LIV Golf officially announced three more events to its 2023 schedule overnight.
The tournaments, which were outlined by Golf Digest two weeks ago, will be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tucson, Arizona, and White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Two of those host sites – the Gallery Golf Club in Tucson and the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs – have formerly held PGA Tour events. Cedar Ridge will serve as the Tulsa stop.
The Greenbrier news is far from a surprise. West Virginia govenor Jim Justice, owner of the Greenbrier, acknowledged interest in hosting the breakaway circuit earlier this year after LIV Golf chief executive Greg Norman and other LIV officials were seen on the Greenbrier grounds in August. The Greenbrier Classic was a PGA Tour event from 2010 to 2019, with Xander Schauffele, Stuart Appleby and Angel Cabrera among the notables on its winners’ roll. Current LIV Golf member Joaquin Niemann was the event’s final winner. In 2020, the Greenbrier and PGA Tour elected to cancel the final seven remaining years of the tournament contract, which was previously planned to run through 2026. Sources told Golf Digest that tournament officials were not happy with the event’s move from its July 4 date to the northern autumn. The property has also hosted Ryder and Solheim Cups, and the resort is famous for its underground declassified bunker, which was supposed to serve as home to Congress during a nuclear attack.
The Gallery was the host to the WGC–Match Play in 2008 and 2009, won by Tiger Woods and LIV member Henrik Stenson. The WGC–Match Play remained in the Dove Mountain community for six more seasons before moving in 2015.
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With this latest announcement, LIV has confirmed seven of its 14 events for next season. Sources have told Golf Digest LIV is expected to continue its relationship with former American president Donald Trump. The Saudi-backed circuit played two tournaments on Trump properties last year in Bedminster, New Jersey and at Doral outside Miami, Florida; those courses will again be in LIV’s rotation. Other first-year sites used during its first season in London (Centurion), Chicago (Rich Harvest Farms) and Boston (the International) are also expected to be back, sources tell Golf Digest. LIV previously announced stops in Australia, Spain, Singapore and Mexico.
The LIV Golf schedule will be rounded out with a second tournament in Florida as well as a competition near Washington, DC.
The LIV Golf season will begin on February 24 at Mayakoba, with both individual and team competitions similar to the inaugural season returning. LIV Golf remains in a legal battle with the PGA Tour; LIV Golf has accused the tour of anticompetitive behaviour, while the tour has counter-sued, believing the LIV-backed lawsuit is a “cynical effort to avoid competition and to freeride off of the tour’s investment in the development of professional golf”.
