Sebastian Munoz Reportedly Joins LIV Golf, Continues Latin American Exodus From PGA Tour

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Sebastian Munoz of Colombia will join LIV Golf ahead of its 2023 league season, according to a report from The Telegraph's James Corrigan, who has been all-over LIV signings since the beginning. 

Munoz, 30, is ranked No. 90 in the Official World Golf Ranking and played on last year's International team at the Presidents Cup. He has one career PGA Tour victory at the 2019 Sanderson Farms Championship. 

Munoz definitely isn't a needle-mover, and if LIV has signed another top-20 guy to join its impressive initial haul of talent, both the league and the player have kept it remarkably quiet. Munoz's signing is significant, however, for a different reason: he's one of the better Latin American golfers on the planet, and his peers in that group are now almost entirely with LIV Golf. Chile's Joaquin Niemann made the jump last summer, and his countryman Mito Pereira is widely expected to be announced as a LIV player in the coming days. Other Spanish-speaking golfers that have departed the PGA Tour for LIV Golf include Sergio Garcia of Spain and Abraham Ancer and Carlos Ortiz of Mexico. Then there's Eugenio Chacarra, who was the No. 3 amateur in the world when he left Oklahoma State to sign a guaranteed-money deal with LIV Golf rather than play his way onto the PGA Tour. 

All of these guys are really, really close. The Latinos on tour often share houses together on the road. When Niemann won the Genesis Invitational last year, a number of the guys listed above were hanging around the 18th-green to congratulate him. 

“Having them here on 18, it was something really special for me,” Niemann said that day. “Obviously, we got the tournament, but knowing that they're there for me, waiting for me to see me receiving the trophy was something really special. I'm really thankful and happy because of the friends that I have.”

LIV desperately needs its teams to build identities—simply having a name and a logo does not a team make, and the team concept fell mostly flat in LIV's inaugural season. That needs to change, as LIV's business model depends almost entirely on the success of the franchise model. They need these teams to sell merchandise and sell their own corporate sponsorships, and much of that is built on identity. It makes sense, then, for LIV to lean into the geographic angle. Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman and co. are building an Australian Team. You have to think that Munoz, Niemann and Pereira will all play together. That'd be the smart move, at least. 

LIV's season begins Feb. 24, fittingly in Mexico, at the Mayakoba resort that used to hold PGA Tour events. There will be 14 events in total, eight of which will take place in the United States.