After months of claim, counter-claim and controversy, the LIV Golf Invitational Series turns its focus to actual golf on Thursday.
The first event of a series previously known as the 'Super Golf League' gets under way at the Centurion Club, near London, next week.
A lucrative breakaway from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, there will be plenty of interest in how LIV Golf fares – even if it is a largely unpopular venture.
Regardless of its wider reputation, though, the money of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) has still attracted some of the sport's best players.
So, what is the deal with LIV Golf? How does it work? Who will be playing? And why has it caused such uproar?
Stats Perform attempts to answer the myriad questions around this contentious competition.
What is LIV Golf?
A Saudi-backed rival to the PGA Tour has been rumoured for years, taking on various names before finally launching as the LIV Golf Invitational Series.
Greg Norman, a two-time Open champion and LIV Golf's CEO, has described this as the arrival of "free agency" in golf, with leading players skipping PGA Tour events to play in the new series.
That is exactly what the PGA Tour sought to avoid when it vowed to ban any players who joined a rival league, although that promise has not yet come to pass.
"Our mission is to modernise and supercharge the game of professional golf through expanded opportunities for both players and fans alike," reads LIV Golf's website, adding its aim to provide "a cutting-edge entertainment product".
That does not only mean a new series and new events, but also a new format...
How does it work?
Gone is the long-established structure of 72 holes across four days with the field cut after two rounds.
Regular season LIV Golf events will last only 54 holes and three days, with no cuts, meaning – organisers point out – there is no danger of eye-catching names being absent for the end of the tournament.
There are also shotgun starts, "ensuring a faster and more exciting pace of play", and smaller fields with only 48 players.
This may all be unfamiliar, but it is at least straightforward. The other changes are a little more complex.
Players will be pursuing individual glory, as at any other golf tournament, but there are also team prizes on offer, with each field broken up into 12 four-man teams.
At every event, there will be an individual winner – the traditional victor with the lowest 54-hole score – and a triumphant team, whose score will be calculated using their best two scores over the first two rounds and their best three from the third.
The first seven events of the season – four in the United States and one each in England, Thailand and Saudi Arabia – will provide a seasonal individual champion, while the year's most successful team are then identified at a further match-play knock-out tournament.
Who's playing?
With a number of big names publicly opposing the breakaway, Rory McIlroy referred to the then Super Golf League as the "not-so-Super League" back in February.
But LIV Golf claims to have received 170 applications and has been able to recruit some superstar talent – namely Dustin Johnson, whose agent said it was "in his and his family's best interest to pursue it".
"Dustin has never had an issue with the PGA Tour and is grateful for all it has given him," David Winkle added. "But in the end, [he] felt this was too compelling to pass up."
It remains to be seen how regularly Johnson will appear in the series, given the field is set to change for every event. He is on board for the London opener, though, alongside Sergio Garcia.
With the four-man teams – who will have their own logos, colours and names – to be tweaked at each tournament, captains will draft players to join them. Unlike at the Ryder Cup, these captains are also active players.
The opening London draft is set for Tuesday, but Phil Mickelson – the most notable and controversial potential LIV Golf star – will not be involved.
Given his previous interest, Mickelson is surely likely to appear at some stage, but he has not played for several months since his comments in relation to the tournament and its funding prompted an apology.
Why's it so controversial?
Any rebel league that threatened the PGA Tour was unlikely to be globally popular, but Saudi Arabia's influence has contributed significantly to the backlash.
The country's human rights record is of major concern, along with its role in the war in Yemen, so ventures such as these – and the acquisition of Premier League club Newcastle United – by its PIF are widely cited as examples of sportswashing.
Norman has suggested Saudi Arabia is "making a cultural change".
While he described the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 as "reprehensible", the LIV Golf chief added: "Look, we've all made mistakes, and you just want to learn from those mistakes and how you can correct them going forward."
Norman was speaking last month, by which point Mickelson's own discussion of Khashoggi's death had done a great deal of harm to the league's reputation.
The six-time major champion acknowledged Saudi Arabia's "horrible record on human rights" but added he was willing to commit to LIV Golf as it was "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates".
Mickelson made those comments in November last year, although they were reported earlier this year just as the series sought to launch.
Norman said the saga "definitely created negative momentum against us" and revealed "everybody got the jitters", causing some players to back out.
Lauren Coughlin holds first-round lead at the Chevron Championship
After shooting an opening 66 at the Chevron Championship in Texas on Thursday, American golfer Lauren Coughlin has a first-round lead for just the second time in her career.
Coughlin went bogey-free with three birdies on the front nine and three on the back nine on the first day of the tournament.
She hit 14 of 18 greens, recorded 10 one-putts and needed just 26 putts overall to get through her first round.
“I think my husband and I had a really good game plan, and I wasn’t trying to be too aggressive out there. Just trying to take a 30-footer or, I might have a chip here or there, just knowing that that’s the appropriate place to be,” she said.
Her husband, John Pond, recently started caddying for her.
