agreement dropped on June 6. He remembers friends on tour telling him, “Man, you made the right decision.” But that wasn’t the gratification of that day. It was, instead, the feeling of a potential peace treaty coming to fruition, bringing both tours together. It was a feeling that LIV had validity. He felt a page turned.

“Last year was such a whirlwind with all the negative stuff on social media — that’s all obviously calmed down and died away,” Howell said last week. “Now it feels real.”

While the first part is arguable, Howell’s point speaks to the issue at hand. LIV has always been real. The question has been whether it’s what golf fans want.

Team championship week began with a news conference of eight team captains picking opposing teams to face in Friday match play. Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa began things by pitting his Stingers GC team against the lowest-seeded club — Kevin Na’s Iron Heads.

“We are picking the Iron Heads,” Oosthuizen said.

“We have Stingers versus Iron Heads!” the moderator exclaimed. “All right, Louis, talk us through the decision. Why did you pick the Iron Heads? You don’t have to be kind! You can have a little fun!”

Asking Louis Oosthuizen to talk smack is like asking a tree to grow faster. The 41-year-old looked around, expressionless.

“I think we’re happy with that selection and didn’t really want to play any of the other teams,” he responded.

It’s something that comes with so much of LIV — this constant, thirsty desire to manufacture smoke that’s not there. To make golf louder, simply play music. That’s how I came to find 2021 U.S. Amateur champion James Piot standing over his final opening tee shot (for now) on LIV in front of maybe 30 people with Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music” blasting from a speaker 10 feet behind him.

Swathes of Trump Doral were nearly empty last week. On Friday, a herd of bodies moved along following a match between Phil Mickelson and Koepka. Other parts of the course looked like they were hosting a practice round.

Larger crowds came for the weekend, but it was exceedingly difficult to decipher audience from attendees. As one longtime observer put it: “More people are paid to be here, than pay to be here.”

Everyone from LIV staff, to executives, to content producers, to fans say they enjoy the golf. They say everyone is having a good time. They ask, what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with something different? Why the hate?

Yet many of those same voices privately acknowledge mass appeal seems miles away. And that, sure, the league is struggling for TV viewership and lacks major corporate sponsorship. And, yeah, there’s a major issue with delivering a show that matches the hype.

By the end of the weekend, Howell, DeChambeau and Crushers GC were joined on-stage by team championship runner-up, RangeGoats GC. Much of this — the names, the logos, much of the bit — was panned early in LIV’s existence. If onlookers wanted to think this was all a joke or non-serious competition, they were given plenty of chum. It’s unclear how married the tour is to maintaining all of its early brandings.

None of that was on anyone’s mind at Doral late Sunday, not amid the spraying champagne, and the confetti cannons, and the smoke machines. And not with Swedish DJ Alesso warming up to take the stage.

But was anyone else watching? LIV, by way of the PIF, can spend all the money it wants, and double down or triple down on its billion-dollar investment, but it still has to manufacture a product that people want. LIV loyalists will blame the league’s lack of connection to a broader audience on everything from “corporate media” to the hypocrisy of the PGA Tour to political leanings, but it’s on the organization to create something real. Golf that people care about.

A week before Doral, Chase Koepka, the younger brother of five-time major winner and LIV alpha Brooks Koepka, was trailed by cameras in Saudi Arabia. Formerly a journeyman searching for status on tours in the U.S. and abroad, Chase followed his brother to LIV, cashing in on an upfront payout (significantly smaller than his brother’s $100 million-plus deal, but certainly over seven figures) and claiming one of four spots on Brooks’ team (Smash GC).

Chase finished 27th in the league’s individual 2022 standings, ahead of known PGA Tour names like Ian Poulter, Phil Mickelson, Kevin Na, Harold Varner III, Graeme McDowell and Marc Leishman. He felt validated. A thankless road led to this.

With the 2023 season, LIV introduced the idea of relegation. Just as PGA Tour players can lose their cards with poor play, four players at the bottom of LIV’s season-long points list (Nos. 45-48) are relegated unless they have a contract for the following year. Heading to Royal Greens Golf & Country Club in King Abdullah Economic City, along the Red Sea coast, Chase found himself needing a strong week to climb out of the bottom four.

Instead, he stumbled to a last-place finish. Rounds of 73-69-74. The younger Koepka lost his spot on LIV, while his brother, only a few months removed from winning the PGA Championship, won LIV Jeddah in a playoff victory over Gooch. Chase was booked for relegation, along with Piot, Jed Morgan and Sihwan Kim.

At Doral, Chase knew he was playing his final event for both his brother’s team and LIV — now, and quite possibly, forever. We spoke on a practice green one afternoon last week. At 29, he sounded like a guy facing the last rites of his career. Unsentimental honesty.

