Over the past four seasons, Liv Golf has partially served as the biggest late career winning lap in sports history. The golf legend in his 40s, where the best days were born in the late 2000s and early 2010s, has won tens of millions of jobs in jobs that take dozens of times a year, regardless of their performance.
But that’s a new era for Liv Golf, which means that a situationless cash avalanche has ended. There are a few notable names on Liv’s cut line, as there are two separate tournaments remaining, including this weekend’s Chicago event.
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The LIV Golf Tour includes 56 players, and at the end of the season anyone below 48th will be “demoted.” (That’s a Liv term, but unlike English Premier League soccer, for example, there is no Liv Tour for players who have been “relegated.”) Relegated players will lose full-time slots in the 2026 season, but will have the opportunity to return to the tour.
Unlike the uncut format of Liv’s weekly events, it all sounds appropriately meritocratic. But last year, Bubba Watson and Branden Grace both finished their season under the cut line… but somehow managed to stay on the roster this season. Both are safe this season due to the top five finishes, but given the supposed finality of the “cut zone”, the fact that they are still in the mix is enough to raise doubt.
However, this year, it seems there will be no room for the same novel. Notable players under the cut line include Ian Paulter, Mito Pereira and wildcard Anthony Kim, with Lee Westwood and Henrik Stenson ranked 46th and 47th respectively. Telegraph reported that players have been informed of no Baba-esque generosity this year. Cut means cut.
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It’s probably no coincidence that this hardline will come as Liv Golf has been reapplied to the official World Golf Ranking Points. The nastyness of the movement of players in LIV is not at risk if there is no cut and there is no chance of losing a play slot. This was an important reason why OWGR rejected previous applications of LIV ranking points. OWGR provides players with a route to majors to play their own paths. LIV players do not have such a route to the LIV tour. (Liv Golf did not respond to Yahoo Sports inquiries about its new cutline stance or its relationship with the OWGR application, but provided a breakdown of risky players.)
Poulter and several other prominent names are considered to be the final year of their first LIV contract.
If you’re cut from Liv, Poulter, Stenson, Westwood, etc., you may return to play on the DP World Tour and you may pay the fines that the tour is being levied. It may be the only way that once locked into the Captain Slot of the Ryder Cup, a well-known European celebrity can return to the way back to the good bounty of golf.
