There are a total of seven LIV Golf pros at Le Golf National. Yet, you won’t see any of them sporting their LIV branding like they did in the majors. At Royal Troon, Jon Rahm was wearing a shirt with the Legion XIII logo clearly visible on his chest. At the Olympics, he has to let it go. The IOC has nothing against PIF; it’s a general rule the committee expects everyone to adhere to. 

Players are not permitted to sport any brands or sponsors on their apparel other than the team’s. It’s their way of preventing ambush marketing, a term used for companies using a big event like the Olympics to peddle their brands or make it appear that they are directly associated with the Games. 

Even if a player is forced to wear a rival brand’s clothes or shoes, they are expected to mask it using labels, stickers, or, in some cases, threads. But that was not the case with LIV golfers’ tees. So, Rahm and his teammate, David Puig, both of whom play for rival teams on the Saudi-backed side, are wearing the same jersey at Le Golf National.

Notably, it’s for the same reason Rory McIlroy, a Nike athlete, is wearing Adidas this week. Adidas is the official apparel sponsor of Team Ireland. Similarly, Scottie Scheffler, another Nike athlete, is donning J. Lindeberg apparel, as is his teammate, Xander Schauffele, who partnered with Descente earlier this year. The case is quite the opposite for Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg. The rookie Olympian has to ditch his Adidas for UNIQLO.

However, for LIV golf pros, it’s more jarring, as most of them were donning their team jerseys at the majors, despite some criticism from the golf community. It’s not so much a way of protesting as their way of representing the nascent league, which they felt is overdue some recognition from the major organizers. This year, it was that and some more. 

Why do LIV golf pros wear branded clothing at the majors?

Greg Norman, the LIV Golf chairman, once hoped or rather raised a clarion call, that should a LIV golfer win the major, all others should celebrate it as a team victory. Since then, two of them have been major winners. Brooks Koepka won the 2023 PGA Championship, and then Bryson DeChambeau landed the U.S. Open. There were no such team celebrations like that, however. 

Nevertheless, players continued to appear on the greens in their respective teams’s jerseys. Eventually, it has become an expectation rather than an aberration. Consider the Masters, for example. Even last year, there was a backdoor agreement that LIV golf pros would wear unbranded apparel at the Augusta National. 

There was no such directive from ANGC this year, however. Team captains like Cameron Smith, Jon Rahm, and Bryson DeChambeau freely sported a LIV logo on their tee shirts. But the case at the Olympics is different; they are representing a different team: their nation. Hence, no such personal affiliation is to be shown on the course.