How Many Golfers Are There In A LIV Golf Tournament?

The LIV Golf circuit features limited fields, but how many players tee it up in each event?

LIV Golf full field Chicago
The full field for the LIV Golf Chicago event in 2022
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Fergus Bisset
By
published

When LIV Golf emerged on the scene in 2022, a key selling point was that it was offering something totally new and different for the game – Limited fields, a team element, only three rounds of play and no cut.

The rounds begin with a shotgun start so all players in the field get going at the same time and the rounds are completed far more quickly than on the established tours.

In each regular season LIV Golf tournament, 48 players tee it up and, because there’s no cut, 48 players finish (so long as there are no withdrawals.) There are 12 teams of four players in each tournament.

In the individual event, it’s straight stroke play – lowest score wins. The champion in each individual event picks up $4 million. The player finishing last wins $120,000.

There’s a season-long individual points race with $30 million in the pot. The leading player on the standings at the end of the season picks up $18 million.

In the team event the lowest two stroke play scores for each team count in rounds one and two, with the best three scores counting in round three. The winning team shares $3 million with $1.5 million to the team finishing in second place and $500,000 going to the team in third.

In 2023, there will be 13 regular series events starting in Mayakoba, Mexico. The circuit travels to six different countries around the world before a final team competition – The LIV Golf Team Championship in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at the end of the year (November 3-5.)

That team event is a seeded, four-day, match play knockout comp with a prize fund of $50 million.

How Are LIV golf teams chosen?

Team Aces

2022 LIV Golf Team champions - The Aces

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Each LIV team is made up of a captain (they’re selected by the LIV board,) plus two seeded players (determined by the top-24 on the points standing from the 2022 season.) Then there’s a wildcard player chosen by the captain. For 2023, LIV has said the league will grow to 60 players with each team adding a substitute player.

At the end of the 2023 season, the bottom four finishers on the individual points standings will be relegated to the Asian Tour International Series. The winner of the 2023 International Series will be promoted to LIV and the final three spots will be filled by the top-three in a “promotion” tournament.

Also, after the 2023 season, a transfer window will be opened allowing players to move between teams.

Fergus Bisset
Fergus Bisset
Contributing Editor

Fergus is Golf Monthly's resident expert on the history of the game and has written extensively on that subject. He has also worked with Golf Monthly to produce a podcast series. Called 18 Majors: The Golf History Show it offers new and in-depth perspectives on some of the most important moments in golf's long history. You can find all the details about it here.

He is a golf obsessive and 1-handicapper. Growing up in the North East of Scotland, golf runs through his veins and his passion for the sport was bolstered during his time at St Andrews university studying history. He went on to earn a post graduate diploma from the London School of Journalism. Fergus has worked for Golf Monthly since 2004 and has written two books on the game; "Great Golf Debates" together with Jezz Ellwood of Golf Monthly and the history section of "The Ultimate Golf Book" together with Neil Tappin , also of Golf Monthly.

Fergus once shanked a ball from just over Granny Clark's Wynd on the 18th of the Old Course that struck the St Andrews Golf Club and rebounded into the Valley of Sin, from where he saved par. Who says there's no golfing god?

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