Who Are LIV Golf’s Three New Players?

The 2023 LIV Golf campaign came to a dramatic conclusion with its end-of-season Promotions tournament in Abu Dhabi, where three players came through a gruelling few days to gain their LIV playing rights for 2024.

Kalle Samooja, Jinichiro Kozuma and Kieran Vincent all secured their golden tickets to play on the lucrative Saudi-backed circuit, the latter two players coming through a nervy playoff.

All three players will be making their LIV debuts next year, but who are these new faces that will teeing it up alongside some of the best players in the world?

Here, we take a closer look at LIV’s latest new signings.

KALLE SAMOOJA

• Date of birth: 23rd January, 1988
• Country: Finland
• Turned pro: 2010
• LIV Promotions eligibility: 2022 winner on DP World Tour (round 1 bye)

Kalle Samooja won LIV Promotions after making back-to-back birdies on the final two holes, which meant he avoided having to go through the stress of a playoff.

The Finn showed great composure to two-putt from some 70 feet on the 18th, where he left himself a tap-in to secure his LIV playing rights.

That he showed such composure down the stretch should have come as no surprise, as Samooja does have a DP World Tour title to his name – the 2022 Porsche European Open, where he closed with a course-record 64 to get the job done.

Even so, Samooja, who became the first player from Finland to join LIV, admitted afterwards that it “was a big step forward in my career”.

Samooja first started competing in Europe in 2016, on the Challenge Tour, after spending 2011, 2013 and 2015 playing on the Asian Tour.

His breakthrough came in 2018, when he won the Challenge Tour’s Hainan Open, which guaranteed his playing rights on the European Tour (now DP World Tour) for the following season.

Kieran Vincent

• Date of birth: 24th November, 1997
• Country: Zimbabwe
• Turned pro: 2022
• LIV Promotions eligibility: finished 4th in 2023 International Series standings

Kieran Vincent was the second player to come through the Promotions tournament in Abu Dhabi, after making a birdie on the 18th when the players went down the final hole for a second time.

Vincent was born in Zimbabwe. A graduate of Liberty University in Virginia, where he played college golf, he now joins his brother Scott on LIV, who is his elder by five years.

Whether or not they play together on LIV remains to be seen, but it sounds as though the brothers are close. Early in 2023, without Kieran’s knowledge, Scott paid for his brother’s membership on the Asian Tour.

Kieran played on the PGA Tour Canada after turning professional, before winning the International Series Vietnam in April 2023, where he holed a decisive 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to beat Anirban Lahiri from India and Australian Kevin Yuan by one stroke.

Jinichiro Kozuma

• Date of birth: 7th July, 1994
• Country: Japan
• Turned pro: 2012
• LIV Promotions eligibility: received invite into first round

Jinichiro Kozuma was made to sweat over his future, eventually coming through a tense three-man playoff for two LIV spots in Abu Dhabi.

Kozuma made three starts in the 2022 LIV Golf Invitational Series, finishing 29th in points.

The man from Kagoshima has played most of his professional golf on the Japan Golf Tour, where he has two victories to his name – the Mitsui Sumitomo Visa Taiheiyo Masters (2020) and Token Homemate Cup (2022).

Prior to those victories, he also won a Japan Challenge Tour event – the Elite Grips Challenge in 2016.

Kozuma will be the only player to represent Japan on LIV in 2024, and he described it as a “dream”.