PROMOTIONS EVENT OFFERS PROMISE – AND DIFFERENT PATHS TO LIV GOLF SUCCESS
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – The 73 competitors in this week’s LIV Golf Promotions field share the same objective – earn a full-time spot in the 2024 LIV Golf League season. But they don’t share the same background or the same stage of their careers, which means the paths that await them could take a variety of directions.
Perhaps one of the players is the next Peter Uihlein, a talented golfer who seemed to be drifting until joining LIV Golf and tapping into his potential within the framework of the team environment.
Or maybe there’s another Scott Vincent, who earned a spot via his International Series play in 2022, spent endless hours on the range, and locked in his spot for 2024 with a brilliant late-season effort.
Or another Charles Howell III, celebrated for his consistency during a lengthy career but wondering if he’d ever reach the winner’s circle again – which he did last year in Mayakoba.
And could there be another Talor Gooch? He found a spark as an original LIV Golf member and became the league’s Individual champion in a 2023 season in which he won three times.
Here’s a look at some of those paths, and the players at Abu Dhabi Golf Club eager to start the journey.
The next Uihlein?
Category profile: Amateur fame, career drifting, late 20s/early 30s
Category model: Peter Uihlein won the 2010 U.S. Amateur and was ranked as the No. 1 amateur in the world. In his first decade as a pro, he won four times on three different tours but never really fulfilled his promise. Now he’s one of LIV Golf’s top performers, finishing third in the season-long Individual race in 2022 and 12th in 2023.
Category candidates: Ryan Ruffels was a prodigy in his junior days in Australia and considered that country’s next big golfing star, ranking as high as 13th in the world. Since turning pro in 2016, he’s still seeking his first professional win.
Braden Thornberry won the 2017 NCAA Division I individual title while at the University of Mississippi, eventually ranking as the world’s No. 1 amateur. His college coach called him a “generational talent.” He also had a top-5 finish at a PGA Tour event, but Thornberry’s pro career has not met the promise of his amateur days.
Canada’s Richard T. Lee played the U.S. Open at age 16, the second youngest golfer in tournament history. He turned pro at the conclusion of the tournament and has four wins, two on the Asian Tour.
Kyle Stanley won the Ben Hogan Award as best college golfer in 2009 as a Clemson University star. Since turning pro that year, he has two wins and was ranked as high as 26th.
The next Gooch?
Category profile: Plenty of potential, moderate success, waiting to ignite
Category model: Talor Gooch was a top-50 player, but victories remained elusive, with just two wins in seven years. Upon joining LIV, he showed flashes of brilliance in 2022 … and then found a gear no one else could match this year with three individual wins en route to the Individual title.
Category candidates: Denmark’s Lucas Bjerregaard was ranked inside the top 50 in 2019 and beat Tiger Woods in a world match play event, two weeks before Woods won the Masters. He has six wins on three different tours but has stalled out since his last victory in 2018.
France’s Martin Trainer won in Puerto Rico in 2019 in his just 11th start on the PGA Tour and soon moved inside the top 125 in the world. But his form deserted him and he’s trying to put the pieces back together.
England’s Laurie Canter has plenty of LIV experience as a full-timer in 2022 and a reserve player this season. He was a top 100 world player in early 2022 and remains an attractive name for LIV teams.
India’s Karandeep Kochhar turned pro in 2017, but he’s still just 24. He has three wins, five runners-up, three thirds and 15 other top 10s since 2019.
“This is just an amazing opportunity for a player like me,” Kochhar said this week. “Personally, I wasn’t even thinking about LIV Golf if you had asked me two months ago. But these three days can change any one’s life. I really look forward to the opportunity.”
The next Chacarra/Puig?
Category profile: Just turned pro (or thinking about it), seeking a touring home
Category models: Eugenio Chacarra (age: 23) gave up his final season at Oklahoma State to turn pro and join LIV in 2022, then won in Bangkok in his fifth start. David Puig (age: 21) also turned pro in 2022, then found his rhythm in the second half of this year. Both won International Series events in 2023.
Category candidates: There are four amateurs in the field (Ryan Griffin, Max Kennedy, Luis Masaveu and Sampson-Yunhe Zheng) and two others who qualified via amateur exemptions but have now turned pro (Luis Carrera, Ronan Kleu). In addition, seven other players are 24 years old or younger.
