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 Kocrak, 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 Kylmer finished 45th and 49th respectively, but because they're exempt,
03:11because they're team captains, they did not get relegated.
03:14Jadiyah Morgan, James Pyatt, Chase Koepka, and Si-Wan Kim were relegated from the league for
03:20finishing outside of the top 45. In 2024, the league introduced a transfer window and free
03:25agency period to allow for movement between rosters and trades to take place in the off-season.
03:32You can visit the Golf Monthly website for a separate explainer on how the live transfer
03:36system works. The team competition works in a very similar way to the individual championship.
03:42So, each of the 13 teams builds a cumulative score across a tournament weekend,
03:47and the top eight teams at the end of the weekend earn points corresponding to that
03:52finishing position. So, the team in first place for a weekend is awarded 32 points,
03:57second place gets 24 points, and third place 16 points, all the way down to the team finishing
04:02in eighth that week. For example, after two events in 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,
04:25leading the league table after 13 events won't actually win you the team championship outright,
04:30as the league table simply decides the seedings for the final round of the year.
04:35The Live Golf League team championship finale takes place at the final event of the season
04:41in a knockout format that combines both match play and stroke play. So, to give you an example,
04:46last year, 2023, while four aces GC amassed the most points over the season, they didn't win the
04:52final team knockout, because Bryson DeChambeau's crush's GC won that final event of the year
04:59and claimed the team championship for 2023.
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