LIV Golf League 2023 Betting Offers

Every now and then, something comes along that has the aim of disrupting the established order. Whilst that might not be exactly the intention behind LIV Golf, there is no doubt that the powers that be in the sport are concerned by the arrival on the scene of a golf tournament that promises the players a chance to make more money and work in a different way to how they’ve always worked in the past.

Financed by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the tournament has been a controversial one throughout, yet the amount of money being promised to the players means that many of them have agreed to play in it anyway.

Named LIV after the Roman numerous for 54, owning to the fact that that is both the score that a golfer would get on a par-72 course if they birdied every hole and the number of holes that will be played in LIV events, the tournament installed former world number one Greg Norman as its Chief Executive Officer.

Founded in 2021, the inaugural season of the tournament was in 2022 and resulted in the Professional Golfers’ Association informing participants that played in it that they would no longer be eligible to take part in PGA Tour events as a result. Legal arguments are still ongoing and LIV golfers who qualify for majors are still being allowed to compete. They have certainly been ostracised but it doesn’t look like it is changing any of the players minds.  Money talks.

In the first year it was the LIV Invitational Series and for 2023 the name was changed to the LIV Golf League. Whatever your thoughts on the new tour if you want to bet on it you can with all major bookies.  Of course, some are better than others and some have specific offers and extra places for all customers.  To save you searching for them we have collated the best ones here.

LIV Golf Tour Betting Offers for 2023

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2023 LIV Golf Schedule

Teams

What Is The LIV Golf Tour?

The Origins

The idea of forming an alternative golf tournament to the PGA Tour and European PGA Tour had been mooted for some time before LIV Golf was launched. Indeed, the PGA Tour itself was formed as a result of a split from the PGA of America back in 1967, so in many ways the Tour can’t complain that it has been superseded. In the middle of the 1990s, Greg Norman worked with Rupert Murdoch, the Australian media tycoon, in an attempt to form the World Golf Tour, an eight-event golf tour that looked to expose the weaknesses that Norman believed were having a detrimental affect on the PGA Tour.

The framework that the current competition is based around began to take shape in 2019, leading to the PGA Tour Commissioner at the time, Jay Monahan, to issue a warning to players about their likely suspension from the Tour if they played in a rival league. One of the first groups to form at the time was the Premier Golf League, which was backed by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. At the same time, LIV Golf was formed and eventually did enough to persuade the PIF that it was the horse that it should back with some of its $580 billion in assets. As a result, the PGL attempted to partner with the European Tour.

Eventually, the European Tour decided to enter into a ‘strategic alliance’ with the PGA Tour, with the PGL fading in terms of importance. The people behind LIV Golf, meanwhile, said that they wanted to create a Super Golf League, which has the same sort of vibe as the People’s Front Of Judea but with more executions. Once LIV Golf became a reality, Greg Norman was unveiled as the CEO for the new competition, whilst former executives of the PGA Tour were also installed into important roles. In February of 2022, it was announced that LIV Golf would invest $300 million in the Asian Tour over a period of 10-years, cementing its place in the heart of golf.

How It Will Work

On the 15th of March 2022, LIV Golf announced that it was launched an eight-tournament series worth $255 million. Known as the LIV Golf International, the first tournament took place at the Centurion Club, outside of London, beginning a week before the US Open. The key factor about the tournaments is that they are all played over 54 holes, rather than the more traditional 72. There are no cuts, meaning that the golfers play for the entirety of the tournament. Because they’re based over a shorter time period, the tournaments get underway with a shotgun start, in which all groups tee off simultaneously from different holes.

The tournaments also feature a team element, with the 48 competing players split into 12 squads of four. This makes a difference to how the players can win money, thanks to $5 million being set aside specifically for the winners of the team tournament. It will come as little surprise to most people that some of the courses that the LIV Golf series will be played at belong to Donald Trump, such is the former President’s delight at being involved in anything controversial. The first seven tournaments in the series took place at the following locations:

• Centurion Club near London
• Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Portland
• Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster New Jersey
• The International Golf Club in Boston
• Rich Harvest Farms in Chicago
• Stonehill Golf Club in Bangkok
• Royal Greens Golf & Country Club in Jeddah

Each of the events boasted a purse of $25 million, with $20 million being paid in individual prizes. The final event took place at Trump National Doral Miami, with $30 million paid to the top three players over the course of the season and $50 million paid out in total prizes for the best teams. It is clear, therefore, what the driving factor of players that have decided to take part in LIV Golf is. The sheer amount of money involved has proven too much for most of them to resist.

The Players

It is important to acknowledge that the players involved in LIV Golf are an ever-evolving factor. Bryson DeChambeau initially denied that he would take part in it, for example, but on the eighth of June 2022 his agent released a statement saying that he’d always ‘been an innovator’ and was happy to be getting into something ‘on the ground floor’. Other players were initially critical of the Saudi State, only to then agree to take part in LIV Golf. What we can talk about, though, is the players that were involved in the series during the initial tournaments, with Dustin Johnson being the headline figure that played in the first one.

Phil Mickelson also agreed to take part in it, having previous referred to the ‘obnoxious greed’ of the PGA Tour. Other names that even casual golf fans will likely recognised include former world number ones: Dustin Johnson, Sergio García, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Lee Westwood along with other popular names: Talor Gooch, Kevin Na and Ian Poulter.

DeChambeau and Patrick Reed didn’t take part in the competition in London, but did so when LIV Golf went Stateside. Golfers like Adam Scott and Rickie Fowler intimidated their desire to take part in tournaments if the timing was right for them, though many suggested that they were waiting to see what the reaction would be from golf’s other governing bodies.

Since then Brooks Koepka, Paul Casey and European Ryder Cup captain Henrik Stenson all signed up, although Stenson was removed from his role as captain as a result.  In a huge scalp the tour managed to sign up world number two Cameron Smith straight after his Open triumph in 2022, along with world number 19 Joaquín Niemann.  In 2022 69 players in total took part in at least one event.

The Golfers That Have Rejected Taking Part

As mentioned, it is possible that golfers that have previously offered criticism of LIV Golf and Saudi Arabia might later change their mind and take part in the tour. Even so, Rory McIlroy has been one of the fiercest critics of the enterprise and saying that he has no intention of joining it. When playing in the Genesis Invitational in 2022, McIlroy said,

“I’m in a way better financial position than I was a decade ago and my life is no different. I still use the same three, four rooms in my house. I just don’t see the value in tarnishing a reputation for extra millions.”

At the end of 2021, Tiger Woods also pledged his loyalty to the PGA Tour, which was seen as a massive boost. He declared that that is where his ‘legacy is’, having been ‘fortunate to win 82 events on this Tour and 15 Major championships’. The world number one at the time, Scottie Scheffler, also said he would not be defecting, with the likes of Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth and Brooks Koepka taking a similar line and suggesting that they would stick with the PGA Tour, at least in the short-term.

Interestingly Brooks Koepka reversed his decision in June 2022 despite saying for months that golfers who joined the tour would be “sell outs”.  He went on to win the LIV Golf Invitational Jeddah in a playoff over Peter Uihlein earning him over $4 million, more than he would get for winning a major.

Why It’s Controversial

Saudi Arabia is a country that has an appalling human rights record, with Amnesty International regularly rallying against it. In February of 2015, for example, a blogger was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for ‘insulting Islam’, with torture regularly used as a punishment for those that are deemed to have offended the state. Amputations are another form of punishment dished out by the Saudi Arabian authorities, whilst free speech is all but non-existent in the country. Women are discriminated against on a regular basis, with members of the LGBTQ+ community criminalised for merely existing.

The Public Investment Fund has been used to sports-wash the reputation of the country that it belongs to. In 2021, for example, it agreed a takeover of Newcastle United Football Club, whilst Saudi Arabia has also paid hundreds of million of pounds to host a Formula One grand prix in the country. By doing so, the hope of those in Saudi Arabia is that it will paint the country in a light of being forward-thinking and progressive and that it will bring on board numerous people who will advocate on behalf of the Saudi government. As an example of this in action, here is what Greg Norman said when asked about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia:

“Look, we’ve all made mistakes and you just want to learn from those mistakes and how you can correct them going forward.”

Khashoggi’s fiance, Hatice Cengiz, said,

“How can we go forward when those who ordered the murder are still unpunished and continue to buy back their legitimacy?”

It is the latter part of the sentence that most neatly sums up sports-washing, given that it is the use of sporting endeavours to get people to look the other way whilst human rights abuses are carried out on a regular basis. Phil Mickelson, meanwhile, had previously said that the

“Saudis were ‘scary mother****ers to get involved with…we know they killed Khashoggi and have a horrible record with human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it?”

He did consider it, though, later declaring that it was a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ that would allow him to ‘reshape how the PGA Tour operates’. He said said that he was ‘not condoning human rights violations’, declaring that LIV Golf could be ‘good for the sport’. Yet by taking part in it, many feel that the golfers are indeed condoning human rights violations and are doing the job of improving the reputation of Saudi Arabia in the public eye. Mickelson apologised at the start of his press conference about LIV Golf, leading to one journalist asking if he was apologising ‘for speaking the truth about the Saudis or are you sorry for the shameless hypocrisy of taking their money anyway?’

LIV Golf announced that it would be giving £1 million to benefit local communities ahead of the inaugural event at Centurion Club in the UK. That is a classic move of sports-washing organisations, trying to win over the hearts and minds of locals. Manchester City, which is owned by the royal family of Abu Dhabi invested huge amounts of money into the area around the Etihad, for example, in an attempt to get local people to think along the lines of ‘well that can’t be that bad, look how much money they have given towards the local hospital’ etc. The Saudis, it seems have learned a lot from Sheikh Mansour and co.

What Next For The Sport Of Golf?

The interesting question that LIV Golf throws up is about what will happen next to the sport that it is a part of. The PGA Tour has been relatively steadfast in its attitude that it is ‘them or us’ when it comes to LIV Golf. When the new media rights deal was announced in 2020, promising about $9 billion over seven years, the PGA Tour also introduced what it referred to as a ‘Player Impact Program’. $40 million was allocated to the top ten players on the PIP Standings, with a $50,000 bonus promised to any player that made 50 starts during the 2021-2022 season. That was seen as an attempt to make a direct response to LIV Golf’s introduction.

The European Tour re-branded to become the DP World Tour in 2022, with the hope being that its strategic alliance with the financial behemoth that is the PGA Tour will allow it to stop feeling as though it is playing second fiddle all the time. It is almost certain, therefore, that the DP World Tour will stick with the same approach that the PGA Tour has taken towards LIV Golf and an other breakaway tournaments that may form in the future. Things are less clear cut for other organisations, however. Augusta National, home of the Masters Tournament, the USGA and the Royal & Ancient haven’t been clear on their thoughts about players taking part in LIV Golf tournaments.

Whether players will be allowed to join the LIV Golf series and then still take part in the likes of the Masters, PGA Championship, the U.S. Open and the Open Championship isn’t clear and could be a defining factor in the decision-making of some golfers. The only organisation that has been clear about its feelings is the the PGA of America when it comes to the Ryder Cup, saying that players that wish to play in the Ryder Cup and represent the United States of America have to be members of the PGA Tour and the PGA of America, ruling out players that lose their PGA Tour membership on account of their participation in LIV Golf.

Perhaps a sign of what is likely to happen in the future was seen when the USGA said that players taking part in the LIV Golf tournament at Centurion Club would be allowed to take part in the US Open a week later. The organisation said,

“We simply asked ourselves this question—should a player who had earned his way into the 2022 U.S. Open, via our published field criteria, be pulled out of the field as a result of his decision to play in another event? And we ultimately decided that they should not. Our decision regarding our field for the 2022 U.S. Open should not be construed as the USGA supporting an alternative organising entity, nor supportive of any individual player actions or comments.”

One of the most interesting things, both for golf as a sport and for the golfers themselves, will be how crowds will react to those that have taken part in LIV Golf as they play in various tournaments around the world. The controversial nature of LIV Golf and its association with Saudi Arabia means that many golf fans are not too happy about the players that chose to take part in it, showing that displeasure as they attempted to play rounds in the likes of the US Open. It is entirely possible that if that continues for the long-term, some players might leave the competition after making their money and others may refuse to even join in the first place.