“It’s just been a really, really tough year,” he told me. “It’s not been fun — sitting there, grinding it out, working 8-10 hours a day, just trying not to finish in last place. I mean, that’s not fun. It wears on you. But that’s what it’s been.”

Chase said he plans to step away and reevaluate things after the season. The feeling of losing an invisible war is what every golfer relates to. That’s why LIV’s cameras followed Chase at Jeddah. The story. He understood the inherent drama. “I think that’s something cool,” he explained. “They should document that. You know, it sucks getting relegated. I wasn’t happy about it.”

Even with its many issues, LIV’s format can create storylines that resonate.

The team element is LIV’s bargaining chip and the league knows it. The format can deliver captivating play (the Crushers’ win, via an insane Dechambeau recovery shot on Doral’s 17th hole, was legitimately interesting golf), while the drama of roster management is inherently intriguing. There’s a reason the NBA offseason is a cause célèbre the league milks for all available attention.

“There’s a lot that will be going on, with our trades and transfers, and the draft, and the promotions event, and finishing off the international series schedule,” said Davidson, the outgoing COO, who will still maintain a role with LIV while returning to Performance 54. “We want to make sure that there’s a lot of talking points — that there’s a lot of news over the next three months.”

But will LIV golfers be treated like athletes? Reports of players being released and traded? Legitimate roster moves? Guys cutting ties? Things that might not be in the best interest of one’s brand? It’d maybe be intriguing to follow. Or at least something new in golf. But does anyone really expect a league catered exclusively toward money and fun and brands to embrace any discrediting of its own marquee players? Captains are safe from relegation, after all. Thankfully for Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer.

A subplot at Doral was an ongoing rift between Brooks Koepka and Matthew Wolff, a 24-year-old struggling to relocate prodigious talent that made him a major commodity for LIV. Wolff is on Koepka’s team and bitterness between the two has played out in public. Koepka has questioned Wolff’s work ethic and openly criticized his play. This week, he said of Wolff: “Sometimes you can’t help people that don’t want help.”

The natural drama of team play on display. At the season-ending tournament, no less. An NFL locker room would be buzzing with attention and intrigue.

In this setting, though? LIV officials downplayed the turmoil. Wolff denied interviews all week, blowing past the few reporters there to find a story. What might’ve been interesting was moot.

The irony? The guy leaving LIV is the one who says this is what the league needs.

“There’s a lot happening behind closed doors, between teammates,” said Chase Koepka, who, with his own struggles, admits to relating to Wolff as much as he does his brother. “That’s what people don’t see. If there’s anything I could add (to what LIV does), it’d be letting people see more of those stories — what actually is going on.”

Mercedes and BMWs and Range Rovers lined up outside the hotel at Trump Doral late Sunday, picking up LIV players and their families, LIV associates, those connected by business or politics, and who knows who else. One by one, they all left smiling. As one agent to multiple high-profile professional golfers said of the vibe at Doral: “I’ve never seen that many happy, wealthy people in my life.”

Plenty on the PGA Tour have noticed. How many will move over? Time will tell. Three of LIV’s available 48 roster spots for 2024 will be filled by an open promotions event scheduled for December at Abu Dhabi Golf Club, while a fourth card will go to Asian Tour’s International Series Order of Merit winner Andy Ogletree. Beyond that, according to a LIV source, fewer than three-to-five roster available spots are expected to come from players whose contracts won’t be renewed. If additional teams are added, four, eight or even 12 new openings could be created.

Norman was asked last week what might entice a tour player to move to LIV. He responded, “It’s the franchise, it’s the team spirit and also health and wellness.” In truth, it’s still probably the money. It has not gone unnoticed what Gooch, a 31-year-old with one PGA Tour win in 123 career starts, did this season. After receiving an eight-figure upfront payment to join LIV in 2022, Gooch won three times and made $35 million in individual prize money and bonuses this season.

At the same time, Gooch has plummeted to No. 214 in the OWGR and may not have a spot in multiple majors next year.

Talk about a cost–benefit analysis.

A few LIV players declined to talk about their tour on the way out the door at Doral. Some said there was nothing else to say. One said he’d already had too much to drink and didn’t think public comments were a good idea. A solid decision. Why mess with a good time? A parking attendant waved to each player, saying, “See you next year!”

Indeed, regardless how you feel about LIV, this will happen all over again in 2024. And the next few months could very well bring a repeat of the chaos that transpired in the summer of 2022, back when Brooks, and Phil, and DJ all made the jump. Even if that torrent doesn’t come, LIV will still play on. As it very well may in 2025. And in 2026. And at least one player is known to be signed through 2027.

