We Tried It: Attending A LIV Event

Atmosphere

Have you ever seen the movie “Everything Everywhere All At Once”? The title of the movie is accurate. There is a lot going on and I’m not sure I understand it all.

LIV Nashville gave me a similar feeling. It’s constant stimulation. Which, to be fair, is a trademark of downtown Nashville where tourists are met with a wall of persistent noise, flashing lights and drunken stupor.

Once I came out of the media center, a throng of spectators was milling around the main entrance near the first tee and 18th green. A man on a loudspeaker started to shout excitedly.

“We only have 13 minutes remaining until LIV Nashville gets underway!” he said. “The greens have been double-cut and the players are ready to go. Our rounds only take four and a half hours, so make sure you keep up with the pace!”

A few minutes later, there was a parade of some 60-plus Icon golf carts, each carrying one player and one caddie to their respective holes.

Immediately after the processional, four parachuters came down from the sky. Two of them landed on the 18th green and two of them landed on the first fairway.

Fans started to line the first hole where DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Carlos Ortiz would be starting. I’m a poor judge of guessing how big crowds are but it was a significant number of people. My estimate would be at least a couple of thousand people from the tee box through the green.

In terms of the number of people attending, it slightly exceeded my expectations. The turnout was strong but nothing crazy. It was very manageable to walk around and watch golf.

The gallery was enthusiastic and engaged with DeChambeau as the clear favorite. Greg Norman walked the entire hole right next to the U.S. Open champion, taking stock of the crowd as they chatted. The following day, Norman tended the flag for DeChambeau’s tee shot on the 15th. Yes, Norman loves attention.

I left DeChambeau after this hole but the bulk of the gallery followed him. When I caught back up with the group on No. 9, the gallery was still just as large. Watching on the broadcast, the crowd seemed to dissipate for parts of the back nine.

There were some areas of the course where nobody was out there. I later followed a random group on 16 and 17—maybe 10 people were watching. The majority of people congregate at the party hole, No. 18 or following a couple of the star players.

If you are a golf fan interested in following a professional golfer with very few people around on the majority of the holes, LIV would be great for you.

One narrative I don’t think is accurate is how LIV players interact with the crowd more than Tour players interact with a gallery. Other than DeChambeau, every other player pretty much went about their business.

On the flip side, another narrative is that LIV players don’t care about their performance because they have guaranteed contracts and none of it matters. While there is validity to this, I saw several players getting frustrated after shots, working through AimPoint techniques and talking at length with their caddie. I think golfers are naturally competitive when they are on the course. Even if the results don’t necessarily matter that much, pros don’t want to be embarrassed.

Is the intensity level lower? Of course. But I don’t think the intensity level is zero.

Another part of the experience I was curious about was the music. The 15th hole had non-stop blaring music, which I expected. The part I didn’t think about was that every hole has speakers at the tee and green. And they are all playing different music. This definitely feeds into the member-guest feel of the tournament.

As for the crowd itself, it’s about what you expect. It’s golf catered to Morgan Wallen fans, if you know what I mean. I do think there were a a significant number of people from Nashville who came out to see DeChambeau and other top players without putting much additional thought into it—which is totally fair in my book.

However, LIV absolutely attracts a specific demographic.

As an aside, there were country concerts after the Friday and Saturday rounds. Dan and Shay, a well-known band in the genre, performed on Saturday night. I didn’t attend but was told by a friend that it was a great concert. It seemed like a decent amount of people came out for it based on the photos I saw (the Tour also regularly has concerts at its events, but I thought it was worth mentioning).

Merchandise

After leaving the DeChambeau group, I headed to check out the merchandise tent, which was directly across from the aforementioned fan village.

My biggest surprise of the day—and it’s not even close—is the success of the merch shop.

I had a preconceived notion that fans don’t buy LIV apparel because it’s all, you know, clip art logos and corny team names. To go along with that, I thought the fans who came were just there to get drunk while golf was played in the background. I didn’t think actual LIV fans existed in meaningful numbers.

Well, this experience has me reevaluating some of those assumptions.

The shop was only 1,500 square feet or so, but a steady stream of people moved through every time I passed that area of the course.

“What was the damage?” a spectator asked his friend after exiting the shop. “Just spent $160 on Fireballs gear.”

The hats were $40 a piece. And, my God, people were wearing them. I legitimately saw no fewer than 200 Crushers hats (for the uninitiated, this is the team DeChambeau captains).

I was particularly stunned to see how many people were wearing generic LIV gear. How often do you see a fan sporting a PGA Tour shirt? Not often. But people wanted the LIV merchandise. This spanned all demographics, too. Little kids, old ladies, frat bros—everyone got involved.

I would guess that 25 percent of the gallery wore some form of LIV gear. And more than half of that gear came with a Crushers logo—a golf ball “skull” with two tees crossed below.

This had me confused, so I went and talked to a few fans who were wearing Crushers hats.

“People say that nobody cares about LIV but look at all of the people out here,” one person explained while pointing to the gallery surrounding the 15th. “We just want to watch golf and have a good time.”

The conclusion I reached is that people have exponentially more affinity for players rather than teams.

People love Bryson. The logo represents Bryson more than anything else someone could wear. So people wear the logo.

This goes for a few other players. Brooks Koepka has made an upside down “Smash” hat popular. And I must have seen 20 to 25 people wearing that. It’s more symbolic of their Koepka fandom rather than their love of the actual team. The RangeGoats apparel, led by Bubba Watson, also seemed to be a main choice.

As for people wearing the LIV logo itself, I got the impression that it carries an anti-establishment connotation. There is definitely appetite for LIV-goers to be contrarian.

Regardless, I’m legitimately impressed that the merchandise is so successful.

Did Attending Change My View Of LIV?

Yes, it did. LIV Nashville slightly exceeded my expectations.

Some of the positives I saw:

Some of the negatives I saw:

I think it’s fair to say that some people do care about LIV—or at least they care about some of its players. And when you have a golf-starved area like Nashville, a lot of people are going to come out to watch.

LIV should focus on these parts of the country/world. Going to a place like Houston is a miss—that is a city that already has a women’s major and a regular Tour event. Nashville has way more of an appetite for something like LIV.

My primary concern moving forward is that LIV is a pretty bland TV product. A solid in-person experience is important but you can’t have success without nailing down the TV aspect.

I’m writing a story for next week that talks about some of the tweaks LIV could make to improve. I’m cynical about the long-term success of the league but that doesn’t mean it can’t make some realistic strides in the right direction.

Ultimately, LIV isn’t something I’m interested in watching on a consistent basis. I go to golf tournaments to watch meaningful golf and it doesn’t feel like meaningful golf. That doesn’t mean other people can’t enjoy it.

Have you been to a LIV event? Would you want to try one? Let me know below in the comments.

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