The 22-year-old Zheng has the most credentials of the amateurs, ranking 27th in the latest WAGR and finishing second in the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in October.
“For me as an amateur, I personally just look for whatever opportunity that's available to me,” Zheng said. “LIV has a great tour with a lot of great players, so that's definitely one of the options for me, and I want to be able to play with some of the world's best.”
Taichi Kho turned pro in February and won in his fourth professional start before his hometown fans in Hong Kong at the World City Championship. The 23-year-old also won the gold medal in men’s golf at the Asian Games in October.
The next Howell?
Category profile: Plenty of experience, solid career, open to embracing new approach
Category model: Charles Howell III has been a top-10 machine for most of his two-decades career and is now an integral part of Bryson DeChambeau’s Team Champion Crushers GC, with an individual win at Mayakoba earlier this year.
Category candidates: Fellow American Chris Stroud, three years younger than Howell, is as fired up as anybody in the field about the possibility of earning a spot for 2024.
"Flying over here, driving from Dubai, first time here – I had butterflies for the first time in a long time. Like good butterflies,” he said. "I was like, 'Something's going on here.' I really want it, I can tell. The opportunity would be pretty incredible to join my buddies out here."
France’s Grégory Bourdy was a late entry but his credentials are solid – four European Tour wins among his 10 victories. He’s a former world top-75 player and also has Olympic experience.
Two Spanish veterans – 40-year-old Alvaro Quiros and 43-year-old Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño – are well-respected pros with similar resumes. Both are former top-25 players, with more than 400 starts each and 15 combined victories.
American Jason Dufner is the only player in the field with a major victory (the 2013 PGA Championship), and Australian Wade Ormsby would love to return to a full-time role in LIV Golf, which he had in 2022.
“I got a real taste of what LIV Golf was all about, the team golf, the camaraderie, the fast, exciting format, all that rolled into one, and it's a place I want to be,” Ormsby said. “… Try and get myself back on to LIV Golf League would mean everything, especially at this point in my career.”
The next Grace?
Category profile: Proven success on other tours, bulldog mentality, likes battling the big names
Category model: South Africa’s Branden Grace had 14 career wins and shot the first 62 in major championship history – and is now a certified LIV Golf star, finishing second in 2022 and ninth in 2023 in the season-long Individual race.
Category candidates: India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar has more pro wins than anybody in the field with 23. His latest win on the International Series earned him a spot in the field at Abu Dhabi.
Jazz Janewattananond has name recognition in large part due to his, well, first name. He also has 11 career wins and is a star in his native Thailand.
Grace’s fellow South African, Jaco Ahlers, has 12 career wins, almost all of them on the Sunshine Tour. At 41, he’s six years older than Grace and would love the chance to compete against Stinger GC.
The next Vincent?
Category profile: Plenty of determination, grinder, relies on grit
Category model: Zimbabwe’s Scott Vincent has made the most of his opportunities. He won the 2022 International Series England to gain LIV status for the inaugural season. He claimed the International Series season-long race to earn status for 2023. And his Lock Zone status this year generated a contract extension for 2024.
Category candidates: Miguel Tabuena is the highest ranked player in the field in The Universal Golf Rankings (TUGR) and already has 20 wins in his pro career, most of those in his home country of the Philippines.
Australia’s Austin Bautista, once his country’s top amateur, took two years off to volunteer for humanitarian aid organizations around the world. He’s realized the importance of hard work and a mature attitude.
“I’m more mature and more at ease with failure because a lot worse can happen than not hitting the best golf shot at the very moment that you want to hit it,” he once said.
The next Bland?
Category profile: Nearing (or over) 50, seeking one more big run
Category model: Englishman Richard Bland was 49 years old when he started as an original LIV Golf member in 2022. After earning a contract extension thanks to his Lock Zone top 24 finish in 2023, Bland will turn 52 when he begins his third LIV Golf season in Mayakoba the first weekend of February.
Category candidates: Australian Scott Hend is the oldest player in the Promotions field at age 50. He recently won a European senior event, his 16th win as a pro.
“It would be fantastic to play this, to get the opportunity to be on the tour with a full card, possibly rolling it over into two or three or four years of keeping your card,” Hend said, “and then just kicking back, relaxing and playing a bit of senior golf with the boys.”
The next oldest player is another Aussie, Brendan Jones, age 48.