So this is not, despite what was thought earlier this summer, going away.

Question is, what version of LIV will return? Will it find a way to be about golf? And will anyone ever care?

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic ; photos: Matthew Lewis, Mike Ehrmann, Quinn Harris / Getty Images; Jared C. Tilton / LIV Golf)

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Brendan Quinn is an senior enterprise writer for The Athletic. He came to The Athletic in 2017 from MLive Media Group, where he covered Michigan and Michigan State basketball. Prior to that, he covered Tennessee basketball for the Knoxville News Sentinel. Follow Brendan on Twitter @ BFQuinn

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LIV Golf Announces 14-Event Schedule for 2024, With Five New U.S. Venues

• Author: Bob Harig

The LIV Golf League announced its 14-event 2024 schedule, one that will be condensed by a month compared to the 2023 slate and have five new domestic venues as well as three different international locations.

Three of the dates will go directly against Signature events on the PGA Tour and the other is being played in Las Vegas, the same week the Super Bowl is staged in Nevada.

As Sports Illustrated reported in September, LIV Golf will begin for the second year a row at the El Cameleon course at Mayakoba, Mexico, Feb. 2-4, followed by a new event at Las Vegas Country the following week, Feb. 8-10, ending on Saturday.

The final two events have yet to be officially announced, but are expected to be a change from a previous version of the schedule. This year LIV Golf will not play a proposed event at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in South Korea, but is instead expected to return to Rich Harvest Farms outside of Chicago.

That would be the last individual event on the schedule, Sept. 13-15, and is expected to be followed a week later by the LIV Golf Team Championship at Maridoe Golf Club in Dallas, concluding the season Sept. 20-22 – and a month earlier than it did this year.

New venues or locations for LIV in the United States are Las Vegas, Houston, Nashville, Dallas and a to-be-named venue in Florida the week prior to the Masters . That tournament could be played at Trump Doral in Miami, where the last two team championships have been staged.

Outside of the United States, LIV Golf is returning to Adelaide, Australia and The Grange, where the circuit enjoyed one of its best events in 2023 and has already seen keen demand for 2024. That tournament will be April 26-28, followed by a return to Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore a week later, May 3-5.

LIV Golf will also return to Royal Palms Golf & Country Club in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, March 1-3, followed by a new event at Hong Kong Golf Club the following week, March 8-10.

Tournaments in Houston at the Golf Club of Houston, June 7-9, and Nashville, June 21-23, at The Grove will sandwich the U.S. Open in June; LIV will return to Valderrama in Spain, July 12-14, the week prior to the British Open . The week after it plays at a new venue in England, JCB Golf Course

The Greenbrier, where Bryson DeChambeau shot a final-round 58 this year , is back, Aug. 16-18, followed by Chicago and Dallas.

LIV Golf’s first event at Mayakoba is being played opposite the PGA Tour AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a Signature event with a $20 million purse and a field that will be among the strongest of the year.

The following week’s event in Las Vegas will end on Saturday, the day before the Super Bowl game at Allegiant Stadium but also the same week as the PGA Tour’s WM Phoenix Open.

The Houston tournament is the same week as another Signature event, Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial, which is a week prior to the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. The following week, LIV Golf goes to Nashville while the PGA Tour stages another Signature event, the Travelers Championship.

The Spain tournament, July 12-14, is the same week as the PGA Tour/DP World Tour co-sanctioned Genesis Scottish Open followed by the British Open at Royal Troon and then the England event, July 26-28, which is moving from outside of London at the Centurion Club to the JCB Golf Course outside of Birmingham, England. That is the week prior the Men’s Olympic Golf Tournament.

Places where LIV is not returning in 2024 from 2023: Tucson, Tulsa, Washington, D.C., Bedminster, N.J., and possibly Miami – if Doral does not end up being the Florida venue.

LIV Golf 2024 Schedule

Feb. 2-4: Mayakoba, Mexico Feb. 8-10: Las Vegas March 1-3: Jeddah March 8-10: Hong Kong April 5-7: Florida (TBD) April 26-28: Adelaide, Australia May 3-5: Singapore June 7-9: Houston June 21-23: Nashville July 12-14: Valderrama (Spain) July 26-28: England Aug. 16-18: The Greenbrier (West Virginia) Sept. 13-15: Chicago* (Not yet official) Sept. 20-22: Dallas* (Not yet official)

The 19 players already AXED from the LIV Golf Tour

LIV Golf Boston welcomes six debutants from the PGA Tour including Cameron Smith. 

Out with the old and in with the new. LIV Golf has now axed 19 players in total since its first tournament at Centurion Club. 

