After wrapping up yet another successful season, LIV Golf is all set to begin its 2024 calendar with some major changes coming up, the biggest among them being its announcement of golf’s first ever ‘transfer window!’
When LIV CEO Greg Norman first uttered the words “free agency” at LIV Golf’s very first event in London back in 2021, fans and golfers alike were excited to welcome this new era of golf. But as the seasons proceeded, that promise seemed too hollow to be true, save for some minor changes happening quietly with no official formal process for the off-season. But a press release on Wednesday finally confirmed that Norman’s words on that fateful day had indeed come true. Joining the transfer window are five other huge changes coming to LIV Golf in 2024. What are they, and what do they mean for LIV’s future? Let’s find out.
Five Huge Transformations Happening in LIV Golf
1. LIV Golf Promotions Tournament: LIV will be holding a play-in event in Abu Dhabi from December 8–10 next month, wherein golfers will be competing in a 36-hole tournament with three exemptions up for grabs into the league’s 2024 season. The $1.5 million tournament will provide an opportunity for some players to get a straight pass into the league.
2. The Re-sign Period: LIV Golf has officially come up with 3 zones, dividing players with expiring contracts among each of them. The Lock Zone is reserved for golfers in the top 24 on the leaderboard. They will be granted a direct, unrestricted pass into the next season, thus renewing their contracts for it. The players here get the chance to choose between re-signing or rejecting the offer and enter the so-called ‘free agency.’ Annually, LIV’s free agency will initiate a negotiation period during which individuals within the “lock zone” will be exclusively allowed to engage in discussions with their respective franchises. Players ranking 45 or below will enter the Drop Zone, or, in other words, they’ll be relegated from the tour. These players will enter the LIV Promotions event at the end of the year automatically, but they will still have to fight for their place on the tour.
3. LIV Takes Golf Into Free Agency: After the end of the re-sign period, the open season will commence. Golfers who rank between 25 and 44 on the leaderboard (the Open Zone) and players in the Lock Zone who rejected their franchise’s offer will be free to sign with whichever team they choose.
There is a possibility that the Saudi-funded Tour signs in more PGA Tour players to the league, which would be detrimental for the players in the Open Zone as they would end up losing their spots on the league.
4. In-Season Trading: LIV Golf initially did witness some players shifting teams, but now it will officially allow the trading of players between teams during its ongoing season. Thus, Smash GC Captain Brooks Koepka would now have the opportunity to trade Matthew Wolff off the team after publicly calling him out late in July.
5. Drafting: LIV Golf is all set to conduct a draft, wherein the top three finishers in the play-in tournament and the victor of the Asian Tour’s International Series Order of Merit will be selected by LIV franchises for the upcoming season.
While all of these new changes provide a definite structure to the Saudi-backed league and look promising for its future, it will all come down to the quality of the field. For instance, the trading could take LIV Golf to a level of excitement that resembles the likes of the NBA, NFL, and F1 during their off-seasons, but only if a high-profile player gets traded.
Tiger Woods recently said that he “couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on” in the LIV series when it initially began. Well, that comes in as he prepares to launch his new tech-based league, the TGL, in January, but the same can be said about the Saudi-funded league by many people who’re part of the golf world. All we can say for certain is that it will boil down to what the fans think of these changes and if their perception of the league will change for the better.
