LIV Golf Captain Hints At New Event For 2026 - ‘It’s Something We’ve Been Working Hard On Since March 2024’

The 2025 LIV Golf League season gets underway at the start of February and, with the full schedule released, the circuit is set to play six tournaments in the United States and eight worldwide.

New venues, like Korea and Mexico City, have appeared on the 14-tournament list but, one country that has been left out, is South Africa, despite there being a four-man South African side since the very first LIV event in June 2022.

Stinger GC, who are made up of captain Louis Oosthuizen, as well as Dean Burmester, Branden Grace and Charl Schwartzel, finished seventh in the team standings for 2024 and, going into the future, are trying hard to force an event in their home country.

Speaking to Golf Monthly, captain Oosthuizen stated: “There’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes and being put in (for an event in South Africa). We are fighting hard to get it in but there needs to be a lot of things to align.

"We are talking to the Sunshine Tour back in South Africa and we don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. We want to work together with everyone and get a team there as soon as possible. It’s a lot of things that need to happen before we can have a tournament, but it is one of our big goals to get everything there.

“We need to do it right in how we want to do it. We are in talks with them (Sunshine Tour) on how it can be done. Everyone knows the South African public want a LIV tournament and to bring this type of field to South Africa would be an unbelievable thing. The Sunshine Tour gets that and it’s a matter of coming together and getting a sponsor and getting everyone together to get it.

"In an ideal world it will happen in 2026 but, if it doesn’t happen in 2026, we’ll work hard to get it in 2027. It’s something we’ve been working hard on since March 2024. So, it’s a lot of things that we have to sort, but we are working hard and we are moving forward.”

As the idea and build-up to a possible LIV event in South Africa continues, one other aspect that has been mentioned is the possibility of Major exemptions being given to LIV Golfers, something that Kevin Na and Joaquin Niemann have spoken about previously.

To qualify for a Major, it is often based on a player's position in the Official Golf World Ranking. This is where LIV Golfers are at a disadvantage as, currently, the League doesn't possess OWGR points and withdrew its bid to be part of the OWGR system in March 2024 .

Just recently though, South African Trevor Immelman was revealed as the new Chairman of the OWGR and, following the appointment, Oosthuizen is looking forward to his fellow countryman taking on the role, stating: “I know Trevor well as he was one of the co-captains when I played Presidents Cup back with Ernie. I think it’s great, he will do a good job and hopefully he can find a solution to get us LIV players some World Ranking points."

Back in 2022, Immelman captained the International Team at the Presidents Cup and, prior to the tournament, the Major champion asked the PGA Tour why Oosthuizen, who resigned his PGA Tour membership prior to joining LIV Golf, could not be part of his squad for the Presidents Cup.

The duo know each other well and, having previously shown negativity towards the OWGR, with Oosthuizen claiming that "the whole system needs to change completely," the former Open champion knows the challenges that lie ahead for his good friend, Immelman.

"I think he’s going to do a good, thorough job but, with World Ranking points at the moment, we are so far off it," explained Oosthuizen. "Any LIV player… I don’t think you can ever get back to where you should be in the Rankings. I think it’s more the case of each Tour being assigned spots in Major championships, a certain number of spots, but I think it’s more going to be on each Major giving spots to Tours, such as LIV, PGA Tour, European Tour etc.

"At the moment, the ranking system is so far off and it’s a big job that he’s (Immelman) got ahead of him to try and get the rankings to where it’s a true ranking system... I think, right now, if you’re top 50 in the world and playing on the PGA Tour it’s very difficult to go out of that top 50. It makes it so hard for the guy who plays on the Japanese Tour, or plays in Australia or South Africa and all over the world to get ranking points and, I think, the way forward is where the Majors give a certain amount of spots for the end of the year on the order of merit for each Tour. It will mean those guys can play the Majors next year.

"I can only see that going forward because, honestly, I don’t see how any points given to LIV at the moment are going to make a big difference because players have fallen so far in the last two, three years in the ranking system that it almost makes it impossible to get back to where you were.”