Will the LIV and PGA Disagreements End in Agreement or Terror?
After comments by both Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm at the Masters and the recent suspension of Wesley Bryan, it seems the LIV experiment may be causing more harm than good. The LIV Golf Association is a separate team-related year-round golf complex that started in 2021. LIV was able to succeed early due to their ability to pay top players like Koepka and Rahm a much more guaranteed salary than anything the PGA would’ve given them. Through almost three years now, though, the experiment has done nothing but cause problems. The PGA immediately put in rules that such players couldn’t play in any PGA-sanctioned events except the majors, and while Bryson DeChambeau seems to have thrived with the freedom, many of the former top players in the world of golf are now barely making cuts. What was once thought of as an obvious decision due to the money and the free time has now turned multiple major winners into afterthoughts.
PGA golfer Wesley Bryan has been the latest victim of the LIV separation due to his play in Doral. Bryan, who is an average-level golfer on tour and a YouTube star on a channel with his brother, was invited to play in the LIV duels last weekend, an event sanctioned for their best stars to team up with celebrities. Bryan would play with former Masters Champion Dustin Johnson, and while they didn’t win, his pure participation in the event led to a suspension by the PGA. The length and severity of the suspension aren’t known, but for Wesley, a long-term suspension could mean a lot for his career. The bigger issue with this, however, is what the PGA would do just a couple of days later. Wesley Bryan’s friend and fellow YouTuber Grant Horvat was recently invited to a PGA event in July due to an exemption, which would be looked at well if he wasn’t also playing in the LIV duel match.
Phil Mickelson and many other players have come to Wesley’s defense, saying the suspension is uncalled for, and while he is currently appealing it, none of his efforts have shown to be significant. This situation only adds to the thinking that LIV and the PGA need to make a deal. Situations like this won’t stop, and with Brooks Koepka speaking during the Masters on a potential return to the tour, LIV just doesn’t seem to be getting any more leverage. All the fans want is to be able to see all the best players all year, but with the current deal, the most we see of them is four times throughout the year. Even when we did see the LIV guys during the Masters, both Bryson and Patrick Reed were barely shown until the final round, even though they were both top 10 finishers. With the last LIV event being maybe the biggest failure so far in Doral, golf fans can only hope that more small-draw events could lead to a merger. It’s simple, most LIV golfers get worse because they have no incentive to win, their contracts are salaries as opposed to the PGA, where you can easily go broke if you don’t produce winning or top scores. What the solution is becomes almost impossible to predict, but with the recent suspension, it would be best for all parties in golf for such an agreement to occur.
