Since its inception in 2022, LIV Golf has tended to recruit players with vast professional experience.
Among the first intake of signings were two-time Major winner Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson, who signed on the dotted line around a year after he became the oldest Major winner of all time with his 2021 PGA Championship win at the age of 50.
More experience soon followed, including Major winners Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith, and that continued with the likes of two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson, who was 43 when he joined LIV Golf, and PGA Tour journeyman Charles Howell III, who was the same age when he made the leap to the circuit.
However, there have been some notable exceptions, including four players who went straight from their college careers to the big-money League.
Eugenio Chacarra
Spaniard Eugenio Chacarra was already making a name for himself before joining LIV Golf. The Madrid-born player was enjoying a hugely successful college career at Oklahoma State University when LIV came calling.
Among his achievements were becoming a first-team All-American and reaching second in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. He was also on the watchlist for the Haskins Award before arguably the biggest achievement of his college career.
That came when Chacarra finished third in the 2022 PGA Tour University rankings, which landed him a Korn Ferry Tour card. However, he later announced he would forfeit that chance of a professional career to stay on at Oklahoma State for another year.
Two months later, though, there had been a change of heart, with Chacarra joining LIV Golf in June 2022 and winning his first tournament as a professional at that year’s event in Bangkok.
James Piot
James Piot enrolled at Michigan State in 2017, and soon accumulated honors, including being named Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2018, and becoming an All-Big Ten First Team selection and an All-American Honorable Mention in his senior year in 2021.
He then pulled off his greatest achievement at that point with victory in the 2021 US Amateur at Oakmont Country Club.
The following May, he signed for LIV Golf in time for its first tournament at London’s Centurion Club before turning professional later that year.
He remained with the circuit until he was relegated at the end of the 2023 season, and he’s since played occasionally on the Asian Tour.
David Puig
Of the players who went straight to LIV Golf from college, the move seems to have suited Puig the most, with his career flourishing since leaving his time at Arizona State University behind.
The young Spaniard joined the university in 2019, and among his achievements were victories in the 2021 Southwestern Invitational, before he won it again the year after. He also played in the Arnold Palmer Cup in 2020 and 2021 as his reputation grew.
Puig then helped the Arizona Sun Devils to the final match at the 2022 NCAA Division I Championship before, about an hour afterwards, he was named in the field for the first LIV Golf tournament.
Puig played the first two LIV Golf events as an amateur before turning professional in September of that year.
While he is yet to win a LIV Golf tournament, Puig has more than held his own in fields of more experienced players, while he has picked up two professional wins on the Asian Tour.
Caleb Surratt
After Jon Rahm joined LIV Golf in December 2023 and it became clear he would form a 13th team, the focus soon turned to who would join him at the new franchise. A surprise name to be linked was University of Tennessee player Caleb Surratt.
However, a look at his record showed that he was a startling talent. After just two years, he had become the first player in the university’s history to earn first-team All-American honors. He was also a member of the 2023 US Walker Cup team and had risen as high as 10th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.
Sure enough, Surratt opted to leave his college career behind and sign as a professional for Rahm’s Legion XIII, and he hasn’t looked back, helping the team to second in the standings in its inaugural season.
