It wasn’t the offseason LIV Golf’s CEO, Scott O’Neil, would have liked.
This winter marked the first full offseason for LIV’s CEO, but instead of bringing in star names as his predecessor, Greg Norman did, O’Neil lost them.
Both Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed jumped ship to rejoin the PGA Tour, taking their six major championships with them. They were the first major names to leave the Saudi-backed tour, and their departure cast LIV as a sinking ship.
That, combined with the difficulty LIV had recruiting players over the winter, means the tour is in some trouble. They started their new season nonetheless, with a brand-new format and OWGR points.
And in their first event of the season, it was promising 23-year-old talent Elvis Smylie who took the win. O’Neil said during the offseason that the tour is focusing on fleshing out the middle of their roster with young talent, and that was put to him after Koepka and Reed’s departure.
Scott O’Neil breaks silence on Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed leaving LIV
O’Neil admitted during the offseason that LIV was already short of depth, so losing Koepka and Reed was a blow. But the tour has always stood for freedom of player movement, and O’Neil stayed true to that philosophy when responding to their departure.
He said, “It’s a wonderful time to be in professional golf. There’s certainly a lot of movement and quite a bit of action, and we have advocated for free agency in golf since day one of LIV.
“Being able to have a field of 57 players and lose a couple is perfectly fine. I have such affinity and affection for our legends of the game and the superstars, Bryson, Dustin, Cam, Jon Rahm. It’s a pretty amazing roster of stars.
“I’m equally intrigued by this emerging young core of stars, yeah. I think we’re in as good a hands as we’ve ever been. Strength of field is as good as it’s ever been. I think that’s only going to continue.”
LIV’s best chance of survival 10 years down the road is to develop its new wave of young players into their own superstars, so the emergence of Smylie can only be a good thing for LIV. But that only cuts through if they can replicate the same success in the majors.
How Elvis Smylie can qualify for The Masters
Now that LIV has acquired OWGR points, it’s possible for its players to qualify for the major championships based solely on their play in the league.
To qualify for The Masters, players have until LIV South Africa, the fifth event of the season, to reach the top 50 in the World Golf Rankings. That means consistently ranking in the top 10 of the 57-man events.
Winning LIV Riyadh was a big step towards qualification for Smylie. It catapulted him from 133rd to 77th in the world, but he’s still 27 places from booking his spot at Augusta National.
Because finishing outside of the top-10 would earn him no points and add another event to his name, he’d drop back in the standings, so Smylie has to consistently get himself to the top of the leaderboard.
To climb into the Top 50 and stay there, he likely needs to secure multiple top-5 finishes during the early 2026 LIV season to offset the weeks where he may fall outside the points-paying top 10.
So over the next four events before The Masters cutoff, another two top fives should do it!
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