It may not be easy to join LIV Golf, but it’s now a little easier than it used to be.
The team golf competition has opened the door a little wider for the 2026 season, bringing the qualifying tournament to one of the home ports of golf dreamers: Central Florida.
LIV Promotions will host a four-round event from January 8-11 at the Black Diamond Ranch in Lecanto, Florida – a three-course complex that bills itself as “Not Your Typical Florida Golf.” The competition will award full status to the top two finishers; during last year’s qualifying event, only the winner earned status.
In recent years, LIV’s qualifying school has been located in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, far from the hotbed of minor league golf talent that is the American South. Now, given the extra qualifying spot and the setting of the tournament, it would be reasonable to expect a higher level of competition; The event, which attracted 93 players in 2024, has also been expanded from 54 holes to 72 holes.
The tournament will be played over four days, with players with higher qualifications taking a bye until the second or third day.
In addition to a juicier qualifying event, LIV is also doubling the number of spots available in the International Series, which concludes later this month. Two players not yet exempt from LIV will be granted full status for 2026 based on their year-long performance in the seven International Series events, the last two of which take place in November.
Regardless Why LIV opens the door wider, the move undoubtedly indicative of the specific era the tour finds itself in. There has been no progress for the Saudi PIF (the owner of LIV) in reaching an investment deal with the PGA Tour, and there has been little public movement on recruiting top talent.
The league excelled in its first few offseasons by not only bringing in top players but also generating speculation about which PGA Tour players power participate. So far in 2025, there hasn’t been much excitement, although we’re still three months away from the start of the 2026 season. A lot can still happen, just like in 2023 when Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton joined the league, the same season Anthony Kim made his splashy return.
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