LIV Golf, the call goes out to keep the "card"

• golf

To date, LIV players have been contracted to participate in invitational tournaments. But, as we have seen, from this season the music changes, because the players who find themselves in the last four places in the individual ranking will lose the invitation, which they will have to try to earn again in the qualifying tournament in early November.

Liv, schedule

With only two events still available (Chicago and Jeddah), the group of players at risk of relegation is, reasonably, limited to those in the bottom eight positions. To date, the four who would lose the invitation are Sihwan Kim, Chase Koepka, James Piot and Jediah Morgan.

Just above them in the rankings we find, on the bubble, Bernd Wiesberger, Laurie Canter, Sam Horsefield and Charl Schwartzel. They will certainly be two more closely fought events than last year where the "card" was not in question.

Furthermore, the places available to "return" for the 2024 season are, in reality, only three, given that one of the four free slots is intended for the winner of the Order of Merit of the International Series of the Asian Tour, currently led by the American Andy Ogletree.

And speaking of the International Series, the breaking news is the signing of the agreement between the Asian Tour and the China Golf Association: the eighth event of the Series will be the Volvo China Open, which will be played at Shenzen's Hidden Grace Golf Club.

The tournament will mark China's return to the professional golf stage after four years. LIV Golf, also known as Super Golf League is a professional golf circuit. It was founded in 2022, with the sponsorship of the Public Investment Fund (it is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia) 1.

The circuit rivals the PGA Tour (United States) and the DP World Tour (Europe), offering substantially higher prize money. The name LIV refers to the total number of holes to be played in each event (54 in Roman numerals, corresponding to 3 rounds of 18 holes), as opposed to the usual 72 holes (4 rounds of 18 holes) in other tours. Alternatively, 54 is the score obtained by making a birdie on each hole on a par 72.2 course.