LIV Golf had a big opportunity Sunday. Did it take benefit?

LIV Golf was given an opportunity on Sunday.

The PGA Tour’s last spherical was pushed off resulting from some really gnarly climate circumstances at Pebble Beach, giving LIV’s first occasion of the 2024 season the complete stage. And it was Jon Rahm’s first occasion as a LIV golfer, with Rahm in rivalry for the win at Mayakoba, Mexico. As a lot cash as LIV has spent to get off the bottom and fill its 54-man roster, typically luck nonetheless brings the best probabilities you’ll get.

So how did the 3-year-old product do? I had some ideas.

Legion earlier than me

Rahm didn’t win Sunday — he completed bogey-bogey, dropping off the shared lead and ceding the stage to Joaquin Niemann and Sergio Garcia for a four-hole playoff, dramatically gained by Niemann with the one gentle on the course coming from the leaderboard overlooking the 18th inexperienced.

Rahm was dejected, as anybody who has ever watched Rahm play golf would think about, and took some cajoling from the LIV broadcast workforce to acknowledge that his Legion XIII workforce had gained the workforce competitors. It’ll be fascinating shifting ahead to see how Rahm handles that push and pull. Most of those guys are nonetheless hardwired to solely care about their efficiency, and LIV asks for a reset of priorities.

Jon Rahm completed third at his first LIV occasion. (Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images)

Rahm’s LIV Golf affect

Rahm’s greatest affect on the league to this point is that his presence appears to have tilted the scales for LIV concerning relevancy.

The preliminary roster was so stuffed with has-beens and those that by no means can be that Dustin Johnson felt like a complete outlier. Well, Brooks Koepka made it a bit higher. So did Bryson DeChambeau. Then Cameron Smith. It nonetheless wasn’t sufficient to shake the sensation that each week a longtime star didn’t win the LIV occasion was a missed opportunity, and if two or three of these guys had an off-week it was straightforward to scoff on the leaderboard.

But Friday’s first spherical felt totally different with Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton. There had been extra guys that you simply need to watch play golf, not out of sentimentality or curiosity however since you need to watch the very best of the very best.

The high 10 from Mayakoba included Niemann, Garcia, Rahm, Johnson, Koepka, Hatton, Smith and Louis Oosthuizen. You’re telling on your self in case you dismiss that.

Niemann needs into Augusta

Not certain what to take from Niemann dropping within the successful putt and making a lot of his victory interview about his exclusion from the foremost championships. “I’m not in the majors,” was the very first thing he stated when given a mic. Is it a signal of his competitiveness that his thoughts instantly went to the following factor, or one thing else?

The 25-year-old Chilean has competed within the final 12 majors however is at present on the skin trying in for the Masters at No. 66 on this planet, per Official World Golf Ranking. (He’s ranked twenty seventh on InformationGolf.com, which takes into consideration LIV outcomes.)

Niemann is into the Open Championship due to his Australian Open win in December. Still, he’ll need to work on Asian Tour occasions and hope to build up sufficient factors to get into the OWGR high 50 earlier than April.

While sympathetic to his plight, all of us understood the deal right here. LIV has had an OWGR drawback since Day 1.

LIV on TV

Let’s speak in regards to the broadcast.

First, the positives: Most of what’s placed on the display screen is kind of good. The leaderboard is a plus, related stats are on the prepared, and the placing line graphic helps the viewer to know what they’re watching. They additionally did a good job of laying out and letting us hear the participant and caddy talk about pictures, and that’s the great things. There are additionally simply a lot of golf pictures proven, which mustn’t really feel so revolutionary, however for a public subjected to NBC’s PGA Tour broadcasts it simply does.

As for every part else? It leaves a lot to be desired.

The greatest drawback with an LIV Golf broadcast is that it’s continuously attempting to persuade us of one thing, as an alternative of simply letting occasions converse for themselves. There’s a fixed barrage of Tweets, which as a storytelling mechanism feels stolen out of a 2012 sport broadcast anyway — they usually’re all about the identical. That participant is nice. This is thrilling. I’m watching proper now. They don’t add something, and if Arlo White isn’t studying them for us they’re scrolling alongside the underside of the display screen.

White is commonly on this place, extra pitchman than broadcaster. There’s a three-man sales space and two on-course reporters, and loads of time for them to speak. But treasured little perception is obtainable, and it usually seems like they’re all simply passing the baton of who’s going to repeat the corporate line this time.

Whether that’s how they really feel or simply what’s being requested of them, it has the identical affect. When you might be continuously telling me every part is superior and regular rounds of golf are one thing extra, then when the really high-level second comes alongside there’s no greater stage to go. It’s why newspapers didn’t run the Pearl Harbor font measurement each day. It would cease getting your consideration.

So on Friday as Niemann hunted down a 57, which might have been the bottom spherical ever on a main professional golf tour, the printed couldn’t sufficiently rise to the second. It had nowhere else to go.

LIV has a probability to get extra eyeballs this 12 months. The on-course product is miles higher than when it began. The relaxation simply must develop with it.

(Top picture of Joaquin Niemann: Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images)