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The year 2019 was big for golf being played under lights. The Ladies European Tour debuted the Omega Moonlight Classic, the world’s first day-night tournament where 56 golfers competed at least nine holes under LED floodlights in Dubai. Later that year at the DP World Tour’s Turkish Airlines Open, a six-man, sudden-death playoff was whittled down to three after one hole, but darkness had set in. With the 18th at the Montgomerie Maxx Royal course being floodlit, the late rules official John Paramor agreed to stage the first lighted finish in European Tour history. Three more floodlit holes were required to crown a winner.
That champion was England’s Tyrrell Hatton, the European Ryder Cup star who will be the most experienced—and in-form—player when LIV Golf kicks off its 2025 season with an entire tournament under lights in Saudi Arabia. “That was my only experience, really, of night golf, and that was a while ago,” Hatton told Golf Digest ahead of the opening round of LIV Golf Riyadh on Thursday.
All three rounds at the Riyadh Golf Club will be held under lights, with the 54-player field teeing off in LIV’s shotgun starts just after 6 p.m. local.
Hatton, who plays on Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII team, noted the lights are merely one adjustment that players will be coping with at the season-opener as they play for LIV Golf’s typical $20 million purse and $4 million first-place prize money payout.
Here’s the prize money breakdown for each golfer at the 2025 LIV Golf Riyadh presented by Maaden
“It’ll be better for me to stay on English time and wake up late, because it’s three hours behind Riyadh,” Hatton added. “It’s such a late start. [You don’t want to be] too tired by the time the evening comes around because it’s going to be a late finish.”
Hatton’s fellow Englishman and Ryder Cup stalwart Ian Poulter suggested the time difference could be the biggest challenge. “We’re trying to wake up at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, really, to get ready for a 6 p.m. tee off,” Poulter, a co-captain of the Majesticks team, said.
There are, of course, significant adjustments to be made while on the course. LIV events are three rounds instead of four, but 54 is still more holes under lights than any other tournament on a major tour. The biggest hurdles, several players noted, were shadows, visualization and depth.
“Depth perception will be big,” said former Open champion Cam Smith. “A few of the shots will feel a lot different but I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
“Shadows will be a factor, and temperature will be a factor,” added Brendan Steele, a former three-time PGA Tour winner who plays on Phil Mickelson’s HyFlyers team. “Usually, it gets warmer throughout a round of golf [when golf balls travel farther in warmer temperatures], but this will get colder so the ball will [fly] shorter. I’m very excited to play under lights.”
Poulter predicted he would lean on his caddie perhaps more than he ever has.
“There’s definitely an adjustment. Light is a huge factor with us in terms of visual reading, and gauging how far away a flag is,” he said. “I think you have to really trust your instincts and the numbers. Playing with a laser and having a great caddie, you’ll really have to rely on them. The visualization on the shots [will be a challenge]. The ball goes off into a dark sky background here. It’s strange, but do you know what? I think it’s going to work really well. It’s going to be exciting.”
Apart from Hatton’s three floodlit playoff holes in 2019, most LIV golfers have little to no experience under lights. The pro-am at the Saudi International tournament in December was played under lights so that LIV players in the Asian Tour event’s field could give the league feedback. Other than that, only a handful of players have experienced night golf. “I played a par-3 course at Sage Valley [in South Carolina] under lights but this is considerably different,” Poulter said, laughing. Steele, though, isn’t as fortunate. “I’ve never done it before, so I have to adapt as quickly as possible.”
A scenic view of the seventh hole before the start of LIV Golf Riyadh – Charles Laberge/LIV Golf
Dustin Johnson gets in some practice at the driving range before the start of the 2025 LIV Golf League season – Chris Trotman/LIV Golf
Adjusting to the lights and shadows will be a possible hurdle for players like Adrian Meronk when the tournament begins on Thursday – Jon Ferrey/LIV Golf
For LIV Golf, which is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fun, kicking off its fourth season with the unique night-time event is an astute move sure to generate curiosity around the world, especially for Round 1 (starting Thursday 10:15 am ET). It’s also likely the first tangible change to the league in the wake of signing a multi-year broadcast deal with FOX Sports in the United States. Rather than air the broadcast on tape delay or attempt to televise the event live with a regular local afternoon start (12 noon in Riyadh is 4 a.m. on the East Coast in U.S.), moving the start window in Saudi Arabia allows for easier viewing for an American audience.
Exposure and publicity are certainly needed after a quiet off-season in which Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin, a DP World Tour winner who had secured a 2025 promotion to the PGA Tour, was LIV’s biggest signing. McKibbin, 22, grew up playing at the same Belfast golf course as his idol and mentor, Rory McIlroy. LIV’s five other additions included wildcard player Chieh-po Lee from Chinese Taipei, who won the LIV Golf Promotions qualifying school, as well as South Korea’s Yubin Jang (Iron Heads) Spain’s Luis Masaveu (Fireballs GC), Denmark’s Frederik Kjettrup (Cleeks GC) and New Zealand’s Ben Campbell (RangeGoats GC).
It’s a far cry from a dramatic 2024 offseason when LIV secured its biggest name since its initial launch with then Masters champ Jon Rahm, followed by Hatton. That invited a steady flow of hype and headlines last year, with Rahm winning twice on the league and Hatton once before peaking with LIV star Bryson DeChambeau claiming his second U.S. Open victory.
In 2025, a Ryder Cup year, all signs point to Hatton emerging as the league’s headline act. He hasn’t finished worse than T-10 in his past six official starts worldwide, outside of LIV. That stretch includes victories on the DP World Tour at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews in the fall and the prestigious Hero Dubai Desert Classic last month.
Hatton’s Dubai win catapulted him to No. 8 on the Official World Golf Ranking, an impressive placement considering LIV Golf League events don’t receive for its tournaments, and briefly to No. 1 on the European Ryder Cup team standings (before McIlroy eclipsed him by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am). From here, Hatton’s busy LIV schedule means the four major championships will be his only official tournaments to accrue crucial points for Luke Donald’s European team before the six automatic qualifiers are finalized on Aug. 24. It puts extra pressure on the majors, but Hatton said his focus would be on winning one of the four, which would likely guarantee Ryder Cup qualification anyway.
“I’ve been fortunate to win some pretty big tournaments over the last few years,” said Hatton, whose trophy cabinet includes the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational and eight DP World Tour titles. He was also T-9 at Augusta last year. “[Many of them] were in world-class fields. Majors are no different. It’s just a case of hopefully getting myself into a position on a Sunday to win. That’s a career goal, to win a major.”
And so Hatton’s march towards the majors, the Ryder Cup at Bethpage, and LIV, begins—under lights.
Main Image: Charles Laberge/LIV Golf
