LIV Golf stars have talked a lot about the positives of joining Greg Norman’s new golf tour, but the overriding factor of the financial rewards have been fully shown by the appearance of several in the latest rich list – even after big drops in sponsorship.
The likes of Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau have been banned from the PGA Tour, while Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia have resigned from the DP World Tour after being fined for playing LIV Golf events.
While losing their Tour status and likely Ryder Cup futures has undoubtedly hurt their golfing legacies in some quarters, it could also have cost them financially with sponsors not wanting to be involved in such a divisive topic.
However, with the beauty of guaranteed payments and signing-on bonuses the Saudi-backed operation has paid out, overall the LIV Golf players are still getting richer quicker – as proven by several making it onto Forbes' Highest Paid Athletes list.
What’s more remarkable, and proves a point for many, is that some of the players who appear on the list have had very little on-course success, even in LIV Golf, but have still pocketed huge sums thanks to LIV’s signing bonuses.
So while off-course endorsements have gone down, LIV Golf stars are in the money, and none more so than Johnson who split from Adidas and RBC but made a huge $107m thanks to a whopping signing bonus.
Mickelson has lost some of the biggest sponsorship deals around, but as the face of LIV he’s made $106m despite just $2m coming from endorsements.
It is perhaps Sergio Garcia’s name next to a $46m total that raised the most eyebrows though, considering the Spaniard hasn’t won a tournament anywhere since October 2020.
Garcia did make a playoff for the LIV Golf event in Singapore recently but that’s as close as he has been to winning an individual title for some time.
Given his performances, the fact Garcia claimed $43m of his total in on-course earnings compared to World No.1 and fellow Spaniard Jon Rahm making $28m is perhaps the starkest contrast of the lot – and proves just what huge financial gains can be achieved by playing for LIV.
DeChambeau took home $68m for his on-course efforts yet he's also not exactly torn it up on the LIV Golf tour - but was of course a marquee signing.
Some will say that a criticism laid against LIV of rewarding mediocrity has been clearly shown in these figures – after all Mickelson even now still has a best finish of eighth in LIV in one of just four top 20 finishes in 13 events, yet has still been massively rewarded.
Mickelson did challenge at the Masters though and if he’s up there again on the PGA Championship leaderboard some will argue that less golf and more money is the ideal scenario.
Of course, where this money is coming from and what LIV golf is doing in the world of golf are also factors in this continuing saga, but for those who “are just here to play golf” it seems the rewards are huge – no matter how you play or how many endorsement deals you lose.
