{"id":437363,"date":"2025-11-08T01:17:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T01:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=437363"},"modified":"2025-11-08T01:17:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T01:17:46","slug":"tyrrell-hatton-says-liv-players-once-rejected-format-shift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/tyrrell-hatton-says-liv-players-once-rejected-format-shift\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyrrell Hatton Says LIV Players Once Rejected Format Shift"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, LIV Golf announced that the league would be switching to a 72-hole forma<\/a>t.\u00a0 It is largely part of a bid to be recognized by the OWGR in the ongoing effort to get the players back in the rankings through LIV.\u00a0 However, according to Tyrrell Hatton, this push was initially rejected by the players.<\/span><\/p>\n

The LIV Golf Format Change<\/span><\/h2>\n

LIV Golf has been in the headlines all week for this format change.\u00a0 For its short life, the league has stuck to a 54-hole format, along with the teams, and shotgun starts to keep the tournaments moving quickly.\u00a0 As a bid for OWGR points, the move has drawn criticism from other professional players, such as Rory McIlroy<\/a>, who thought the league could have been recognized with the original format.\u00a0 It seems that McIlroy wasn\u2019t alone in his criticism, according to Tyrrell Hatton.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tyrrell Hatton On The Initial Reaction<\/span><\/h2>\n

Over on the LIV Golf side, the initial reaction was lukewarm at best.\u00a0 The players were made aware of the change nearly a year in advance.\u00a0 In a press conference ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship<\/a>, Hatton was asked about the format change.\u00a0 He revealed that there were internal polls to gauge opinion on a change.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know at the end of my first season, there was a questionnaire that was filled out. One of the questions was about moving to 72 holes,\u201d Hatton said. \u201cI think of everyone who filled it out, I think there was only three guys, initially, who had said [yes] about moving there [to 72 holes].\u00a0 I guess that\u2019s changed quite a bit in the last year, and certainly from my standpoint.\u00a0 I\u2019m quite happy that we\u2019ve moved to 72 holes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hatton would say that he did support the change from the start.\u00a0 The 72-hole format is much more in line with a traditional golf tournament and is what all the star players were used to.\u00a0 Since those original polls, it seems that opinion has shifted on the change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hatton Sees Player Opinion On The Change<\/span><\/h2>\n

In the past, players like Dustin Johnson have stated that they like how relaxed LIV Golf felt compared to leagues like the PGA.\u00a0 In the press conference, Hatton admits that he has seen the opinion shift on the matter.\u00a0 The shift is getting a lot of support from the star players.\u00a0 Dustin Johnson said that he thinks it’s a great move, given that it is more like other big tournaments.\u00a0 Bryson DeChambeau has called it a \u201cfantastic evolution.\u00a0 Joaquinn Niemann is just excited to see the change.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Is This A Positive Move?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Opinions on the LIV Golf format change seem to be pretty positive from Hatton’s point of view.\u00a0 Outside of the league, opinion is more split.\u00a0 As stated before, Rory McIlroy is unsure about it; others are speculating if this is actually a sign of the league’s decline.\u00a0 It can keep the players better prepared for the majors.\u00a0 It is still unknown if this will work for OWGR points, but that may not be addressed by the organization until the 2026 season.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit:\u00a0 \u00a9 Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, LIV Golf announced that the league would be switching to a 72-hole format.\u00a0 It is largely part of a bid to be recognized by the OWGR in the ongoing effort to get the players back in the rankings through LIV.\u00a0 However, according to Tyrrell Hatton, this push was initially rejected by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5429,"featured_media":437364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,246,200],"tags":[58,34,115],"class_list":["post-437363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-liv-golf","tag-dustin-johnson","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-tyrrell-hatton"],"modified_by":"Taylor Craig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437365,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437363\/revisions\/437365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}