LIV Golf today welcomed  six debutants to its fourth tournament of the season in Boston this week, none bigger than World No.2 and Open champion Cameron Smith.

Other players that have switched allegiance from the PGA Tour to the LIV Golf Tour this week include Joaquin Niemann, Harold Varner III, Cameron Tringale, Marc Leishman and Anirban Lahiri. 

While LIV Golf will no doubt be delighted to have acquired the services of Smith, who is understood to have agreed a signing-on fee north of $100 million, it's fair to say a number of GolfMagic readers are particularly disappointed with his decision to leave the PGA Tour.

Two other players have been re-added to the Boston field in Adrian Otaegui and Sihwan Kim, both of whom last played in the second tournament in Portland . 

In total, there are eight new players from the last tournament in Bedminster, and that unfortunately means eight players have had to make way due to the field size always being 48.

Hennie du Plessis, who finished second at Centurion and won the team event, will no doubt feel the most hard done by given he currently ranks sixth in most money won from the first three LIV Golf tournaments ($3.5 million). 

The 8 players booted from LIV Golf after the last Bedminster tournament: 

Hennie du Plessis  Justin Harding Yuki Inamori Jinichiro Kozuma Ryosuke Kinoshita  David Puig (a) Travis Smyth Hideto Tanihara 

The 8 players added to LIV Golf since the last Bedminster tournament: 

Sihwan Kim (re-added, last played Portland) Anirban Lahiri (debut) Marc Leishman (debut) Joaquin Niemann (debut) Adrian Otaegui (re-added, last played Portland) Cameron Smith (debut) Cameron Tringale (debut) Harold Varner III (debut)

In total heading into the fourth LIV Golf tournament, 19 players have been axed from the Saudi-backed series since the first event at Centurion Club in June. 

Of course as we have seen with both Kim and Otaegui in Boston this week, players can be reinstated when they have initially been dropped from a LIV Golf tournament. They can also play their way in via the Asian Tour, which LIV Golf is supporting with a number of tournaments on its International Series.

But with more and more big names arriving on LIV Golf from the PGA Tour, the chances for some of the lesser names to return or even remain on the 48-man roster are getting slimmer by the month. 

Saying that, the PGA Tour did just announce some huge financial changes that could very well halt LIV Golf in its tracks when it comes to signing some more of the world's best players heading into 2023. 

The 19 players currently axed from LIV Golf and how much money they have collected in LIV Golf events: 

Hennie du Plessis - $3,530,000 Justin Harding - $1,362,500 Jinichiro Kozuma - $1,210,000 Travis Smyth - $850,000 Oliver Bekker - $800,000 Ryosuke Kinoshita - $669,000 Yuki Inamori - $501,000 Hideto Tanihara - $485,600 Pablo Larrazabal - $360,000 Ian Snyman - $319,000 David Puig (am) - $268,000 Blake Windred - $263,000 Itthipat Buranatanyarat - $249,000 JC Ritchie - $232,000 Viraj Madappa - $156,000 Kevin Yuan - $150,000 Oliver Fisher - $140,000 Ratchanon   Chantananuwat - $140,000 Andy Ogletree - $120,000

LIV Golf Boston marks the fourth of eight tournaments in the inaugural LIV Golf season. 

The tournament starts on Friday and concludes on Sunday. It is taking place at The International, which is near Boston, and as always with LIV Golf tournaments, the field comprises 48 players and there will be a shotgun start . 

LIV Golf will then head over to Chicago for its fifth event from September 16 to 18. 

Greg Norman, the LIV Golf CEO, recently confirmed plans for a new 14-tournament LIV Golf League in 2023 with 12 established team captains and $405 million in total prize money. 

Next Page:  Which players have made the most money on LIV Golf so far?

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Rory McIlroy admits PGA Tour equity “never enough” as players flood to LIV Golf

McIlroy weighed in on the PGA Tour equity news as he explained LIV Golf will have the upperhand regardless.

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Share All sharing options for: Rory McIlroy admits PGA Tour equity “never enough” as players flood to LIV Golf

Earlier this year, the PGA Tour and Strategic Sports Group made a deal worth up to $3 billion. Reports suggest that part of that money will be given to PGA Tour players as equity payments for their loyalty.

Some of the projected share numbers were released on Wednesday ahead of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans . Tiger Woods will reportedly receive upwards of $100 million, and Rory McIlroy will receive the second most, at $50 million.

With that information, McIlroy was asked for his thoughts.

“I think the one thing we’ve learned in golf over the last two years is there’s never enough,” McIlroy said Wednesday.

The PGA Tour will never be able to compete with LIV Golf and their seemingly endless amounts of money.

Nearly two-thirds of the infused money will be distributed through equity shares. A number of factors determined how much players would receive in shares.

Among the factors are ‘career points’ and how golfers have finished in the Player Impact Program (PIF). Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas will allegedly receive $30 million each.

pic.twitter.com/qFOaPHJPYb — Sean Zak (@Sean_Zak) April 24, 2024

It seems McIlroy comprehends that no matter what kind of money is given out, there will still be guys tempted to leave for LIV Golf.

Earlier this month, a rumor suggested McIlroy was taking an $850 million deal to leave for LIV Golf. The four-time major winner quickly suppressed that allegation and said he would remain on the PGA Tour for the rest of his career.

This week, reports surfaced that McIlroy may also return to the PGA Tour Policy Board .

“I don’t think there’s been much progress made in the last eight months, and I was hopeful that there would be,” McIlroy said. “I think I could be helpful to the process, but only if people want me involved.”

Webb Simpson's resignation from his position sparked this chain of events. Under the circumstances, McIlroy would replace him.

The Northern Irishman expressed his interest in the seat if other people wanted him to take it.

“I feel like I can be helpful. I feel like I care a lot, and I have some pretty good experience and good connections within the game and sort of around the wider sort of ecosystem and everything that’s going on,” he said. “But at the end of the day, it’s not up to me to come back on the board. There’s a process that has to be followed.”

Nothing has been finalized regarding McIlroy's return, but there will be a vote to determine whether he will replace Simpson.

The 33-year-old has not always seen eye-to-eye with the LIV Golf players, but after he resigned from the board in 2023, a number of his opinions on the matter shifted. McIlroy has publicly voiced numerous times how the divide is hurting the sport. He feels unification is the only way forward for golf.

“We obviously realize the game is not unified right now for a reason, and there’s still some hard feelings and things that need to be addressed, but I think at this point, for the good of the game, we all need to put those feelings aside and all move forward together,” McIlroy said.

The PGA Tour has made multiple changes to its schedule in the last eight months and has gotten sponsors to add money where they could. Although more money is involved in professional golf than ever before, fewer people are watching.

Television ratings are down, and golf feels even more divided.

The end of April is quickly approaching, and there appears to be no movement on the PGA Tour’s deal with PIF. Their deadline for an agreement was initially set for the end of December, but they pushed it back to April. However, now all movement seems to have stalled.

With just over 40 days until the year mark of the June 6 announcement, will the PGA Tour and PIF find a way to make a deal and bring golf back together?

Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf coverage, be sure to follow us @_PlayingThrough on all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.

Next Up In Golf

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PGA Tour players learn how much loyalty is worth in new equity program

Tiger Woods waves after his final round at the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club Sunday, April 14, 2024, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, waves after making a putt on the sixth hole during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 19, 2024, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

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Players who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour amid lucrative recruitment by Saudi-funded LIV Golf are starting to find out how much that loyalty could be worth.

The PGA Tour on Wednesday began contacting the 193 players eligible for the $930 million from a “Player Equity Program” under the new PGA Tour Enterprises .

The bulk of that money — $750 million — went to 36 players based on their career performance, the last five years and how they fared in a recent program that measured their star power.

How much they received was not immediately known. Emails were going out Wednesday afternoon and Thursday informing players of what they would get. One person who saw a list of how the equity shares were doled out said the names had been redacted. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because many details of the program were not made public.

The Telegraph reported Tiger Woods was to receive $100 million in equity and Rory McIlroy could get $50 million, without saying how it came up with those numbers.

Commissioner Jay Monahan outlined the first-of-its-kind equity ownership program in a Feb. 7 memo to players, a week after Strategic Sports Group became a minority investor in the new commercial PGA Tour Enterprises.

The private equity group, a consortium of professional sports owners led by the Fenway Sports Group, made an initial investment of $1.5 billion that could be worth $3 billion. The tour is still negotiating with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia — the financial muscle behind the rival LIV Golf league — as an investor.

Any deal with PIF would most certainly increase the value of the equity shares.

Another person with knowledge of the Player Equity Program, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the dealings, said the equity money is not part of the SSG investment. That money was geared toward growth capital.

Golf.com received a series of informational videos on the Player Equity Program that was sent to players and reported only 50% of the equity would vest after four years, 25% more after six years and the rest of it after eight years.

It also reported how the 36 players from the top tier were judged on “career points,” such as how long they were full members, victories, how often they reached the Tour Championship and extra points for significant victories.

Jason Gore, the tour’s chief player officer, said in one of the videos, “It’s really about making sure that our players know the PGA Tour is the best place to compete and showing them how much the Tour appreciates them being loyal.”

Emails also were sent to 64 players who would share $75 million in aggregate equity based on the past three years, and $30 million to 57 players who are PGA Tour members. Also, $75 million in equity shares was set aside for 36 past players instrumental in building the tour.

The program has an additional $600 million in equity grants that are recurring for future PGA Tour players. Those would be awarded in amounts of $100 million annually started in 2025.

Players only get equity shares from one of the four tiers now, although everyone would be eligible for the recurring grants.

Even with equity ownership geared toward making the PGA Tour better, the concern was players questioning who got how much and whether they received their fair share.

LIV Golf lured away seven major champions dating to 2018 since it launched in 2022, all with guaranteed contracts and most of them believed to have topped $100 million.

McIlroy, playing this week in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, was asked how much would make players feel validated for their decision to stay with the PGA Tour.

“I think the one thing we’ve learned in golf over the last two years is there’s never enough,” McIlroy replied.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

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Ciara Shares Post-Baby Weight Loss Journey for Upcoming Tour: 'Trying to Lose 70lbs'

The singer has shared the progress she's made after welcoming a baby No. 4 in December.

Ciara is tracking her weight loss journey as she looks to drop 70 pounds after welcoming her fourth child last December.

Earlier this week, the singer hopped on Instagram to reveal her weight, while adding that she plans to lose 70 pounds of post-baby weight.

"Trying to lose 70lbs post baby, prepare for a show and tour while breastfeeding, and running my businesses," she wrote alongside a photo of herself. "Shout out to all my mammas out there gettin in, I see you! ToughSh$t."

View this photo on Instagram

Ciara subsequently added a series of photos in which she revealed her current weight alongside a slideshow of images of what's happening in her life these days.

Back in December, Ciara and  Russell Wilson welcomed their third child together, a baby girl. Amora Princess Wilson, born at nine pounds, one ounce, shares a middle name with her older sister, six-year-old Sienna Princess. Ciara and Wilson also have a three-year-old son Win Harrison, and the singer is  mother to nine-year-old son Future Zahir with her ex, Future .

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Porter Robinson Announces “SMILE! :D World Tour” 70+ Dates In 2024-2025

Grammy-nominated artist Porter Robinson announces a 5-continent world tour including stops in 30+ North American cities, Europe, and Asia in support of his highly anticipated third studio album SMILE! 😀 , releasing July 26th via MOM+POP. [Pre-order here ]

Robinson will debut a completely new live production including a full live band during his SMILE! 😀 World Tour, after first experimenting with the band format at his own sold-out Second Sky festival and again in 2023 at Coachella’s main stage. Fans can expect opening acts ericdoa in North America, underscores in Europe and Galileo Galilei in Japan.

The SMILE! 😀 World Tour will kick off on August 29 in Boston and hit notable stops along the way including Forrest Hills in New York on August 31 and Hollywood Bowl on October 11, before heading onto an Asian run which spans 9 cities beginning November 2024. Porter concludes the tour by traversing across 8 countries in Europe throughout February and March 2025, including a stop at London’s prestigious Brixton Academy . Dates in Australia and Latin America will also be announced soon. Full routing is available below.

Pre-sale commences Tuesday, April 30 at 10am local time —fans can register for early access to tickets at porterrobinson.com . Various presales will take place throughout the week including a CITI presale in the U.S. (details below) ahead of the general on sale on Friday, May 3 at 10am local time. For more information on the tour and tickets, visit porterrobinson.com .

The tour will also offer a variety of different VIP packages and experiences for fans. VIP Packages may include premium tickets, exclusive access to the pre-show VIP lounge, access to a VIP bar, early entry into the venue, pre-show merchandise shopping opportunity, specially designed gift item, and more. VIP package contents vary based on offer selected. For more information, visit vipnation.com (N. America) or vipnation.eu (Europe).

CITI is the official card of Porter Robinson presents SMILE! 😀 World Tour. CITI Card Members will have access to presale tickets for the U.S. dates beginning Monday, April 29 at 10AM local time until Thursday, May 2 at 10PM local time through the CITI Entertainment program.

For complete presale details visit www.citientertainment.com .

For the Hollywood Bowl show, American Express® Card Members can purchase tickets before the general public beginning Monday, April 29 at 10:00am PST through Thursday, May 2 at 10:00pm PST.

