The LIV Golf Tour kicks off its fifth season this week in Saudi Arabia minus four of its mainstay players and one notable change in its 14-tournament schedule.
Chicago was the site of tournaments in the lucrative Saudi-backed circuit’s first four years, but not this time. “No Chicago event this year,’’ a LIV spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday. LIV had tournaments at Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove, in 2022 and 2023 and at Bolingbrook Golf Club in 2024 and 2025.
Dean Burmester and Jon Rahm were the champions the last two years at Bolingbrook after Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau triumphed at Rich Harvest. All four events were well-attended as the PGA Tour didn’t hold tournaments in Chicago in those years. The PGA Tour returns this year with the Presidents Cup team event at Medinah in September, four weeks after LIV’s 14-tournament season is over.
LIV starts its fifth season without Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed, who are planning to return to the PGA Tour. Phil Mickelson and Lee Westwood won’t play in LIV’s first two events, citing personal conflicts.
The LIV events will be played at 72 holes instead of the 54 in the first two years and the fields will be increased to 57 players. New LIV competitors include Thomas Detry, a University of Illinois alum who won the PGA Tour’s event in Phoenix last year, and Michael LaSassa, the reigning NCAA individual champion.
LIV also will have its first French player (Victor Perez) and first Canadian (Richard Lee) and a limited number of World Ranking Points will be awarded in LIV events for the first time. There’ll be 11 winners of major championships and players from 20 countries on LIV team rosters. This week’s opener in Saudi Arabia will be played under the lights.
The first six LIV tournaments will be played on foreign soil. First of the six scheduled in the U.S. is at Trump Doral in Miami April 4-6.
First big golf event in Chicago, though, will come before February is out. The Chicago Golf Show, the traditional start to the Chicago season, is Feb. 27-March 1. First conducted in 1984, the Chicago show returns to the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont.