LIV Golf have a potential dilemma for the league forming but they cannot make the same mistake as last year

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With the major championships for 2025 in the rearview mirror, all of LIV Golf’s biggest names can now concentrate on the final handful of events of the season.

It looks set to be an exciting conclusion to the year, with Joaquin Niemann, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau vying for the individual title.

And of course, some will be intrigued to see which players see their LIV Golf careers end this year having been relegated. Some in the open zone meanwhile, may also be on the lookout for a new team come the end of the campaign.

But there is a very good reason why LIV Golf has a major point to prove heading into the last weeks of the season.

LIV Golf faces an extremely important few months as the end of the season edges closer

One of the undoubtedly exciting moves LIV made was the introduction of a relegation zone. While the players involved may not generally be the superstar names, any fans of the Premier League will tell you that the battle to avoid the drop is often more exciting than what happens at the top end of the league.

Unfortunately, LIV have not helped themselves in recent times.

Initially, captains were exempt from relegation. That rule was changed slightly in 2024 to allow for captains to be relegated unless they successfully pitched a business case to the league.

That ensured that Bubba Watson stayed on as the RangeGoats’ skipper. Of course, the fact that there never seemed to be even a hint of a question mark over Watson’s future told its own story.

But the league’s credibility took a massive hit with the decision to allow Branden Grace to keep his place.

Grace was in the drop zone and failed to earn his place back through the qualification series. Nevertheless, Stinger announced that they would be keeping the South African for 2025. Louis Oosthuizen even suggested that Grace was the only player they wanted.

It seems imperative that LIV make amends this year and prove that the relegation is as ruthless as it sounds. And that may mean that one of their bigger names loses his spot.

The notable names in the LIV Golf drop zone currently

As things stand, the likes of Ian Poulter, Andy Ogletree and Mito Pereira are in the drop zone. Yubin Jang is also struggling after joining the Iron Heads ahead of this season.

Poulter is a co-captain of the Majesticks, so there is every chance that he will end up keeping his place, even if he finishes outside of the top 48 places.

Obviously, you can understand why the teams want to keep their current players. For all of LIV’s faults, there really does appear to be a camaraderie among each of the teams. So releasing one of their players cannot be easy.

But LIV cannot afford to have business cases save all of the players who end up in the drop zone this year, particularly as they have just made a fresh application for world ranking points.

It would really make a statement that they have learned from their past mistakes if a big name did indeed lose their place and could only regain it by earning it through the qualification tournaments.