Schedule, player list, venues and what we know as Jon Rahm joins

When the highly contentious LIV Invitational Series resumes in 2024, its growing list of big-name golfers will boast a new star: reigning Masters champion and world No 3-ranked Jon Rahm.

Rahm – a four-time winner on the 2023 PGA Tour, member of Europe’s Ryder Cup-winning team and prior critic of the LIV format – shocked the golf world on Thursday when he penned a deal understood to be worth up to £450m with the break-away league.

The LIV Golf set-up, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (which also owns the majority stake in Newcastle United), is set to return for its third season early next year.

Similar to last season, the circuit will feature 14 stops with teams of four golfers on a 54-hole format – but in a sort of football-cum-NBA, there are transfers and free agency in play this time around, as well as ‘relegation’ and ‘promotion’.

Where are all the 2024 LIV Golf events?

Kicking off in early February, the 2024 LIV Golf schedule features 14 stops, including new events in Las Vegas, Houston and Nashville.

London’s Centurion Club, the host of the inaugural LIV Golf event last year, is absent from the circuit this time around.

Dates and locations for the individual and team championships have yet to be announced, while locations for the Saudi Arabia stop in March and the US event the week before The Masters in April are also currently unconfirmed.

LIV Golf 2024 schedule

Date: event – venue

• 2-4 February: LIV Golf Mayakoba — El Camaleon Golf Club, Mexico
• 8-10 February: LIV Golf Las Vegas — Las Vegas Country Club, Las Vegas
• 1-3 March: LIV Golf Saudi Arabia — TBA
• 8-10 March: LIV Golf Hong Kong — Hong Kong Golf Club, Hong Kong
• 5-7 April: LIV Golf USA — Location and course TBA
• 26-28 April: LIV Golf Adelaide — The Grange Golf Club, Australia
• 3-5 May: LIV Golf Singapore — Sentosa Golf Club, Singapore
• 7-9 June: LIV Golf Houston — The Golf Club of Houston, Texas
• 21-23 June: LIV Golf Nashville — The Grove Golf Club, Tennessee
• 12-14 July: LIV Golf Andalucia — Real Club Valderrama, Spain
• 25-28 July: LIV Golf UK — JCB Golf and Country Club, Staffordshire
• 16-19 August: LIV Golf Greenbrier — The Old White Course at the Greenbrier, West Virginia
• TBA: LIV Golf Individual Championships
• TBA: LIV Golf Team Championships

Who are the players and how does it work?

The format of LIV tournaments is very different to traditional majors, with 54 holes – “LIV” is 54 in Roman numerals – rather than 72 and a “shotgun” start where players tee off at the same time.

Golfers are also grouped into teams of four, of which there were 12 – owned 75 per cent to 25 per cent by LIV and star players, respectively – last year. The threesomes shotgun start format means that the league could at some point accommodate up to 15 teams, should it attract enough players to do so.

With reports that Rahm could be handed a team of his own (as well as an ownership stake), it’s currently unclear whether a thirteenth team could be added or whether the Spaniard will simply take the reigns of an existing franchise.

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As it stands, the rosters for the 12 existing teams are as follows:

• 4Aces – Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Pat Perez, Harold Varner III
• Cleeks – Martin Kaymar, Richard Bland
• Crushers – Bryson DeChambeau, Paul Casey, Charles Howell III, Anirban Lahiri
• Fireballs – Sergio Garcia, Abraham Ancer, Eugenio Chacarra, David Puig
• HyFlyers – Phil Mickelson, Brendan Steele, Cameron Tringale
• Iron Heads – Kevin Na, Danny Lee, Scott Vincent
• Majesticks – Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson, Sam Horsfield
• RangeGoats – Bubba Watson, Peter Uihlein, Matthew Wolff, Thomas Pieters
• Ripper – Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman
• Smash – Brooks Koepka, Talor Gooch, Jason Kokrak, Graeme McDowell
• Stinger – Louis Oosthuizen, Dean Burmester, Brandon Grace, Charl Schwartzel
• Torque – Joaquin Niemann, Sebastian Munoz, Mito Pereira, Carlos Ortiz

Sticking with the 48-player model, it means six spots were open as of 8 December.

One was vacated by Bernd Wiesberger, whose membership application to return to the DP World Tour was accepted for 2024 after a year on the LIV circuit. Another, which belonged to Matt Jones last season, is currently up for grabs with the Australian out of contract and at the mercy of his countryman and Ripper team captain Cameron Smith.

Meanwhile, the four players at the bottom (positions 45-48) of last season’s rankings – Jediah Morgan, Chase Koepka, James Piot and Sihwan Kim – were ‘relegated’, their roster spots cut.

