The LIV leaderboard for the first three majors of the year has been telling.
The man at the top? Bryson DeChambeau, now a two-time major champion and a player who has overhauled his reputation in record time. DeChambeau, you could make the case, is having a better major season than world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. He was T6 at the Masters, runner-up at Valhalla for the PGA Championship and just won the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
The rest of his LIV competitors? For the most part, they have been thoroughly disappointing.
Outside of Bryson, there was only one LIV player in the top 25 of the U.S. Open—44-year-old Sergio Garcia, who grinded his way through sectional qualifying, earned a T12 finish.
And of the 12 players who are under par in the aggregate throughout the first three majors (those who made the cut in all three events), only one of them is from LIV:
- Bryson DeChambeau -28
- Xander Schauffele -23
- Collin Morikawa -17
- Scottie Scheffler -16
- Rory McIlroy -13
- Tommy Fleetwood -10
- Patrick Cantlay -5
- Russell Henley -4
- Hideki Matsuyama -3
- Corey Conners -2
- Shane Lowry -2
- Tony Finau -2
I wrote last week about how Jon Rahm has been a major no-show in 2024. The recent No. 1 player in the world struggled in the first two majors and then withdrew from injury before the U.S. Open started.
Assuming Brooks Koepka isn’t hurt—and he says he is fine—this has been the worst major season of his career relative to his health. He couldn’t get going in 2022 because of injuries but there is no such excuse this time around. He has gone T45-T26-T26, uncharacteristically failing to get into contention.
Cameron Smith and Tyrrell Hatton had top-10 finishes at the Masters. In the ensuing two majors, Smith went T63-T32 and Hatton went T63-T26. Their performances this year are among the highlights for LIV in majors, which is indicative of how quiet it’s been for LIV.
At least that is better than Dustin Johnson, who currently seems to be content sailing off into the sunset with his boatload of cash.
It’s hard to find any LIV player who has seen their major performance improve since switching tours.
There is, however, one gigantic exception.
Bryson And LIV Was The Perfect Marriage
It’s easy to forget that Bryson was a pariah on the PGA Tour. Fans were shouting “Brooksy” at him; he wasn’t particularly well-liked by his peers; the more expansive competitive calendar was more restrictive on how he wanted to spend his time, and public perception was that Bryson needed to mature.
Both public and private evidence piled up over the years. Bryson made a lot of mistakes out of ego, lacking self-awareness and generally just being an over-the-top chode. He listed off sponsors immediately after winning, asked for third opinions from rules officials and wore a cheesy hat that was apparently supposed to honor Ben Hogan (more on that in a moment).
Bryson has always felt like that over-exuberant friend whom you enjoy seeing for a weekend—but your tolerance for them is very limited. You have fun for a couple of days but are ready for them to leave when it’s over. A steady stream of interaction with that friend and your patience frays.
Our collective patience with Bryson frayed. He was over-exposed. My God, during COVID, he was posting 15-minute “day in the life” videos that included his routine of frying bacon shirtless.
Yeah, he earned his reputation.
But with Bryson’s transition to LIV, his exposure to the casual golf fan started to shift. Most fans of tournament golf now only watch him compete four times per year. Suddenly, in a pro golf landscape littered with Patrick Cantlay-esque lack of emotion inside the ropes, Bryson’s embrace of being an entertainer went from palatable to powerful.
Even if you still can’t stand him—and there are justifiable reasons to feel that way—his presence is a massive win for golf and he clearly cares about the fan experience. He’s signing autographs during the final round of a major; he’s giving heroic fist pumps after saving par with 10 holes remaining; he’s successfully coaching Johnson Wagner on how to hit the 55-yard bunker shot that won him the U.S. Open; he’s taking the trophy into the crowd so fans can touch it; he’s spending ample time signing autographs multiple hours after the round, he’s flying to New York City to appear on talk shows the morning after doing all of this.
.@Johnson_Wagner re-creates Bryson DeChambeau's winning bunker shot with some help from Bryson himself!
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) June 17, 2024@b_dechambeau
: Golf Central Live From the #USOpen pic.twitter.com/cjqhdlnMMc
Does it matter whether everything he does is genuine? Does it matter how much of this is the maturation of a 30-year-old kid-grown-old and how much of it is a carefully concocted PR strategy? Does it matter that Bryson appears to have lied about seeing a mural of Payne Stewart (which didn’t exist at the time) when first taking a visit to SMU?
Not to me. He’s a showman. The line between reality and perception will be blurred in the name of entertainment. And we got that Sunday in an instant classic of a tournament that was buoyed significantly by Bryson’s reputation renaissance.
The fact we only see him four times per year not only helps his persona but it made that major Sunday seem even more important, given how rare a battle like that has become.
The move to LIV also opened up his schedule, allowing him to delve into YouTube content creation. When I first saw Alan Shipnuck’s tremendous game story from yesterday’s epic final round at Pinehurst, Bryson was at 695,000 YouTube subscribers. As I write this, about 12 hours later, he’s at 715,000. And by the time you read this, it will undoubtedly be higher.
He seems on pace to be the single most influential golfer on the platform. Bryson claims it wouldn’t have been possible without the move to LIV and I think that’s right. If he stayed on the PGA Tour, there would have been far more restrictions on his ability to create videos and grow his own brand.
And it seems that being out of the spotlight has allowed him to mature to some degree. He’s being mentored by older players on LIV. He can go play golf and be in an environment where people care more about the spectacle than the scores he shoots.
But Others On LIV Are Struggling
The roster of LIV stars, including Bryson, have made an unspeakable amount of money. From that perspective, I’m sure all of them are pretty content with their choice.
But in terms of on-course play and overall reputation, LIV’s best have been going in reverse.
Give credit to Koepka for winning a major last year (he is the only other LIV player to win a major since the league formed) but who else can you point to as someone who has seen their on-course performance definitively improve?
Some will point to a lack of motivation because money is no longer a factor but I think this goes deeper than that.
One salient point made by Shipnuck recently is that LIV’s schedule is not helping players prep for majors in ways they are comfortable with—whether it’s travel or being forced to play at inopportune times.
“I was talking to one of DJ’s people today,” Shipnuck recently tweeted. “They said he’s a creature of routine and LIV massively changed his run-ups to the majors, and not for the better. DJ was overseas for 3 weeks leading into last year’s Open Championship. Sub-optimal.”
For three of this year’s four majors, LIV has a tournament. Well, a lot of guys prefer to take that week off instead of playing. Rahm might have been able to play in the U.S. Open had he not tried to push himself at LIV Houston the week prior, likely injuring himself further.
Only 11 days before the PGA Championship started, LIV was in Singapore, halfway across the world. That’s a lot of travel to acclimate in time for a major in Louisville, Ky. The week before the Open Championship, they will be in Spain, competing on a course that bears zero resemblance to Royal Troon.
It might work for some of the players but some of the decision-making for major prep is taken out of their hands. The Tour has two signature events prior to majors but those events are optional. The Tour run-up to majors is also more geographically cognizant, keeping travel limited.
And can you point to any other LIV player who fans like more, compared to when they were on Tour? In every case I can think of, the answer is that fans are simply more apathetic to those players than before.
For whatever reason, that LIV balance and freedom has been right for DeChambeau. It’s allowed him to flourish into perhaps the most popular player in golf.
Just a few short years ago, nobody could have seen that coming.
Top Photo Caption: Moving to LIV has helped Bryson more than any other player (LIV GOLF/Jon Ferrey)
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