High Hopes or Harsh Realities: Player Predictions for the 2026 LIV Golf Season

As the 2026 LIV Golf season tees off in Riyadh, I’m going to dive into a handful of players and detail if I have high hopes for them, or if 2026 might bring about some harsh realities for their games and the future of their time on LIV Golf.

Last season I had high hopes for Mito Pereira (relegated and then retired), Yubin Jang (best finish T23, relegated), Tyrrell Hatton (not a great season at all, finished 26th), Cam Smith (winless), and Adrian Meronk (first LIV Golf win). As for harsh realities, I was down on Dustin Johnson (winless, finished 14th), Talor Gooch (won in Andalucía, podium in Korea), Lee Westwood (finished 46th, barely fought off relegation), and Charles Howell III (finished in safe zone, 2nd in Korea).

For those counting at home that’s roughly 2/9. Not the best. Frankly, not even close to the best. Hope to do better this season.

It really stinks to see that Matt Wolff hasn’t performed at the level he’s capable of, because when he is, there are really not many players in the world I enjoy watching more. His swing is captivating, his game is exhilarating, and he’s got more talent than maybe anyone on the planet.

Wolff has been bit by the injury bug for the past couple of years so I’m really hoping that his sporadic 2025 schedule coupled with the extended offseason was exactly what he needed to get healthy. A mix of back and wrist issues have held him back from playing to his potential. Even throughout these tough times there’s been some glimmers of hope in Wolff’s game. In 2024 he finished 4th in Las Vegas and then 3rd in Miami, and last year he finished 6th in Korea before missing the next 3 events and eventually falling to 42nd in the individual standings.

All indications point towards him being healthy heading into this season as he’s been putting in the work with his coach George Gankas. Wolff is prepared to come out swinging this season and I think he’ll do just that.

Wolff’s RangeGoats GC teammate Ben Campbell finished in 36th place last season and was questionable to return to the team. He even signed up for the LIV Golf Promotions Event before eventually being re-signed by team captain Bubba Watson. I don’t think the harsh realities from Campbell come in the form of a disbelief in his abilities, or his work ethic, or anything along those lines. He’s just got to be perfect off the tee to really have a chance to compete with these guys. His 3rd place finish in Singapore was the perfect illustration of that. He’s one of the best putters you’ll see in all of professional golf, routinely gaining over 1.5 strokes on the field, but his best rounds with driver are basically break-even. You really can’t compete with that, the guys that are routinely in the mix at the top of the leaderboard are gaining strokes in every single category. It’s simply a distance issue, he’s one of the shorter hitters in professional golf right now, and that makes competing at this level very challenging.

If his driver is slightly off, it doesn’t matter if all other aspects of his game are firing on all cylinders, he’s not going to be able to make up the strokes lost off the tee. If he gets a little shaky with the putter, or even regresses slightly on that front, there’s no chance.

Unless Campbell has been working this offseason to simply hit the ball farther than he currently does, I think he’s going to struggle to climb the individual rankings and could find himself towards the bottom of the individual standings come August.

Playing alongside 4 Aces GC captain Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Harold Varner III, Thomas Pieters was always going to be a little under the radar. Last season he finished in 19th place in the individual standings despite not finishing better than T12 in the first 6 events. In the last 7 he posted two T4s and two T8s. This season the 4 Aces add his friend and countryman Thomas Detry which should improve the team room a bit and help Pieters continue his strong form from the second half of the season.

Reed leaving the team shakes things up a bit on the team front, but it also allows Pieters to establish himself as the number 2 on the team and set the standard for Detry. I could see Pieters taking this opportunity, running with it, and having his strongest season yet on LIV Golf. Would not be at all surprised to see him climb into the top 15 by the end of the season and land on the podium a couple of times.

Two years ago Graeme McDowell had a few strong finishes that resulted in him finishing the season in 29th place. He finished T5 in Las Vegas, T8 in Hong Kong, and T6 in Singapore. Last season he only really had one finish worth writing home about, his T2 in Virginia. McDowell’s game as a whole has always been a bit streaky. I think when he gets hot he’s absolutely got the ability to be right there in the mix, but it almost feels as if the frequency with which he gets hot is decreasing. With the league being more competitive than ever and the relegation extending to the bottom 11 players, Graeme is going to have to get things turned around if he is to survive another season on LIV Golf.

The flip side of that coin here is that he knows all of this already. He knows that there’s more players being relegated, and he knows that he’s going to have to play at a higher level than he has in the past. That could be the motivating factor he needs to get the job done. In my experience, many professional golfers are the best when their back is against the wall, and if Graeme feels that his is, he may be able to climb into the lock zone. Interestingly, the points structure change, in that every finish is awarded points, not just those in the top half, may help Graeme. If he’s streaky, he’ll be rewarded more for weeks where he’s doing well, but still be able to accumulate some points on weeks where things aren’t all clicking.

This one feels like more of a no-brainer than the others. Ballester only played 6 events on LIV Golf last season, having turned pro and joined Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs GC in Virginia. In that time, he was able to climb to 35th in the rankings and finish tied for second in Chicago. The Spaniard’s game is explosive. He brings elite speed off the tee, great iron play, and touch around the greens that will get him out of any tricky spots.

Outside of LIV Golf, Ballester has shown the world just how much potential he has. He’s just 22 years old and claimed victory at the PIF Saudi International just a couple of months ago. Since then he’s played two events, the BMW Australian PGA Championship and the Crown Australian Open, and finished T10 and T6 respectively. DataGolf lists him as the 167th best player in the world, but I’d be shocked if that number doesn’t climb to the top 75, or even top 50 by the end of the LIV Golf season. For me, there is no doubt in my mind that Ballester will finish inside the top 20 this season, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see him inside the top 10.

While this is the last thing I want to be true, the fight against Father Time isn’t a fun one and HyFlyers GC captain Phil Mickelson is right up against it. In a few months time he’ll be turning 56 and with the way the game of golf is trending, the way players are hitting the ball farther and the way courses are being set up to deal with that, it’s not favoring Phil. It’s not favoring any of the over 50s if we’re being honest.

Somehow I’m continually proven wrong and find myself regularly impressed and borderline speechless that Phil is able to continue competing at the level he does. From the 2023 Masters where he went on an incredible Sunday run and finished T2, to Hong Kong, Miami, and Virginia last season where he was right there in the mix.

The issue I keep thinking back to is the grind of the game getting to him. Not mentally, I don’t think he’s lacking any motivation, but physically. The league is going to four rounds this year which means the older guys won’t be able to be as well rested as they once were. Additionally, the bulk of his finishes where he accumulated points last season came in the first half. His best finish after the T4 in Virginia was T23 in Andalucía.

Phil will be missing the first two events of the season to deal with a personal family-matter, which is only going to add to the difficulty to get some points towards the individual standings. He’ll have two fewer events to play, he’ll be a touch more rusty than he would have otherwise been, and he’ll have some catching up to do. The change in the points allocation will hurt Phil more than other players. If it were like last year where only the top 24 finishers were awarded points, he might be able to join in the 3rd event and still be tied in the individual standings with a large percentage of the field. This year, everyone who’s played in even just one of the first two events will have accumulated some amount of points, meaning Phil will undoubtedly have some serious ground to make up.

If I had to pick, this is the one I’d most prefer to be wrong on, but it’s also the one that I think is the hardest to fight back against. Phil’s done a tremendous job keeping his body in shape to compete at this level, and finding ways to get advantages within the game he brings to the course, but you can only do so much in the fight against father time. Now that he’ll be playing two less events than everyone else, things really need to go his way when he’s out there.