ode - the first streaming event of LIV that I watched had the team format going on while there was a huge purse for the individual finishes too. It was interesting to me how the scoreboard on the side of the screen was switching back and forth between the two competitions.
Super League Predictions
ode Yea, golf's just not a team game. The Ryder Cup has the nationalistic slant to it to get people to watch. Nobody would care if you took those same players and picked teams regardless of country and played. College golf works I guess (although I don't follow it at all) because you root for the school not the players.
Maybe LIV should try team Britain, Team Australia, Team USA could have two or three entries. That might give it some pizazz.
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Casey's comments are little naive imo. But he's certainly entitled to them. 
"Casey’s comments will clearly not chime well with Amnesty International, the world's leading human rights organisation, that points to the fact that as recently as March, 81 people were executed in Saudi Arabia in a single day. “Far from trying to ‘move on’, the Saudi authorities have attempted to sweep their crimes under the carpet, avoiding justice and accountability at every turn,” Amnesty said in a statement.
“The regime’s human rights record is an abomination – from its murder of [journalist Jamal] Khashoggi to recent mass executions and the situation for LGBTI+ people, which continues to be dire. The LIV Golf Invitational Series is yet one more event in a series of sportswashing exercises that the Saudi authorities are using to clean its blood-soaked image.”
"When pressed on gay rights, Casey replied: “It's not a subject I know enough about to speak about”. Yup. 
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ode Will the fans take to it?
I think golf fans outside of the U.S. will take to it because most of the best golfers played in tournaments in the U.S..
They're supposed to go around the world and play tournaments, being a world tour.
In addition to North America they're expected to go to Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Lots of traveling.
"Those 14 locations and dates remain undisclosed, but the league statement did emphasize the goal of expanding LIV Golf’s “global footprint.”
Asia is a particular region of interest for the league where LIV and the Saudi Public Interest Fund reportedly invested $300 million into the Asian Tour.'
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Sneakylong Love the way they tie mass executions and LGBTI+ together to imply that Saudis are executing people for sexual identity left and right.
The mass executions are those deemed as terrorists. While I wouldn't doubt that the Saudis have a pretty loose definition of terrorist, I also don't doubt that many that have been executed were members of terrorist groups likely identified by international intelligence info supplied by the U.S.
I'll just let Amnesty International's words speak for themselves. They're a lot closer to knowing what's going on than Paul Casey.
Sneakylong I doubt it.
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johnnydoom I doubt it.
That's fine, but I'll take what Amnesty International says over what Paul Casey says. 
The team aspect is a bit strange, but I think I know why they did it. In a regular tournament where everybody is just playing as an individual, after the first couple of rounds the focus of a broadcast gets increasingly narrow, usually paring down to two to maybe five players. The shots and putts of anybody outside that narrow focus become largely meaningless. Some people enjoy that, but others want to see more golfers than just the top three or four.
Adding the team aspect makes it so that a six-foot putt by a player no longer in contention might mean the difference between his team finishing first or second. Suddenly, the putt, previously meaningless and never to be shown on the broadcast, becomes important and has to be shown.
The Achilles' heel in this theory is that the putt only has meaning if the viewers care about the team aspect they created. Interest in teams has traditionally been essentially territorial (ie, you might root for the Cowboys because you grew up in Dallas, or you might root for the University of Michigan because you or a family member went to school there). So I think the idea of imbuing otherwise meaningless shots with meaning, and its off-shoot, that of airing more shots from more players, is generally a good one; I'm not sure, though, how they are to drum up interest in the teams.
rsvman2 The Achilles' heel in this theory is that the putt only has meaning if the viewers care about the team aspect they created.
I largely agree, but sometimes that individual facing the putt may be someone I'm (irrationally) rooting for or against or is a member of a team with someone that is. It's terrible that I have personal feelings about people I don't actually know and that don't impact me in any meaningful way.
It's a stretch, but I wonder if during the last event, there might have been some that hate Patrick Reed, but were still rooting for him because it would help out Pat Perez, Taylor Gooch, or Dustin Johnson, or vice-versa?
I agree. Arbitrary teams would hold little interest to me. However if it were team Ping against team Titleist, or some other known common denominator (Nationality, school/conference affiliation? something?) it might grab my attention.
johnnydoom
Not sure why anyone would complain either way.
Not many Americans complain about watching Tiger hole out when he's 20 shots back.
johnnydoom It's terrible that I have personal feelings about people I don't actually know and that don't impact me in any meaningful way.
Kind of sums up a lot of what is being said about this new golf league, as a whole. Yet, it seems to be a big part of life. We love or hate people that we only 'know' through media. Human nature? Or is it learned?
Having trouble watching on YouTube today. Can't seem to find the live streaming link that works.
Martee - I saw the amatuers names paired with the professionals and their scheduled tee times. I'm 99% certain the pro-am was played today.