The Flaws in LIV Golf Promotions

LIV Golf has done a lot of things well, especially with its schedule and hosting events in professional golf-starved areas of the country and world. I’ve reported on the league since its inception, and one of my biggest critiques of the actual product – sportswashing and how they went about launching the league aside – has been the so-called promotion and relegation system.

I love the idea of relegation in professional sports, and having an open pathway via a qualifying event is great in principle and brings a little meritocracy to LIV’s largely hand-out product. But in practice, there are some glaring flaws. This week, 93 players will tee it up for one league spot in 2025. Just one. And it’s likely he will only be a wild card player and not a member of a team. Included in that list of 93 players are five who were just relegated for not being good enough three months ago: Branden Grace, Kalle Samooja, Hudson Swafford, Kieran Vincent, and Scott Vincent. If a player can regain status through one event a month after being relegated, then it’s not a real relegation system.

European soccer has the most notable form of relegation in sport. If a team finishes at the bottom of a league, they drop down a division and have to play their way back up during the next season. They don’t get to play a one-off event to get back into a league where they just proved they’re not worthy of competing across an entire season.

This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.