Despite only taking over as CEO of LIV Golf on Jan. 15, Scott O’Neil has already checked off a significant task for the still very young circuit, having played a role in the recently agreed upon long-term broadcast deal between the Saudi-backed circuit and FOX Sports. 

During the final round of LIV Golf Adelaide in Australia, the league’s most popular stop of the season, O’Neil joined the new-look broadcast on FOX Sports to discuss the circuit’s future. While he mentioned several things regarding what’s on the horizon for LIV, his comment about where the best golfers in the world tee it up stood out, to say the least.

“You don’t have to look too far past our leaderboard to know that outside of the majors, if you want to see the best players in the world, there’s only one place to see it, and that’s at LIV,” O’Neil said.

It should go without saying that this is exactly what O’Neil is supposed to say. 

Like the CEO of any other company in the world, he believes his company is the best among all competitors. And while the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF), LIV’s sole funder, may be in ongoing negotiations about a merger, LIV Golf isn’t in the business of paying anything even resembling a compliment to the Tour.

While these types of statements from O’Neil are completely expected, this one still stirred the pot among golf fans and media alike seeing as how it was bold, to say the least.

LIV Golf does have legitimate stars headlined by players such as Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, and Joaquin Niemann, who won his third LIV title in Australia on Sunday, but there is no denying that the circuit is incredibly top heavy.

Yes, the PGA Tour simply has more players so, of course, statistically speaking, it is going to be deeper, but even the numbers show the Tour has a significant edge in the ‘best players in the world’ category.

For starters, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler plays on the PGA Tour, as does World No. 2 Xander Schauffele, and Rory McIlroy, the most influential golfer on Earth not named Tiger Woods.

With LIV not being recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) system, Data Golf has turned into the go-to ranking system in professional golf and only five of the Top 50 in the ranking system play on LIV Golf; Tyrrell Hatton, Sergio Garcia, Rahm, Niemann, and DeChambeau.