LIV Tour comes to Dallas for first time

By David Mullen

The Dallas area has a chance to witness some of the world’s best golfers play on Friday, Sept. 20 through Sunday, Sept. 22 as the LIV Golf Tour comes to Maridoe Golf Club at 2020 Kelly Blvd. in Carrollton.

Local fans can watch some of the top names in golf play in an environment that is trying to revolutionize a game built and managed for decades by the PGA Tour and based on centuries of tradition and sportsmanship. 

On the LIV Tour, players compete in a 54-hole tournament rather than the PGA Tour’s 72 holes. No staggered start for tee times; the LIV Tour uses a shotgun format designed to create a speedier game. There is no cut, and 48 players are part of 12 four-person teams headed by a captain.

In the upcoming Dallas Team Championship, participating players will compete as individuals in stroke play and as a team, with names like Crushers GC, Smash GC, Torque GC and Legion XIII. Familiar players participating at Maridoe include Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, fan favorite Sergio Garcia and Bubba Watson. Representing 14 PGA Tour major champions with a combined 28 major victories, the field will compete for an astonishing $50 million purse. 

Golfers are allowed to wear short pants. Music blares greenside. Fans are encouraged to get rowdy. At the Dallas Team Championship, country music chartbuster Bailey Zimmerman will give a concert. Shaquille O’Neal, aka DJ Diesel, headlines the Sports Illustrated LIV Golf Experience, with food provided by Dallas hipster restaurant and lounge Komodo. A Spotify sensation, DJ Martin Garrix, noted for collaborations with Dua Lipa and Khalid, will close out the tournament’s entertainment on Sunday, Sept. 22.

The Fan Village at the LIV Golf Dallas Team Championship will promote fan participation with a dunk tank, putting and chipping challenges, a mechanical bull (only in Texas) and kid’s tent.

It’s the Arena Football of golf.

Some call the LIV Tour “the future.” Others call it “sports-washing,” a term defined as using sports “to improve a reputation or distract from negative attention. It can be done by governments, corporations or individuals through hosting, sponsoring or participating in sports.” The phrase has been applied to the Olympic Games, when hosted in China and Russia, and now resurfaces in the most unlikely of places: Carrollton.

A city with 135,000 residents, Carrollton is known as the corporate base of FASTSIGNS International, Inc., Halliburton’s Easywell, Motel 6, SECURUS Technologies and Amazon subsidiary Woot Inc. Once a small, agricultural depot founded by white settlers, Carrollton is now ethnically diverse and home to Koreatown Carrollton, the largest Korean community in Texas.

Launched in 2022, LIV Golf was created by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) and is watched over by the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.

In an attempt to give instant credibility to the upstart league, Hall of Fame golfer Greg Norman, LIV’s founding CEO and commissioner, was brought in to recruit the top PGA and European Tour players and lure them with huge paydays and unprecedented player contracts. The timing was ideal. Many younger players were looking to escape the golf norms established by the PGA that some find outdated and stodgy. The PIF has invested more than $2 billion into LIV Golf as part of its plan to “diversify the Saudi economy.” 

In an interview on “Global News Today with Rosanna Lockwood,” LIV captain and noted English player Ian Poulter said: “For me, the LIV product has been very refreshing, to be in a team environment and have teammates that I have the opportunity to play with week in week out, and to be able to grow this franchise.    

“What we’ve done in a short period of time with the LIV product, being more global, taking it to new territories, showing and growing the fan base and actually reducing the demographic age of followers is something that’s very exciting — everywhere we’re going, we’re gaining a lot of good fans and bringing that younger age group into the game of golf,” Poulter said. “I think that’s the most exciting piece for us. We’ve dropped that age from a 64-year-old down to a 40-year-old. It’s a good thing for the fanbase, it’s a good thing for us and I’m really excited for the franchise’s future.” Poulter did not comment on league ownership.

In a stunning June 2023 announcement that caught many PGA Tour players off guard, PGA Tour president Jay Monahan announced that the PGA and the PIF/LIV Tour were merging. Facing a revolt of established superstars like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, the two tours are still operating as separate entities and have yet to combine interests.

Going into the season ending event in Carrollton, defending team champions Crushers GC, led by former SMU star DeChambeau has a narrow lead over Rahm’s Legion XIII and Cameron Smith’s Ripper GC. But on the LIV Tour, the distractions are as visible as some of golf’s best players and it appears to be the way the LIV Tour wants it. No need to let principles get in the way of a good time.