SMILE! 😀 World Tour Dates:

August 29, 2024 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway

August 30, 2024 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway

August 31, 2024 – New York, NY – Forest Hills Stadium

September 5, 2024 – Atlanta, GA – Coca-Cola Roxy

September 6, 2024 – Orlando, FL – Addition Financial Arena

September 7, 2024 – Miami, FL – FPL Solar Amphitheater at Bayfront Park

September 10, 2024 – Nashville, TN – Municipal Auditorium

September  11, 2024 – Charlotte, NC – Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre

September 13, 2024 – Philadelphia, PA – TD Pavilion at the Mann

September 14, 2024 – Washington, DC – Merriweather Post Pavilion

September 15, 2024 – Pittsburgh, PA – UPMC Events Center

September 17, 2024 – Montreal, BC – MTELUS

September 19, 2024 – Toronto, BC – HISTORY

September 21, 2024 – Toronto, BC – HISTORY

September 22, 2024 – Detroit, MI – The Fillmore

September 23, 2024 – Indianapolis, IN – Everwise Amphitheater

September 26, 2024 – Madison, WI – The Sylvee

September 27, 2024 – Chicago, IL – Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island

September 28, 2024 – Minneapolis, MN – The Armory

September 30, 2024 – St. Louis, MO – Saint Louis Music Park

October 1, 2024 – Oklahoma City, OK – The Criterion

October 8, 2024 – El Paso, TX – El Paso County Coliseum

October 11, 2024 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl

October 12, 2024 – Phoenix, AZ – Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre

October 13, 2024 – San Diego, CA – The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park

October 15, 2024 – Albuquerque, NM – Revel

October 17, 2024 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena

October 18, 2024 – Salt Lake City, UT – Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre

October 19, 2024 – Las Vegas, NV – BleauLive Theater

October 24, 2024 – Sacramento, CA – Wheatland Toyota Amphitheatre

October 25, 2024 – San Francisco, CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre

October 29, 2024 – Boise, ID – Revolution Concert House

October 31, 2024 – Portland, OR – Alaska Airlines’ Theater of the Clouds

November 1, 2024 – Vancouver, BC – Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre

November 2, 2024 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena

November 25, 2024 – Bangkok – Samyan Mitrtown Hall

November 27, 2024 – Singapore – The Star Performing Arts Centre

December 8, 2024 – Manila – The Podium

December 10, 2024 – Taipei – Zepp New Taipei

December 12, 2024 – Seoul – Myunghwa Live Hall

February 10, 2025 – Tokyo – Tokyo Garden Theater

February 11, 2025 – Osaka – Namba Hatch

February 12, 2025 – Nagoya – Diamond Hall

February 14, 2025 – Fukuoka – UNITEDLAB

February 21, 2025 – Berlin – Huxleys Neue Welt

February 22, 2025 – Hamburg – Fabrik

February 24, 2025 – Oslo – Rockefeller Music Hall

February 25, 2025 – Stockholm – Berns

February 26. 2025 – Copenhagen – Vega

February 28, 2025 – Amsterdam – Melkweg

March 3, 2025 – Cologne – Live Music Hall

March 4, 2025 – Paris – Salle Pleyel

March 6, 2025 – London – O2 Academy Brixton

March 7, 2025 – Manchester – Albert Hall

March 8, 2025 – Glasgow – SWG3 Galvanizers

March 10, 2025 – Dublin – 3Olympia Theatre

About Porter Robinson:

At age 18, the North Carolina-based producer and songwriter burst onto the scene with a complex, bombastic brand of electro-house. Following the major success of his 2014 debut album Worlds , Porter released the RIAA Gold single “Shelter” with Madeon in 2016, followed by a Shelter Live Tour spanning 43 dates and four continents. The following year, Porter began releasing music under a new alias, Virtual Self, which led to his first Grammy nomination for the BBC Radio 1 hit single “Ghost Voices.” In 2019, Porter put on the first Second Sky Festival, which sold out all 30,000 tickets for the two-day festival in a single day. In both 2020 and 2021, Porter Robinson hosted editions of his virtual festival Secret Sky, amassing over 6 million viewers combined, and which came to be regarded as the most sophisticated virtual festivals of its time. Later in 2021, following the release of sophomore album Nurture, Second Sky Festival made its return to the Bay Area, selling out 40,000 tickets in a single day. Immediately following, the Nurture Live North American Tour sold over 150,000 concert tickets and was the highest grossing electronic tour of 2021. In 2022, in partnership with Riot Games, Robinson released “Everything Goes On” surpassing 100 million global streams . Later that year was his debut of one of two exclusive full live band performances, first at Second Sky 2022 and again in 2023 at the Coachella Main Stage.