Andy Ogletree, No 1 on the Asian Tour’s International Series, is set to fill one of those places in the 2024 season, while the other three will be determined by a three-day, four-round ‘Promotions’ event.

The top three finishers from that event, which takes place 8-10 Dec at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club in UAE and has a total prize pot of $1.5m (around £1.2m), will be drafted onto a team. The relegated players also have the chance to earn their spots back via that route, expect for the Koepka who pulled out.

Players who finished in the top 24 spots in the season-long points standings last time out were locked in to remain with their team this season, while those ranked 25th through 44th found themselves LIV’s ‘open zone’ that allows them to be traded to other teams.

Off-season trades so far have included Carlos Ortiz to Joaquin Niemann’s Torque, with David Puig going the other way to the Sergio Garcia-captained Fireballs, while Bubba Watson‘s RangeGoats traded Harold Varner III to Dustin Johnson‘s 4Aces in return for Peter Uihlein, and Talor Gooch to Brooks Koepka‘s Smash for Matthew Wolff.

Rahm ‘coup’ marks a ‘seismic’ power shift for LIV

The decision by the world’s No 3-ranked golfer to join LIV has caused a sizeable stir in the golf world, with world No 2 Rory McIlroy saying he feared the sport was “cannabilising” itself.

Englishman and fellow Ryder Cup Europe team member Justin Rose called the move a “huge coup” for LIV, with 2014 Ryder Cup-winning captain Paul McGinley saying it represented a “seismic shift” in terms of power in the game.

Rumours had begun to swirl over the golfing future of the 29-year-old Spaniard, with speculation intensifying when he withdrew from the McIlroy and Tiger Woods-backed TGL league’s inaugural season last month and was notably absent from the line-up of golfers committed to the PGA Tour’s American Express stop in January.

And despite admitting his decision to join LIV was a “risk” in terms of his future participation in the Ryder Cup – players must remain members of the DP World Tour to be eligible for the biennial USA vs Europe showdown – Rahm told Fox News: “Things have changed a lot in the game of golf over the past two years and I’ve seen the growth of LIV Golf and the innovation.

“That’s why I’m here today. This decision was made for many reasons and what I thought was best for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great deal.”

That big money agreement made Rahm the second reigning Major champion to ditch the PGA Tour for LIV, after Smith in August 2022.

What has happened in previous seasons

Last season – the first one with a 14-event circuit – kicked off in Mayakoba in February 2023, followed by tournaments in Tucson, Orlando, Adelaide, Singapore, Tulsa, DC, Valderrama, London, Greenbrier, Bedminster, Chicago, Miami and Jeddah.

Its team championship was won by former US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau‘s Crushers in October, who claimed the $14m (£11.5m) top prize at Trump Doral in Miami, Florida.

The first LIV Golf event was held in England in June 2022, with subsequent tournaments in the eight-event inaugural circuit taking place in Portland, Bedminster, Boston, Chicago, Bangkok, Jeddah and Miami.

In the build-up, players faced questions about “sportswashing” and whether Saudi Arabia was seeking to deflect attention from its human rights record by investing so heavily in the sport.

The financial package put forward by LIV Golf seduced the likes of Johnson, Lee Westwood, and Garcia from the get-go in 2022, with Phil Mickelson, Ian Poulter and plenty of others signing up soon after.

Mickelson, who was reportedly paid $200m (£159m) just for turning up, previously called the Saudis “scary motherf**kers” before backtracking.

“I don’t condone human rights violations at all,” he later said. “I’m certainly aware of what has happened with Jamal Khashoggi and I think it’s terrible. I have also seen the good that the game of golf has done throughout history and I believe LIV Golf is going to do a lot of good for the game as well.”

Johnson, once the world’s top-ranked golfer, announced his resignation from the PGA Tour in 2022 in order to concentrate fully on the new tournament fronted by fellow former world No 1 Greg Norman.

The PGA has since suspended all players to have made the switch, while the DP World Tour has been embroiled in legal battles over fines and suspensions it imposed on players who competed in LIV’s opening event.

Graeme McDowell said “we’re not politicians, we’re professional golfers,” in regards to the country’s human rights record. Talor Gooch responded “I’m a golfer, I’m not that smart”.

Poulter and Westwood both said they would not answer “hypothetical questions” when asked whether they would have played in a tournament held by Vladimir Putin, or in South Africa during Apartheid.

Four-time major winner Brooks Koepka, DeChambeau and ex-Masters champion Patrick Reed signed up to the breakaway competition after the first event, while Paul Casey was also confirmed in early July.

Niemann and Open champion Smith were then among a fresh wave of players unveiled by LIV Golf in late summer 2022.