The 2024 LIV Golf League season wraps up this week in Dallas with their 14th and final event, their $50 million team championship.
However, at the end of their previous event, LIV Golf Chicago at Bolingbrook Golf Club, the league determined which players would be relegated from the league for 2025. Players who finished worse than 48th in the season-long points standings landed in the so-called Drop Zone, which could see those players kicked out of LIV Golf.
Once the event ended, LIV Golf announced five players were relegated from the league. But there are nine players in the Drop Zone on the points standings, so who got kicked out of the league, and why weren't all nine names announced?
Who was kicked out of the league?
The five players relegated from the LIV Golf League based on the points standings were Bubba Watson, Scott Vincent, his brother Kieran Vincent, Branden Grace and Kalle Samooja.
Watson, the two-time Masters champion, is the captain of the Range Goats team. He owns 25 percent of the equity in the team, which is predominantly owned by LIV Golf and its owners, the Saudi Public Investment Fund. In prior LIV Golf seasons, Watson would have been exempt from the Drop Zone as a team captain, but that rule changed for this season. Still, it's hard to see Watson leaving the LIV Golf League. Under the revised LIV Golf rules, Watson can remain on the Range Goats playing roster if he can make a "business case" to his team that he should stay in the league. He'll almost certainly get the go-ahead to do just that.
Kalle Samooja qualified for the league last fall through the first LIV Golf Promotions event, earning one of the three available spots through their form of Q-School. However, Samooja struggled throughout the year on the Cleeks, and he bungled his opportunity to remain in the league with a rough start to his final round at LIV Golf Chicago. Still, he had an unlikely par putt on his final hole of the season to stay in the league and instead kick out Pat Perez. Samooja missed, and he's out of the league.
Branden Grace has played on the Stinger team since the LIV Golf Invitational Series started LIV Golf in 2022. He won the second-ever LIV Golf event in Portland. However, in 2024, he finished inside the top 20 of just one event. The top 24 players in each event earn points, and Grace only did that three total times.
Scott Vincent has played on LIV Golf, like Grace, since the inception of the league and the Invitational Series. He's been on Kevin Na's Iron Heads team. While he didn't struggle quite like Grace this year, he only earned points in five events and never finished better than 16th.
Kieran Vincent, Scott's brother, got into the league through the Promotions event, like Samooja. He played on the Legion XIII team, the new team headed by Jon Rahm. Vincent earned points in five events, like his brother, but never finished better than 18th.
All of these players would be eligible to enter the LIV Golf Promotions event, with details still to be shared, and potentially win back their spot in the league.
Why isn't Anthony Kim out of the league?
While these five players -- really, four -- were relegated at the end of LIV Golf Chicago, four players in the Drop Zone were not announced as having been kicked out, including Anthony Kim and Hudson Swafford.
Both Kim and Swafford have mutli-year, guaranteed contracts with LIV Golf that prevent them from being contractually removed from LIV Golf. Kim struggled in his return to professional golf after a nearly 13-year absence, but he did occasionally show signs of returning to form. Swafford returned from injury after missing last season, extending his LIV Golf contract by a year. This year, Kim and Swafford played solely as individuals, with no team affiliation. It's rumored that Kim will land on the 4 Aces team for 2025, and it's likely both players will find squads so the league will have 52 players, all connected to teams for next season.
Laurie Canter already returned to the DP World Tour from LIV Golf and won this season on that circuit. Ben Campbell was a fill-in player at three events this year, and he didn't earn points that could even potentially land him in the Open Zone, which makes players eligible for signing to any LIV Golf team that wants them. John Catlin, however, is in the Open Zone after filling in at five events and earning enough points to finish 44th in the league table.
