LIV Golf added three more tournaments to its 2023 schedule on Wednesday, including one at The Greenbrier in West Virginia.
The Saudi-funded rival league now has announced seven locations for its 14-tournament schedule next year.
LIV has added a tournament at the Old White course at The Greenbrier, which held a PGA Tour event from 2010 to 2019. That PGA tournament moved from July to September in 2019. The PGA Tour announced in April 2020 that it had mutually agreed with The Greenbrier to cancel the 2020 event as well as all future ones in a contract that was scheduled to run through 2026.
Bubba Watson hits a shot on the first fairway during the final round of the Military Tribute PGA Tour Golf Tournament at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., in 2018. The Greenbrier is getting a LIV Golf tournament. Watson is part of the LIV league.
The LIV tournament at The Greenbrier will be played Aug. 4-6. The Greenbrier tournament will be the same week as the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship, a Greensboro, North Carolina, tournament which will be the final regular-season event on the PGA Tour.
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Phil Mickelson, a chief recruiter for LIV Golf, and fellow LIV golfer Bubba Watson have had property at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs. Both played in PGA tournaments at The Greenbrier.
The last two PGA Tour winners at The Greenbrier, Joaquin Niemann in 2019 and Kevin Na in 2018, are now part of LIV Golf.
LIV also said it would go to The Gallery at Dove Mountain in the high desert north of Tucson, Arizona, where the PGA Tour’s Accenture Match Play Championship was held in 2007 and 2008 before moving to a different course at Dove Mountain.
Henrik Stenson, now part of the LIV roster, won the inaugural year in 2007 and Tiger Woods won in 2008 before the tournament left for a Jack Nicklaus design.
Cedar Ridge in the suburbs of Tulsa, Oklahoma, will host a LIV Golf event on May 12-14, the same week the PGA Tour is about five hours away in the Dallas area for the AT&T Byron Nelson.
That will give Tulsa three tournaments in three years — the Senior PGA Championship in 2021 and the PGA Championship this year, both at Southern Hills. Cedar Ridge, highly regarded in the state, had the 1983 U.S. Women's Open won by Jan Stephenson, and an LPGA Tour event from 2004 to 2009.
LIV Golf previously announced tournaments at Mayakoba (Feb. 24-26), which for more than a decade was an increasingly popular PGA Tour stop for the fall; The Grange in Adelaide, Australia (April 21-23); Singapore (April 28-30); and Valderrama in Spain (June 30-July 2), long a European tour stop.
The PGA Tour has revamped its schedule to offer $20 million purses at “elevated events,” and LIV Golf has stayed away from those in choosing its dates. Mayakoba will be opposite the Honda Classic, while the Arizona event will be opposite the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida.
LIV Golf said its 48-man league (12 teams with four players) will be announced in 2023, when the total prize fund will be $405 million.
McIlroy questions competitive desire of players in LIV Golf
NOT SO PERFECT GOLF
Jon Rahm knows as well as anyone how hard it is to win a major, much less a U.S. Open. It was only reviewing highlights of his win last year at Torrey Pines that he realized that great golf and perfect golf are not the same.
It helps to already have one major, so he said that eases a little of the pressure. He feels he can enjoy the U.S. Open a little more knowing he doesn't have to do anything special.
“It's easy to think you need to be playing perfect golf,” Rahm said. "And I remember watching my highlights of Sunday last year, and I thought I played one of the best rounds of my life. And I kept thinking, ‘I cannot believe how many fairway bunkers I hit that day, how many greens I missed, and how many putts I missed.’
“It's golf, and that's how it is,” he said. “You truly don’t have to play perfect, and that’s I think the best lesson I can take from that.”
BROOKLINE MEMORIES
Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk and Sergio Garcia are the only players at the U.S. Open who played in the 1999 Ryder Cup. Those aren't the only players making a return to The Country Club.
Four players who reached the quarterfinals of the 2013 U.S. Amateur also made it into the U.S. Open at Brookline. That starts with Matt Fitzpatrick, the winner. It also includes Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, Corey Conners of Canada and Brandon Matthews.
Scheffler had an amazing run. He needed 20 holes to beat Stewart Jolly in the first round, 20 holes to beat Brandon Hagy in the second round and he beat Matthias Schwab on the 18th hole to reach the quarterfinals. He lost to Brady Watt, 2 and 1.
“I remember being down in pretty much all my matches and coming back,” Scheffler said. “On the three that I won, I came back late on all of them. I think I made a big putt against maybe Brandon Hagy — may have been Brandon — on 17. I have good memories of this place.”
QUALIFYING BLUES
Collin Morikawa is a two-time major champion at age 25, the No. 7 player in the world who can expect to be exempt in the U.S. Open for years to come.
It wasn't always that easy.
“Yeah, well, I suck at qualifying. I really do," Morikawa said Tuesday.
He said he never made it to a U.S. Junior and he can think of only one U.S. Amateur appearance when he was exempt through his amateur ranking. As for the U.S. Open? He went through qualifying three times while at Cal and never came particularly close.
“I decided I hate California — no, I'm kidding,” the California native said.
He missed out by four shots at Lake Merced in San Francisco in 2016 and in 2018. In between, the U.S. Open sectional was in Newport Beach. He missed that by seven shots.
“I just never played well in those events and decided to go to the Ohio one three years ago,” he said. “Made that. The rest is history.”
He made it through Columbus — known as the PGA Tour qualifier because it has the strongest field and the most spots — without a shot to spare. That was in 2019, and he tied for 35th at Pebble Beach in his second tournament as a pro.
Four starts later, he was a PGA Tour winner. A year later, he was a major champion. Yes, the rest is history.
A CADDIE'S LIFE
Rory McIlroy is back to work with his old caddie for the U.S. Open.
Harry Diamond, a longtime friend and Irish amateur player, has been on McIlroy's bag the last five years but was home last week as his wife gave birth to their second child. McIlroy had a backup plan — former Irish rugby union player Niall O'Connor — when he won the RBC Canadian Open for his first win this year.
“Niall and I's run has come to an end at this point,” McIlroy said. “Pretty good record. Had a fourth in Dubai and a first in Canada. If I ever need someone to jump in for Harry, I've got a pretty good substitute there.”
STAT OF THE DAY
Of the six news conferences Tuesday, Scottie Scheffler was the only player who was not asked about the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series.
FINAL WORD
“If you want to be one of the best players in the world, this is the country where you need to play the majority of your golf.” — Rory McIlroy.
