00:00It's fair to say that Live Golf has truly shaken up the world of men's professional golf,
00:04especially with the signings of Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton for its third season in 2024.
00:10But how does it all work? In this video, we're going to find out.
00:13The Live Golf League consists of 14 events across the world,
00:20starting in February and running until the closing event in August.
00:23While five of its tournaments are held in the US, the league will also visit Hong Kong,
00:29Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Spain and the UK for its 2024 season.
00:37Each event is three days long, featuring 18 three-balls,
00:40all starting simultaneously with a shotgun start, and there is no mid-tournament cut.
00:45For 2024, the league has 54 players, 13 teams of four each, along with two wildcard entries
00:52each week. These wildcards can earn points in the individual standings and,
00:56if they perform well, could earn a future spot on a Live Golf team.
00:59In 2024, each tournament has a $20 million purse for the individual event, divided up
01:05between all 54 players, and a $5 million purse for the team event going to the top three teams.
01:12To give you an idea of how that is all split out, let's take a look at the Live Golf Las Vegas
01:16event that took place in February 2024. Justin Johnson won that event and took home $4 million,
01:23while second-placed Taylor Gooch won $1.875 million. With no cuts at Live events,
01:29it still means that last-placed Brendan Steele and Charles Wartsall took home $50,000 each,
01:34despite finishing 22 shots behind the winner. The team prize money is divided between the top
01:40three teams, and at the Live Las Vegas event, Smash GC won the team event by having the best
01:45combined score over the three rounds. Its four members, Graham McDowell, Taylor Gooch, Brooks
01:51Koepka, and Jason Kokrak, split the $3 million between them. The second-placed team was Four
01:57Aces GC, they split $1.5 million, while third-placed Range Goats GC split $500,000.
02:04Aside from tournament weekends themselves, players and teams are battling it out across
02:09the season for two titles, the Individual Championship and the Team Championship.
02:15The Individual Championship runs throughout the season. So, at each tournament, players finish
02:20with their three-round total score to pars we're sort of used to, and then the top 24 finishers
02:26earn points corresponding to their finishing position. The player with the most points at
02:31the end of the season wins the title. So, first place at a tournament gets 40 points,
02:37second place gets 30 points, and third place gets 24 points. Points are given out to players
02:42finishing inside the top 24 only. These points gather cumulatively through the whole season.
02:48So, in 2023, to give you an example, the individual title went to Taylor Gooch,
02:52who amassed 192 points across the whole campaign. At the end of the season, non-exempt players who
02:58finish 45th or lower in the individual points table are relegated from the league. So, last
03:05year, Lee Westwood and Martin Keimer finished 45th and 49th, respectively, but because they're exempt,
03:11because they're team captains, they did not get relegated. Jediah Morgan, James Pyatt,
03:16Chase Koepka, and Siwon Kim were relegated from the league for finishing outside of the top 45.
03:22In 2024, the league introduced a transfer window and free agency period to allow for movement
03:27between rosters and trades to take place in the off-season. You can visit the Golf Monthly website
03:33for a separate explainer on how the live transfer system works. The team competition works in a very
03:39similar way to the individual championship. So, each of the 13 teams builds a cumulative score
03:45across a tournament weekend, and the top eight teams at the end of the weekend earn points
03:50corresponding to that finishing position. So, the team in first place for a weekend is awarded 32
03:56points, second place gets 24 points, and third place 16 points, all the way down to the team
04:02finishing in eighth that week. For example, after two events of the 2024 season, John Rahm's new
04:08Legion 13 team finished first in one event and fifth in the other. With 32 points being awarded
04:14for first place and eight points being awarded for fifth place, the team currently has 40 points,
04:20leaving it in first place in the order of merit after two events. In one final twist, leading the
04:26league table after 13 events won't actually win you the team championship outright, as the league
04:31table simply decides the seedings for the final round of the year. The Live Golf League team
04:37championship finale takes place at the final event of the season in a knockout format that combines
04:43both match play and stroke play. So, to give you an example, last year, 2023, while four aces GC amassed
04:50the most points over the season, they didn't win the final team knockout because Bryson DeChambeau's
04:55Crushers GC won that final event of the year and claimed the team championship for 2023.
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