On Monday, we broke the news that Chilean Joaquin Niemann has been invited to the PGA Championship at Valhalla this year. Niemann won the Australian Open in the fall and has begun his 2024 campaign with two LIV victories in three starts.

While speaking with the media, fellow LIV golfer Jon Rahm said he was happy about Niemann’s invite, but still thinks another LIV player should be invited to the majors.

“I mean, isn’t that what we all want to see? Yeah, it’s very encouraging. I’m very happy to see Joaco get invites. To be fair, he’s shown the interest of wanting to qualify many different ways and has played the way you’re supposed to play, so I think it’s only right that he gets invites.

But if that’s the way you’re going to go, I think there’s one player that played fantastic all last season that’s been a little bit left out, and not saying that they all have to, but I think Talor Gooch should be under consideration to possibly get an invite into those majors, as well. He was the best player out here last year, and if that doesn’t show good golf and being worthy of being in majors, I don’t know what does.

While we don’t have a clear path to majors through LIV yet, I think they should be taking everybody under consideration.”

Gooch was the individual LIV champion last year and won three events. As of now, it appears he won’t be included in any of the four major championships.

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Viktor Hovland closed out 2023 as one of the hottest players in the world. The Norwegian won the BMW Championship and TOUR Championship in back-to-back weeks, cementing himself as one of the best players in the world.

However, Hovland hasn’t begun 2024 quite as well as he’d anticipated. In his three starts this year, he’s finished T22, T58 and T19. Although he’s been good off the tee, his iron game isn’t quite where it was last year, and he’s lost strokes on approach in a small sample size.

While speaking with the media prior to his start at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Hovland revealed that he is currently unhappy with his swing.

“It’s been a little bit frustrating so far this year. Feel like my swing hasn’t been quite as good as it has been in previous years, so it’s been, felt like I’ve tried to prioritize just being home and practicing, putting a lot of work in.”

“It’s just the mechanics of the swing. Just haven’t been able to hit the shots that I want to,” Hovland said. “When you’re seeing a shot, and your swing is not producing those shots, it becomes very tough to compete, especially at this level.”

Hovland went on to say that he believes his swing was better in 2021 than it was last season, which was his best season as a professional.

“I actually prefer my golf swing better in 2021, kind of early 2021 I feel like my ball striking was the best. Now don’t get me wrong, I definitely swung it well last year, but it wasn’t as good as I would have wanted.”

As for the swing changes he’s currently working on with coach, Hovland was reluctant to go too deep, but revealed:

“I don’t want to get too into it, but I’m just like — basically, I’m just pressuring the ground a little bit differently and, yeah, just doing a couple things different off the ball that is causing a chain reaction. So, it’s just a matter of trying to get the swing started the right way, and I should be able to find my groove from there.”

Despite his relative struggles, Hovland is still amongst the favorites at Bay Hill. Last year he finished in a tie for 10th and in 2022 he finished in a tie for 2nd.

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During season two of “Full Swing” on Netflix, the docuseries sat down with Paulina Gretzky, who’s married to Dustin Johnson.

While speaking to the show, Gretzky revealed that her family has received death threats over Dustin’s move to LIV Golf.

“There were people sending death threats and awful, awful, awful things. People were aggressive, that’s for sure, but that’s when I shut it down for a little bit and I was like ’I don’t need to look at this, everyone has an opinion on it and fine.’

“We have a little bit more time together now since things have changed a little, whereas before it was ‘go go go.’ We have more control now of how we do things.

“The old life we had; it was ‘I had to take a back seat’ but now it feels like we’re in the front of the plane together flying. It was the right move.”

Since his move, DJ has been adamant that the decision was what is in the best interest for him and his family. He has wins in each of his three LIV seasons, amassing 5 victories in total and won $35 million alone in his first season on LIV.

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