LIV Golf Promotions Field is Unlikely to Set Any Pulses Racing

LIV Golf had trumpeted the fact that a major champion would be in the field for their inaugural LIV Golf Promotions tournament in Abu Dhabi this week. It turns out that the golfer in question is Jason Dufner, a man whose career has been in terminal decline for a number of years.

He comfortably failed to keep his PGA Tour card in 2023 so you can be sure that Jay Monahan will not be losing any sleep should Dufner somehow manage to gain one of the top-three finishes that will secure “promotion” to the LIV Golf tour in 2024.

As far as the rest of the field is concerned, it is a question of “who is that”?

I don’t pretend to understand how on earth this 72-hole tournament will work. This is how LIV explain it:

"Nearly 60 players will tee off in round one on December 8, and those who finish in the top 20 and ties advance to Saturday’s second round, where scores will reset, and the field will be joined by a category of players who automatically qualified for day two of competition. 

"The top 20 players (after tiebreakers) following round two will advance to the final day of competition, where scores will reset once more for a 36-hole shootout. At Sunday’s conclusion, the top three finishers will receive highly coveted spots in the LIV Golf League for 2024, where they will compete in each of the league’s 14 stops on the 2024 global schedule. In addition, players finishing fourth to 10th place will earn full exemption for all 2024 events on The International Series sanctioned by the Asian Tour.”

So it is a 72-hole tournament that is not a 72-hole tournament at all!

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

Back to some of those taking part. They include Irish golfers Max Kennedy and Ryan Griffin and 22-year-old Chinese amateur star Samson-Yunhe Zheng, who will clearly turn professional if he qualifies.

I have to say that it is also pretty sad to see the likes of Victor Dubuisson, Jeff Overton, Alvaro Quiros and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano in the field. Overton has no status on the PGA Tour now and the same applies on the DP World Tour to the three Europeans.

Former LIV players Sihwan Kim, Chase Koepka, Jed Morgan, and James Piot, who were all relegated at the end of the 2023 season, are also in Abu Dhabi trying to work their way back.