After weeks of speculation, Tom McKibbin’s jump to LIV Golf is official.
McKibbin, the 22-year-old Northern Irishman who earned a 2025 PGA Tour card via the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai last fall, will forsake that card and instead join Jon Rahm on LIV’s Legion XIII team. Rahm announced McKibbin’s signing in a social-media video posted last Wednesday.
McKibbin, whose lone DP World Tour victory came in 2023, made the move for a reported $5 million even though Rory McIlroy said recently that he had advised his countryman and protégé against it.
“I think what he potentially is sacrificing and giving up, with access to majors, potential Ryder Cup spot, depending on, you know, how he would play ... if I were in his position and I had his potential, which I think I have been before, I wouldn’t make that decision,” McIlroy said at last month’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic.
LIV Golf’s 2025 season kicks off this week with a tournament under the lights in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. READ MORE
Matthew Maxey, Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
In advance of his start at Pebble Beach, McIlroy sounded off on the state of professional golf as an entertainment product, acknowledging that the splintering of the professional game with the emergence of LIV Golf, TGL and YouTube golf content might lead to oversaturation.
“I think there’s space for all of this,” McIlroy said. “But I can see when the golf consumer might get a little fatigued.”
McIlroy also suggested that the PGA Tour stages too many tournaments. “To scale it back and have a little more scarcity, like the NFL, might not be a bad thing.” READ MORE
Jim Nantz has acquired a used set of wheels that previously belonged to Scottie Scheffler.
The CBS Sports announcer won Scheffler’s 2012 GMC Yukon XL by virtue of a $50,000 auction bid and took delivery of the vehicle at his Pebble Beach home last week, Golfweek reported. The auction proceeds benefited Triumph Over Kid Cancer, a charity started by James Ragan, a childhood friend of Scheffler’s who died from a rare form of bone cancer in 2014.
Scheffler’s father, Scott, originally bought the vehicle at Masters Buick GMC in Augusta, Georgia, after the family’s car broke down during the 2012 Masters. READ MORE
Nelly Korda received an assist from her pro-am partner, former major league pitcher Derek Lowe, after a fan proposed marriage to her during the second round of the LPGA’s season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club in Orlando, Florida, last Friday.
“D Lowe shut him right down,” Korda said. “I didn’t say anything and (Lowe) was like, ‘Bud, I think that was a no.’ He was like, ‘Did I speak out of turn?’ I was like, ‘No, that was a great answer.’”
Tap-ins
The PGA Tour plans to allow distance-measuring devices for select events in 2025 as it looks to improve pace of play during competition. READ MORE
Jim Furyk was named a vice captain for the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup team, joining Webb Simpson, Brandt Snedeker and Kevin Kisner as assistants to captain Keegan Bradley. READ MORE
Lexi Thompson and Brittany Lincicome, who both announced last year that they would step away from full-time LPGA competition in 2025, will be in the field for this week’s Founders Cup in Bradenton, Florida. READ MORE
Greg Norman, who recently stepped aside as LIV Golf’s commissioner, has been tapped to join the organizing board for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane, Australia. READ MORE
Pat Perez, the three-time PGA Tour winner who has competed on LIV Golf for the last three seasons, will join LIV Golf’s broadcast team in 2025, the league announced last Monday. READ MORE
The PGA Tour, PENN Entertainment and ESPN are launching a live betting stream on PGA Tour Live on ESPN+. The ESPN BET-branded stream will provide key data, insights and live betting analysis during coverage of six FedEx Cup events across the 2025 PGA Tour season. READ MORE
Compiled by Mike Cullity