She added: “Not trying to be too aggressive in certain spots and taking what, certainly there’s some holes, good pins and stuff that you can go at stuff, but overall, I was just trying to take what it would give me and not trying to force anything.”
Coughlin is making her 11th appearance in an LPGA Tour major championship this week. The American has made the cut in just two of her 10 previous starts in majors, but finished T15 and T16, respectively, in the 2023 and 2022 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
Two strokes behind Coughlin are two-time LPGA Tour winner Marina Alex, eight-time JLPGA winner Minami Katsu and major champion Nelly Korda, who is chasing her fifth win in as many consecutive starts on Tour.
Defending champion Lilia Vu withdrew from the Chevron Championship moments before her first-round tee-off on Thursday due to a back injury.
Scottie Scheffler out to win at Hilton Head after clinching second Masters title
Scottie Scheffler insists he will not be taking things easy in the RBC Heritage in the wake of his second Masters title in three years.
Scheffler justified his billing as pre-tournament favourite with a four-shot victory at Augusta National on Sunday, after which he made a brief trip home to Dallas before heading to Hilton Head.
It was the world number one’s third victory in his last four starts and increased his lead over Rory McIlroy at the top of the rankings to more than six points, but the 27-year-old has no intention of just making up the numbers this week.
“I won the tournament last week and now we’re here and it’s Wednesday and we’re all even par again,” Scheffler told a pre-tournament press conference.
“It seems like to me in my head that everything starts over each week, so it doesn’t matter what I’m ranked going into the week. It only really matters kind of where you sit at the end of the week.
“So going into this week it’ll be a bit more challenging than it was last week just because I think playing in contention at majors and especially winning takes a lot out of you.
“There’s a lot of stuff that goes on after the Masters on Sunday and you get home very late and emotionally I think I’m a bit drained.
“But we’re starting at even par, so I’m going to go home this afternoon and get as much rest and recovery as possible and show up tomorrow ready to play.
“I was on a radio show earlier today and Colt [Knost] asked me if I thought about withdrawing and I said, no, I committed to this tournament and I’m not showing up here just to walk around and play a little golf.
“I left my pregnant wife at home to come here and play in a golf tournament. I am here to play and hopefully play well. I’m not here just for fun.”
Scheffler stressed how keen he was to get home to his wife Meredith during his post-victory media duties, so much so that a picture of him wearing the green jacket at a bar in Dallas on Sunday evening warranted an explanation.
“I don’t know if I’d actually been to that place before,” Scheffler said.
“There was another tavern around the corner that I’d been to a few times and it’s a nice place but shockingly it wasn’t open Sunday at 1:30 in the morning. This place was open.
“On the plane ride home I was with my manager Blake and my coach Randy and then I had four of my good buddies with me, and I don’t remember who suggested it but it seemed like a good idea.
“When Meredith picked us up at the airport it still seemed like a good idea and Meredith was down so we went for probably 20 minutes and went home.
“Took a few photos, had a drink and then went home and went to bed.”
Nelly Korda looking to add major to winning streak at Chevron Championship
World number one Nelly Korda insists she is taking nothing for granted as she bids to secure a remarkable fifth straight win and second major title in the Chevron Championship.
Korda took a seven-week break after winning her first title of the year, the LPGA Drive On Championship, in January, and returned to win three events in the space of three weeks, including beating Ireland’s Leona Maguire in the final of the T-Mobile Match Play.
The 25-year-old is the first woman to win on four consecutive starts since Lorena Ochoa in 2008 and is also the first to enter a major on such a streak since Annika Sorenstam.
View this post on InstagramSorenstam’s run came between the end of the 2004 season and the start of 2005 and the Swedish star went on to win the Kraft Nabisco by eight shots.“In 2021 I went on a run, and then in 2022 and 2023 golf really humbled me,” admitted Korda, who won four times in 2021, including her sole major title to date in the Women’s PGA Championship.
“There are ups and downs. Every athlete goes through the rollercoaster, and that is what makes the sport so great. You mature and grow so much and learn more about yourself.
“You never take these weeks for granted. You always try to appreciate and become very grateful for them.
“It makes just all the hard work so worth it. But I think I’ve learned so much about myself even through the losses.”
Korda has had one week since her last victory to recharge the batteries ahead of the first women’s major of the season at Carlton Woods in Texas, where she finished a shot outside the play-off won by Lilia Vu last year.
“Last week I was so tired,” Korda added. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that tired. I would wake up and I was ready to go back to bed but I couldn’t. It’s almost to the point where you just can’t sleep, you’re just overly tired.
“I made sure to prioritise any rest. My parents are on top of me to not overdo it.
“I always want to practice more, do more to be better. So made sure to prioritize my rest and making sure to go to sleep early and sleeping a lot, too. That’s the number one thing for recovery. Overall this week I feel really good.”
Korda and Vu have been drawn together for the first two rounds alongside Australia’s Minjee Lee, while English amateur Lottie Woad, winner of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur earlier this month, is in a group with Madelene Sagstrom and Gabriela Ruffels.
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