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.
00:16The Live Golf League consists of 14 events across the world,
00:20starting in February and running until the closing event in August.
00:24While 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.
00:36Each 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 each week.
00:53These wildcards can earn points in the individual standings,
00:55and if 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 between all 54
01:06players, and a $5 million purse for the team event, going to the top three teams.
01:11To give you an idea of how that is all split out, let's take a look at the Live Golf
01:15Las Vegas event
01:16that took place in February 2024.
01:19Justin Johnson won that event and took home $4 million, while second-placed Taylor Gooch won $1.875 million.
01:27With no cuts at Live events, it still means that last-placed Brendan Steele and Charles Swartzel
01:32took home $50,000 each, despite finishing 22 shots behind the winner.
01:37The team prize money is divided between the top three teams, and at the Live Las Vegas event,
01:42Smash GC won the team event by having the best combined score over the three rounds.
01:48Its four members, Graham McDowell, Taylor Gooch, Brooks Koepka, and Jason Kokrak,
01:53split the $3 million between them. The second-placed team was Four Aces GC,
01:58they 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 the season
02:10for 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 par as we're sort of used to, and then the top 24 finishers
02:26earn
02:26points corresponding to their finishing position. The player with the most points at the end of the
02:32season wins the title. So first place at a tournament gets 40 points, second place gets 30 points, and third
02:39place gets 24 points. Points are given out to players finishing inside the top 24 only.
02:45These points gather cumulatively through the whole season. So in 2023, to give you an example,
02:50the individual title went to Taylor Gooch, who amassed 192 points across the whole campaign.
02:56At the end of the season, non-exempt players who finish 45th or lower in the individual points table
03:02are relegated from the league. So last year, Lee Westwood and Martin Keimer finished 45th and 49th
03:08respectively, but because they're exempt, because they're team captains, they did not get relegated.
03:14Judiah Morgan, James Pyatt, Chase Koepka and Shi-Wang Kim were relegated from the league for finishing
03:20outside of the top 45. In 2024, the league introduced a transfer window and free agency period to allow for
03:27movement between rosters and trades to take place in the off-season. You can visit the Goal Monthly
03:33website for a separate explainer on how the live transfer system works. The team competition works
03:38in a very similar way to the individual championship. So each of the 13 teams builds a
03:44cumulative score across a tournament weekend, and the top eight teams at the end of the weekend earn
03:50points corresponding 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 finishing
04:02in eighth that week. For example, after two events of the 2024 season, John Rahm's new Legion 13 team
04:10finished first in one event and fifth in the other. With 32 points being awarded for first place and eight
04:16points being awarded for fifth place, the team currently has 40 points, leaving it in first place in the
04:22order of merit after two events. In one final twist, leading the league table after 13 events won't
04:28actually win you the team championship outright, as the league table simply decides the seedings for the
04:34final round of the year. The Live Golf League team championship finale takes place at the final event of
04:40the season in 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 final
04:53team knockout because Bryson DeChambeau crushed his GC, won that final event of the year, and claimed the
04:59team championship for 2023.
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