Ryan Lavner says LIV must now make one ‘imperative’ change after doubling down on team golf

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LIV Golf certainly continues to have plenty of doubters to silence as they enter into their fifth season.

There is an argument that LIV Golf has never been in a more vulnerable position. Rory McIlroy believes LIV will need to spend $6 billion to remain where they currently are.

The league was dealt a further blow in December with the news that Brooks Koepka has left ahead of the final year of his contract.

While superstar names such as Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, and Phil Mickelson remain, LIV is perhaps paying the price for struggling to establish a clear identity.

The change LIV Golf needs to make to their team format

Team golf running alongside the individual event does deliver some exciting finishes. However, it is hard to imagine that any of the biggest names would be overly disappointed if all of the current events on the schedule did away with the team scoring.

It does appear that the team element is yet to take off, despite LIV’s persistence.

And speaking on the Golf Channel Podcast, Ryan Lavner believes that there is one change LIV must make to give fans greater reason to care.

“I would just love these contracts to be made public. I think about my Jags and what they could potentially be doing in the off season, all of that information is readily available. I can look and see that Brian Thomas is in the third year of his rookie contract and you could potentially flip him for a second rounder and another piece,” he said.

“It’s fun to play GM. And if they’re building out these franchises and these franchise models and what it’s supposed to look like over the next decade, having that sort of information, salary caps, roster limits, term sheets, all of that is imperative in understanding the team dynamic which LIV again has doubled down on over and over and over again.”

LIV Golf needs much greater transparency after several baffling moves

There undoubtedly needs to be greater transparency when it comes to how LIV works.

Some will definitely disagree, but the teams almost feel like something of a gimmick. There is no great rivalry between any of the lineups because their biggest priority seems to be to make LIV look as good as possible.

Sergio Garcia deciding to let Abraham Ancer leave for Torque makes little sense, apart from the fact that Luis Masaveu – a player he had already dropped from his team – is Spanish.

If the public knew that Fireballs received an attractive offer from Torque, then Ancer moving from one team to the other would make a lot more sense.

But if LIV decided they wanted more of their team lineups to be decided by geography – which appears to be the case – they should make that clear. Otherwise the teams can come in for criticism for what appears to be some extremely odd decisions.

Meanwhile, Bryson DeChambeau is the captain of Crushers. If the teams were able to stand on their own with only some help from the LIV hierarchy, then surely he would just be able to work with the GM and hand himself the contract he is looking for.

It needs to be clearer who is signing the players, who is signing off on trades, and what reasons teams have for letting their best players go if LIV are ever going to win over a wider audience.