Analyzing LIV Golfers in the Majors

Utilizing Pre-Tournament odds has allowed us to “smooth” out a player’s career in majors by not just looking at the win/lose scenario of if a player won a certain major or not (which means he could finish anywhere from second to did not qualify). It has also served as the baseline for our major projections for golfers for future years. We can utilize the same data to look at how LIV golfers have done, collectively, both before and after joining LIV.

For now, we are going to focus on a group of 33 golfers who joined LIV either during the 2022 season or in the off-season just before 2023. These golfers all had to be 40 or younger when joining LIV, as we are excluding those who have clearly aged out of their primes and are far less likely to contend for major championships. We are testing hypotheses that posit that LIV Golf has been generally detrimental to players’ careers, but given that players in their 40’s are proven to decline, we don’t want to include this group so as to skew the data.

We wanted to compare common time-periods, so we looked at the majors from 2020 – 2022 (pre-LIV) and those from 2023 – 2025. Now, it is true that 2022 was when LIV began (between the PGA and U.S. Open), so there are some tournaments included in the pre-LIV time period that actually occurred after LIV had started. But we do want to note that no one who joined LIV during 2022 was hurt from major championship competition that season…OWGR points were in tact given they had been racking them up on Tour, many who went to LIV did so after the first event at some point, and majors didn’t pull any shenanigans like they did when the U.S.G.A. removed Talor Gooch’s spot at the 2023 Open because he wasn’t “eligible” to play at East Lake in the 2022 Tour Championship (despite Gooch accumulating enough points to finish in the top 30 regardless). So the entirety of 2022, at least in terms of who got into the majors and how they performed in them, were relatively unaffected by LIV.

By 2023, this had changed. Only those with exemptions such as recent major victories or the ability to earn OWGR points in other ways (playing a heavy schedule on the Euro Tour in the off-season) were getting into majors, with any LIV pathways non-existent. This has only worsened, with very few LIV golfers remaining in the Top 100 of the OWGR for much time.

Another caveat is that 2020 only had 3 majors, the British Open not being held due to the United Kingdom’s inane and overly-restrictive coronavirus measures. But 1 missed tournament out of 12 isn’t a huge difference so we’re mostly comparing apples-to-apples. Another point is that guys like Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton are left off as they didn’t join until the 2024 season. While both are interesting before-and-after test cases, it would be too much extra work to try and account for them. Maybe next year.

The following table shows the players with the most expected majors from 2020 – 2022 who went to LIV, and then a comparison from 2023 – 2025.

Golfer	2020-22 Exp. Mjrs.	2023-25 Exp. Mjrs.	Diff
Dustin Johnson	0.508	0.155	-0.353
Bryson DeChambeau	0.367	0.402	+0.035
Brooks Koepka	0.327	0.341	+0.014
Cameron Smith	0.215	0.201	-0.015
Patrick Reed	0.185	0.083	-0.102
Louis Oosthuizen	0.157	0.025	-0.132
Joaquin Niemann	0.119	0.180	+0.061
Abraham Ancer	0.095	0.014	-0.081
Marc Leishman	0.081	0.004	-0.077
Jason Kokrak	0.068	0.003	-0.065
Matthew Wolff	0.051	0.000	-0.051
Sebastian Munoz	0.039	0.002	-0.036
Harold Varner III	0.037	0.006	-0.031
Kevin Na	0.033	0.003	-0.030
Talor Gooch	0.032	0.033	+0.001
Thomas Pieters	0.031	0.011	-0.019
Branden Grace	0.029	0.005	-0.025
Bernd Wiesberger	0.024	0.000	-0.024
Mito Pereira	0.023	0.021	-0.001
Matt Jones	0.022	0.000	-0.022
Charl Schwartzel	0.020	0.007	-0.013
Cameron Tringale	0.020	0.000	-0.020
Carlos Ortiz	0.018	0.010	-0.008
Martin Kaymer	0.018	0.003	-0.014
Sam Horsfield	0.015	0.002	-0.013
Brendan Steele	0.012	0.002	-0.009
Dean Burmester	0.009	0.030	+0.021
Danny Lee	0.005	0.000	-0.005
Laurie Canter	0.004	0.012	+0.008
Hudson Swafford	0.004	0.000	-0.004
Anirban Lahiri	0.002	0.002	0.000
Scott Vincent	0.001	0.001	-0.001
Peter Uihlein	0.000	0.000	0.000
TOTAL	2.569	1.560	-1.009

On the whole, the trends don’t look good. Of the 33 players on or around their prime years during this period, moving to LIV affected their expected major wins by a full major, dropping the collective win estimates by about 40%. If we look more granularly, we see that only 6 golfers who joined LIV in 2022 or early 2023 boosted their market-derived major estimates, which comes to 18.2% of the total.

