LIV Golf Update! Ratings Still Suck, And Broadcast Workers Have Been Stripped Of Their Healthcare And Other Benefits

Some fun updates on LIV Golf. AKA 54 Golf because they couldn't come up with a more interesting, original name than the number of holes they play during their abbreviated, no-cut tournaments.

I guess not many people tuned in for the drama that was Fireballs GC winning this weekend's tournament at The Gallery Golf Club in Tucson, Arizona. Doesn't seem like the team format is catching on all that much. It's still very, very early, but LIV's top-tier talent has also mostly played like shit. With due respect (sort of?) to Charles Howell III and the Tucson champion Danny Lee, they aren't moving the needle whatsoever as LIV Golf's first two event winners.

For his part, Kevin Van Valkenburg displayed some Big J Journo objectivity re: the piss-poor ratings by sharing what LIV Golf had to say in response:

As for KVV getting into the fucking heads of Lee Westwood and whomever runs LIV Golf Updates' Twitter handle, well, that was just for fun:

But now we arrive at another oh-so-pleasant revelation about how things are going down around these LIV Golf broadcasts:

Not that anyone strongly affiliated with LIV Golf even feigns giving a fuck about human rights or would ever even entertain the debate that healthcare should be among them. It's just…with all that money flying around, you'd think they could figure out a way to, you know, help these dedicated workers out. In the first place, they probably feel like captive employees and/or a captive, reluctant audience, making the best of what they can out of a troubling mission to grow LIV Golf's profile via broadcasts. 

IDK. I'm being a little facetious with the end of that last paragraph. Does every broadcast worker bash LIV when they're off the clock? Are they all enthusiastically wanting to be there? Who the fuck knows. 

In any event, seems like the least LIV Golf could do is not suddenly sabotage the crews who are trying to get their positive, pro-growing the game of golf noble mission out to the rest of the world. In their first season alone, the league spent a whopping $784 million and is projected to shell out $1 BILLION this year for 14 tournaments. You're telling me this — stripping critical workers of healthcare — is one of the cost-cutting moves you decided to make?

It's so brazen that you have to think LIV Golf knows exactly what they're doing — they just don't give a shit. Maybe David Feherty can step the fuck up and do something. Loved him as a broadcaster back in the day, but he admitted to taking the massive bag LIV offered him to cover the new league. Even while fully acknowledging the money-grab nature of his big carer move, I imagine this can't sit well with Feherty. Then again, well, there's a reason he made the move to LIV in the first place.

Not saying LIV Golf is dead in the water already. Just saying they're not doing themselves any favors coming out of the gates. And especially in light of this scumbag move to screw over their broadcast workers, I hope the ratings continue to tank and those crews can move on to whatever myriad other gigs await where they're actually valued and appreciated.

Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok