Peter Finch says something has been celebrated on LIV Golf which would have been unacceptable when the league first started

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New LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil has already hit the headlines after replacing Greg Norman at the top of the PIF-backed breakaway league.

During the popular LIV Golf Adelaide event at The Grange, O’Neil claimed LIV is the only place to watch the world’s best players. His comments emerged at the same time Scottie Scheffler, Ludvig Aberg and Rory McIlroy were competing at Torrey Pines, three of the world’s top four players.

What’s more, despite LIV’s TV ratings spiking in Australia, overall interest in the product – from those watching at home – is low. During the first event of the year in Saudi Arabia, an average of 12,000 people tuned in on FS2.

With LIV Golf‘s viewing numbers hardly anything to get overly excited about, O’Neil’s comments about the strength of the league have faced criticism, and YouTube golf personality Peter Finch is the latest to share his thoughts on the current state of the Saudi-backed golf league.

Peter Finch reacts to LIV Golf viewing figures

Speaking on his latest podcast, Finch claimed the number of people watching the league would not have been acceptable back when LIV was formed in 2022.

“The only thing that stands out to me is that Scott O’Neill is the new CEO of LIV, and he comes out and is very enthusiastic about that number. When if we are going to be completely honest about it – we are talking about a golf tour which has invested about £5 billion to establish a golf tour in its final round, got about 120,000 people watching. Which in the grand scheme of things, that is good, it’s an increase, but it’s still a very small number and there’s no way that would have been acceptable when they launched this tour two years ago,” Finch said.

“We have this weird race downwards. It’s not a race to the bottom, but we have kind of plateaued at this level where there are fewer and fewer people watching live golf, no matter whether it’s the DP World Tour, LIV, or PGA Tour. And we are kind of seeing this weird celebration over these slight increases. Overall, this is not great. When you think about it compared to other sports, that is not great.”

The most-watched LIV Golf event

Interestingly, LIV Golf’s Mayakoba event in 2024 was one of its most watched. The final round drew 432,000 viewers, which is on par with some PGA Tour events in 2025.

However, interest in the league is clearly waning as talks between the PIF and PGA Tour continue to drag on. Golf fans are growing tired of the ongoing divide within the professional scene.

The sooner the best players are back competing against each other, the better. Viewing figures on both tours would only increase if golf fans could watch the strongest fields competing on a weekly basis.

For O’Neil, the upcoming events in Singapore and Hong Kong will be vital for the league. If low viewing figures emerge once more, LIV will have a real problem.