Eugenio Chacarra exposes LIV for failing to deliver on promises

Unsurprisingly, it appears that LIV Golf made some promises that they could not back up in practice. In a recent interview, Eugenio Chacarra discussed his experience being a member of LIV, and where he feels the tour led those joining astray by making empty promises. For context, Chacarra joined LIV in June of 2022, when he was at the time ranked the second-best amateur in the world. He joined Fireballs GC, the team captained by Sergio Garcia, on a three-year contract that has now come to an end (even though he is still pictured on the Fireballs team page).

Chacarra did find some success during these past few years, winning the LIV Bangkok event in October of 2022 and the St. Andrews Bay Championship on the Asian Tour in 2023 after LIV and the Asian Tour reached an agreement to create the International Series.

However, upon the completion of his contract, Chacarra is ready to change his mindset and focus on working his way to the PGA Tour.

“I see what it’s like to win on the PGA Tour and how your life changes. How you get major access and ranking points. On LIV, nothing changes, there is only money. It doesn’t matter if you finish thirtieth or first, only money. I’m not a guy who wants more money. What will change my life is playing in Hawaii and qualifying for the majors, qualifying for the Masters, the Ryder Cup,” Chacarra said.

Chacarra goes on to discuss how, when he signed with LIV, he was promised that he would be able to obtain OWGR points and subsequent qualification into the four majors, which has not happened since LIV lost their appeal to OWGR to qualify for world ranking points for their competitors. This issue is not unique to Chacarra, as many young players who joined LIV have run into the same issue. While some players are laying blame at the OWGR for not awarding LIV OWGR points for their events, the blame should be pointed at the arrogance of Greg Norman and LIV for making promises to these young players before any of the grunt work of actually making sure your tour aligns with OWGR policies was completed.

The PGA Tour should let the young LIV players have a path to the PGA Tour

Currently, the PGA Tour is imposing a one-year ban from any Tour-affiliated events on any player from LIV, with the start of the ban coming from their last competitive date playing on LIV. In the case of Chacarra, his ban started at the end of the last LIV season, with it slated to end this coming September.

However, Chacarra has never been a member of any PGA-affiliated tour in the past, making the decision to join LIV while he was still an amateur. Because of this (and it being the case for others among the LIV ranks, namely 2021 U.S. Amateur champion James Piot), the PGA Tour should waive this ban for anyone who never held membership on any of the affiliated tours.

It's a different story to impose the ban on the older guys like Bubba Watson, Ian Poulter, and Graeme McDowell, guys who had established successful careers on the PGA Tour and threw it away to get one last massive paycheck from Yasir Al-Rumayyan and the Public Investment Fund. I have more sympathy for the young players who have become disillusioned with the infinite money aspect of LIV, and are looking to work their way towards the goals they came up with when they were growing up: win on the PGA Tour.

It's possible that some sort of agreement regarding these bans is in the works as part of the PGA-LIV merger that is never-ending at this point. However, since the merger is already somewhat in motion, then the Tour should put a moratorium on the bans and let these guys start to work their way towards a full Tour membership and get back to chasing their dreams.

We can take the downside of letting Patrick Reed back onto the PGA Tour if it means letting this crop of young talent work their way towards the Tour again ensuring there's a strong next generation of young guys going forward. Do we need to show pity for the 20-somethings who decided to take the guaranteed millions of dollars to set themselves up financially for life? Usually not, but in this situation, I think it's more than justified.