With LIV’s final individual event – the LIV Individual Championship – about to get underway at Chicago’s Bolingbrook Golf Club, there is a lot at stake and it’s not just the $18 million that Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann are vying for.
In 2023, team captains were exempt from relegation and it had widely been believed that the same was true for 2024 but at the 11th hour, LIV have announced that that’s not the case and anybody ranked outside the top 48 will face the chop, though both Hudson Swafford and Anthony Kim, as wildcards, could be signed to one of the teams if the team captain wishes.
This means that Range Goats captain Bubba Watson could find himself in no man’s land in 2025. Ranked 52nd, Watson hasn’t earned a single ranking point since the second event of the season, while both Phil Mickelson and Ian Poulter are also in with a chance of falling into the relegation zone should things go against them this week.
There is still a grey area, however, and it is believed that a relegated player’s status could be reinstated if there is a business case for their contract being renewed, and as a two-time Masters champion and one of the more colourful characters in the game, Watson may well fall into that category, as might Mickelson and Poulter.
Harold Varner III and Pat Perez, both of whom play for Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces, are the two players most in danger of slipping into the relegation zone.
Relegated players would still have one additional path to earn playing rights for 2025 but that would mean a successful trip to the LIV Golf Promotions qualifying event.
It may have been an honest misunderstanding, but Graeme McDowell testing positive for a banned substance and being forced to watch LIV Greenbrier from the sidelines could be very costly as he goes into the final individual event of the LIV season needing a good week to secure his playing rights for 2025.
The Portrush man is ranked 27th, with the top 24 guaranteed playing rights for 2025, and needs to pick up at least 13 points but likely more if he’s to climb inside the safety zone. For context, his seventh place finish at LIV Nashville was worth exactly that, so anything outside of that will see him come up shy.
It’s not all doom and gloom if he doesn’t, however, as he was in a similar situation last year and Smash GC captain Brooks Koepka offered G-Mac a berth in the side. McDowell’s performances have been significantly better in 2024 with three top-10 finishes, but there are no guarantees that another will be forthcoming.
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