Like all debates surrounding the future of professional golf, this could be seen as proof for either side. The traditionalist, pro-PGA Tour side would point out that the data is undeniable, moving to LIV is more likely-than-not to harm your chance at winning a major. Sure, it might not hurt guys like Phil Mickelson or Lee Westwood–guys who have aged out of their primes and just want to cash in–but for those in their competitive years the extra pay comes with a steep opportunity cost to your reputation as a championship-worthy golfer.

On the other hand, the pro-LIV contingent could point out that much of this difference is due to LIV not getting a fair shake, that being excluded from majors is actually harming the game itself at the highest level. And they would be right to point out names like Talor Gooch and Sebastian Munoz. Gooch reached his prime right when LIV began, but being unfairly dismissed from the U.S. Open in 2023 soured his view of the majors as a pristine, pure, and fair level of competition. Gooch has played in only 4 majors since the beginning of 2023, and none in 2025, though he has remained a solid LIV player¹. Munoz has been a solid-but-not-spectacular player on LIV, but his game (currently 51st on Data Golf) would almost certainly be good enough to get him into majors had continued to play on Tour. Other names like Lucas Herbert, Marc Leishman, Harold Varner III, and others would likely build major-championship expected win equity were there a fairer way to get into majors for LIV golfers.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that LIV has not been a solid way for players to grow or build their careers in the events that matter most. This may change, with younger guys like David Puig, Josele Ballester, Tom McKibbin, and Caleb Surratt now on LIV and competing well. Maybe by 2027, we’ll start seeing these guys contend in majors, highlighting that LIV is a viable path. LIV needs to get younger, but more importantly, it needs to find more pathways into the majors. At the moment, the only LIV-specific pathways into the majors are to be the top non-exempt player among the top 5 shortly before either the U.S. Open or the British.

Here are possible reasons why LIV Golfers from 2023-25 have been less competitive getting into majors and being viable contenders than they were pre-LIV.

• The market is accounting for the fact these golfers haven’t been as good since moving to LIV, perhaps because LIV is less competitive.
• The market is being unduly biased against LIV. Though we would doubt this would hold up long-term.
• LIV guys have fewer ways to get into the majors.
• The data itself has aging effects. Though those in the 40’s were excluded, there are probably more examples of players aging out of their primes (Johnson, Leishman, Grace) than there are those who aged into their primes (Niemann).
• Selection bias is at hand, specifically with LIV selecting players who are at the tops of their games/peaks in 2022/23, and since golf has “churn” where players fluctuate and have up-swings and down-swings during their careers, it is inevitable that there will be more players who decline than those who improve.

More Specifics by Golfer

• Brooks Koepka, who had a rough 2025, had more expected win equity 2023 – 2025 than from 2020 – 2022. This is a minor difference, and the fact the 2020 British Open wasn’t held is a factor.
• Cam Smith, who peaked in 2022, hasn’t declined as much as people think. Smith wasn’t great in either 2020 or 2021, so his “decline” in 2023 and after isn’t necessarily unexpected. Going back to selection bias, LIV took Cam at his absolute peak. If Cam had stayed on the PGA Tour, there’s no reason to expect he wouldn’t have seen a similar “reversion-to-mean.”
• Talor Gooch actually had more expected win equity from 2023 – 2025 than 2020 – 2022. We’ve spoken of Gooch being disillusioned after the 2023 U.S. Open, but in the events he has gotten into, the market has seen him as a somewhat serious challenger.
• Bryson DeChambeau has clearly thrived under LIV. This isn’t to say he wouldn’t have played well had he stayed on Tour, though.
• Dustin Johnson has dropped the most. While D.J. aged out of his prime (he’s now 41), the drop was far faster than we would have anticipated. LIV critics are probably right that he lost his competitive juice around 2022.
• Patrick Reed is still a solid golfer, but he did see decline in recent years.
• Louis Oosthuizen dropped fast.
• Marc Leishman has been hurt by not getting into majors.

Actual Majors

LIV Golf has produced 2 major championships, the 2023 PGA with Brooks Koepka and the 2024 U.S. Open with Bryson DeChambeau. Both were major winners before their wins with LIV. We haven’t done this yet, but we would estimate that, if we include the likes of Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, etc. when they were signed and project major championships by LIV golfer since the league began, we’d estimate that LIV should have projected it would have about 3 majors by now. So LIV is likely underachieving a bit. But given how short of a time period we’re looking at (only 14 majors have been played since the advent of LIV Golf), this isn’t some cause for alarm.

1. Gooch finished 11th in 2022, 1st in 2023, and 10th in 2024. He is currently 5th with one individual event to go for 2025. Objectively, he should be exempt into the majors for 2026. ↩︎