Upcoming LIV Golf ‘Duels’ Events to include Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm

LIV Golf has followed the PGA Tour with influencer-included events and added four more this season.

Bryson DeChambeau, already wildly popular on YouTube, will team up with golf influencers later this season in LIV Golf "Duels." / Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

Like the PGA Tour, LIV Golf is leaning into influencer content created during its tournament weeks.

The league announced four more “Duels” events Thursday, at its events in Virginia, Dallas, the U.K. and Chicago. The Virginia event is LIV’s next one, in early June at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va.

The format, as the name suggests, pairs one LIV player with an influencer. The inaugural Duels event was in LIV Golf Miami last month, with the team of Sergio Garcia and George Bryan defeating Bubba Watson and Luke Kwon on the first playoff hole.

LIV Golf announced that future Duels will include Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, who did not participate in the first edition. DeChambeau tied for second at last week’s PGA Championship and Rahm tied for eighth.

The matches will appear on the creators’ and LIV Golf YouTube channels.

"The Duels in Miami was just an insanely positive response, we knew we needed to make more of these," said Grant Horvat, an influencer with more than 1.2 million followers on YouTube. "With different hosts and different formats, we're really looking to shake things up and I think it's going to continue to get really interesting." 

The PGA Tour has held three “Creator Classics,” at last year’s Tour Championship and this year’s Players Championship and Truist Championship, with another scheduled at this year’s Tour Championship. Those events do not include Tour players, however.

Perhaps the most interesting influencer situation includes the Bryan Bros., namely Wesley and George Bryan. Wesley is a PGA Tour winner and played in last year's Creator Classic at East Lake, then the LIV Golf Duels at Miami. Playing in the LIV event got him an indefinite suspension from the PGA Tour. He will continue to play in LIV Golf Duels.

In a release, LIV Golf claimed that its Miami Duels event had three times as many viewers on YouTube in the first 24 hours than the PGA Tour’s Creator Classic from TPC Sawgrass had in its first three weeks after posting. The audiences, primarily male, skew younger than audiences for tournament broadcasts.