About MOM + POP: 

In their 16th year, Mom+Pop Music has curated a critically acclaimed list of artists including  Courtney Barnett, MGMT, Beach Bunny, Caamp, Ashe, Orion Sun, Porter Robinson, SEB, Tom Morello, and many others. Solely owned and operated by Founder/co-owner Michael Goldstone and co-owner Thaddeus Rudd, M+P has a global team of 25 people and is self-distributed. Known for their artist-first ethos, M+P continues to amass industry accolades from artists, media, and colleagues including Billboard’s Independent Label Power Lists, A2IM’s Libera Award for Label of the Year, and other recognition. They have received consistent media acclaim featured in Forbes, Variety, Billboard and HITS among other outlets. Mom+Pop Music is located in New York City and has offices in Los Angeles.

About Live Nation Entertainment:

Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) is the world’s leading live entertainment company comprised of global market leaders: Ticketmaster, Live Nation Concerts, and Live Nation Sponsorship. For additional information, visit www.livenationentertainment.com .

Contact info:

Porter Robinson

Kate Trapani | [email protected]

Lisa Perkins | [email protected]

Live Nation Concerts

Monique Sowinski | [email protected]

Valeska Thomas | [email protected]

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Nike Dri-FIT Tour

Men's floral golf polo.

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This product is made with at least 75% recycled polyester fibers

Our floral print Tour Polo is all about consistency, with a stretchy, sweat-wicking feel that helps you get the most out your swing—every time. Breathable fabric around the neck brings cool comfort to the course and beyond. We gave it a length that allows you to wear it tucked or untucked, any time of year.

• Shown: Midnight Navy/White
• Style: DX6089-410

Size & Fit

• Big & Tall model is wearing size 3XL and is 6'3"/189cm
• Standard fit: easy and traditional

Shipping & Returns

How this was made.

• The recycled polyester used in Nike products begins as recycled plastic bottles, which are cleaned, shredded into flakes and converted into pellets. From there, the pellets are spun into new, high-quality yarn used in our products, delivering peak performance with a lower impact on the environment.
• In addition to reducing waste, recycled polyester reduces carbon emissions by up to 30% compared to virgin polyester. Nike diverts an average of 1 billion plastic bottles annually from landfills and waterways.
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Great short!

JSW1970 - Mar 27, 2024

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] This shirt is very comfortable and fits correctly. Plenty of room for my golf swing and my wife thinks I look great in it! ...

Stylish but not too crazy

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I love this shirt

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Soft, stylish and sleek. Can't ask for a better shirt.

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Complete the Look

• Nike Dri-FIT technology moves sweat away from your skin for quicker evaporation, helping you stay dry and comfortable.
• Stretchy fabric feels cool while helping you move without anything holding you back.
• The length is ideal for wear tucked or untucked.

Product Details

• 2-button placket
• Split side vents
• Set-in sleeves
• Swoosh logo at the front left chest and back right shoulder
• 88% polyester/12% spandex
• Machine wash

Moscow Metro Tour - With Ratings

• Moscow Tours
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Moscow Metro Tour

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Tour Information

Key Details

• Free Cancellation
• Duration: 1 Hr 30 Mins
• Language: English
• Departure Details : Get to the Biblioteka imeni Lenina (Lenin's Library, Red Line) or Alexandrovsky Sad (Alexander Garden, Light Blue Line) metro station. Use any exit. Find the Kutafia Tower of the Kremlin. The guide .. read more

The Moscow Metro has a long history to it. Also, the city has an extremely beautiful subway. It is very well maintained and is also extremely decorated. Each station and spot has a different artistic aspect to it. On this tour, experience the efficiency of Moscow Metro.

• Roam around the Revolution Square, with magnificent sculptures of the Soviet people
• Visit the Kurskaya Station Lobby, the Hall of Fame of the WWII
• Be awestruck at the Komsomolskaya , with impressive mural mosaics of Russian glorious victories
• See the artistic side of Novoslobodskaya , with the stained glass, although under the ground.

Know More about this tour

Take our Moscow Metro Tour and discover why our subway is recognized as the most beautiful in the world!

"They used to have palaces for kings, we are going to build palaces for the people!" said one of the main architects of the Soviet subway.

With us you will see the most beautiful metro stations in Moscow built under Stalin: Komsomolskaya, Revolution square, Novoslobodskaya, Mayakovskaya. Our guide will tell fascinating stories and secrets hidden underground, urban legends and funny stories.

How many babies were born on the Moscow metro? Where is the secret Metro 2? How deep is the Moscow metro? And where did Stalin give his speech in November 1941? Join out Metro tour and find out!

• Metro ticket

Cancellation Policy

• If you cancel between 0 hrs To 24 hrs before scheduled tour departure, the cancellation charge will be 100%
• If you cancel between 1 days To 180 days before scheduled tour departure, the cancellation charge will be 0%
• Please note that in case of No show, the cancellation charge will be 100% of the listed tour fare.
• Please note tours booked using discount coupon codes will be non refundable.
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