LIV just dialed back its Q School. Here’s what that could mean

LIV Golf just announced the details for the second edition of its “Promotions” event. One change sticks out: there’s only one spot available for LIV’s 2025 season, compared to three last year.

The three-day, four-round tournament will go off at Riyadh Golf Club in Saudi Arabia and culminate in a 36-hole finale on Saturday, Dec. 14, when a qualifer will be crowned. The rest of the top 10 will earn full exemptions to the International Series, the LIV-backed segment of the Asian Tour. The field will also be competing for a $1.5 million purse, with $200,000 going to the winner.

Relegated LIV pros can compete for the spot, as can those who finished outside the top 24 this season and therefore don’t have spots guaranteed for 2025.

So why the change? And what does this mean for LIV? Here are five takeaways buried in the league’s release. (Full details at the bottom.)

1. Year 1 of the Promotions experiment didn’t really work.

Last year’s qualifying event was a couple-day shootout which lent itself to high drama but also high variance; there was no guarantee that the players who got through would thrive in year-long LIV competition. And they didn’t. Kalle Samooja, Kieran Vincent and Jinichiro Kozuma earned last year’s spots; Samooja and Vincent finished outside the top 48 and were relegated, while Kozuma finished 45th and thus has no guarantee to be re-signed for 2025.

So if the goal was to add elite talent and bolster the strength of LIV’s fields, that didn’t work. Top targets for LIV are unlikely to put themselves through such an uncertain test as this event; someone like Tyrrell Hatton was a splashy free agent and got a big-time signing bonus when he joined LIV but wouldn’t have competed in Promotions.

2. LIV’s team structure still has kinks to work out.

How do LIV players end up on teams in the offseason? It’s free agency … mostly. But when players are guaranteed spots on LIV but specific captains haven’t sought out those specific players, that’s where things get weird. Jon Rahm’s team Legion XIII was assigned Vincent last year, for instance, but he’d probably prefer to have the freedom to sign whoever he wants. That’s an ongoing tension. An anonymous LIV executive told SI that “the ability for the league to impose players on teams is something we want to move on from.” That checks out.

3. LIV’s chase for OWGR points is ancient history.

One of the initial drivers behind the creation of the Promotions event was to appease the Official World Golf Ranking, which had taken issue with the fact that LIV was a relatively closed shop. This stripped-down access to the league serves as a reminder that LIV has abandoned any quest for OWGR points, opting instead to undermine the previous system, especially as its players’ rankings continue to drop.

Instead the league is, for the second consecutive year, leaning on ranking startup TUGR to help determine eligibility for its Promotions field.

4. Free agency is the vision.

If the goal was to get more proven players from within its system, there’s a world where LIV could have taken some spots from Promotions and replaced those with year-long qualifiers from the affiliated International Series, the LIV-sponsored segment of the Asian Tour. But it didn’t do that; instead there’s still just one spot available to the International Series’ season-long champion — a spot currently held by American John Catlin. (Last year’s International Series exemptee, Andy Ogletree, finished No. 34 in LIV’s 2024 standings as part of Phil Mickelson’s HyFlyers.)

That means only two golfers will need homes, and Catlin would be a welcome addition to plenty of rosters; that should be easy. The Promotions winner? That depends who gets through…

In general, though, LIV would prefer to let its captains choose their players. They’ve determined that would be best for business, especially for a league that has the ultimate goal of selling its franchises. (Captains of the majority of the 13 franchises own a 25% stake in their teams, while LIV owns the other 75%.) That same anonymous LIV exec told SI that they “want the teams to have the autonomy to mature and create their own commercial value.” That means the freedom to poach players from any tour, anywhere.

5. LIV remains eager to make Saudi golf happen.

Last year’s Promotions event was in Abu Dhabi; this year it’s headed to Saudi Arabia, to Riyadh Golf Club. That’s no shocker, given LIV’s Saudi backing. But it’s a reminder that a central component of LIV’s vision includes the growth of Saudi Arabia as a cultural hub — and eventually a golf destination.

LIV will also kick off its 2025 season in Riyadh in February.

What does all of the above mean for the future of pro golf at large? Mostly it’s a reminder that, ongoing negotiations or not, LIV is pressing on with its business and preparing for a full 2025 season.

You can find full Promotions details below.

LIV GOLF PROMOTIONS

When: Dec. 12-14, 2024

Where: Riyadh Golf Club, Saudi Arabia

Format: Four rounds of 18-hole stroke play, but with a couple twists. Those who finish in the top 20 and ties from round one (on Dec. 12) will advance to Friday’s second round. Then scores will reset and other exempt players will be added. The top 20 players following round two will advance to Saturday, where scores reset again. Saturday brings a 36-hole shootout for the exempt spot in LIV, while the top 10 earn International Series exemptions.

Who’s eligible: There are different levels of exemption, as follows.

Category A:  Qualifiers for Round 1 

Category B:  Exemptions into Round 2
The following players are exempt from Round 1 and are automatically eligible to participate in Round 2: