Full swing captures 'chaos' of merger announcement as LIV Golf stars included
The 2023 season proved to be another chaotic one in the world of professional golf and, like the year prior, Netflix's Full Swing cameras were there every step of the way to provide a behind-the-scenes look.
The fly-on-the wall docu-series premiered last February, covering the 2022 season on the PGA Tour which proved to be one of the most dramatic of all time thanks to the emergence of LIV Golf. Following the success of season one, the show has returned for eight more episodes, available to watch on Netflix from March 6.
And if 2022 did not provide enough drama, things ramped up to a whole new level in 2023, after the PGA Tour and Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF) announced plans to sign a groundbreaking agreement.
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The news was a shock to many, not least the players who had been at the centre of the saga, and the Netflix cameras were right by their side as the news broke. Giving an insight into what fans can expect to see ahead of next week's release, Executive Producer Chad Mumm told Mirror Sport: "We had cameras that week [of the merger announcement] following players at U.S. Open qualifying and up at Toronto for RCB Canadian Open.
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"We happened to have cameras where they needed to be to capture the chaos of that moment and nobody knew it was coming. It was truly shocking, compared to the drama of LIV announcement and the initial wave of defections in season one, that was a lot of year-long speculation.
"The battle lines were drawn and it was a slow drip of speculation, and I think everybody got tired of that narrative. This was so shocking and it impacted everybody. Whether you were a LIV player, you had no idea what this meant for the future of your tour, or if you are on the PGA Tour, it was the wildest announcement you could never see coming.
"It was this exciting and dramatic moment that impacted equally and nobody had any idea what would come next, so from a storytelling perspective it was a golden gift." The initial birth of LIV in 2022 took place during filming of season one, meaning a number of players involved in the production provided insight both before and after their Saudi switch.
This time around it remained to be see as to whether Full Swing would once again include players from both sides of the saga, or stick solely with the PGA Tour. Mumm however confirmed fans can once again expect to see some familiar LIV faces in Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson.
"DJ features pretty heavily in the season and a bunch of LIV players are showcased. Brooks' win at the PGA Championship is a big storyline, more of how it impacts Rory [McIlroy] and the rest of the Tour players, Brooks pops back up in the Ryder Cup obviously and we think the inside look of that chaotic announcement of the PIF framework agreement will be something that is very satisfying to golf fans, whatever side you take."
Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka both feature in season two (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)McIlroy too will play a starring role, having found himself at the centre of the conflict between the PGA Tour and LIV after remaining loyal to the former. Away from the off-course politics, the Northern Irishman was also embroiled in drama at last Autumn's Ryder Cup, another event in which the Full Swing cameras were able to provide behind-the-scenes footage of.
"You will see inside the Ryder Cup in a way that nobody has ever seen before," the Producer revealed. "There is no shortage of drama, not shortage of amazing one liners from players that you will be shocked to hear coming out of their mouths in the emotional moment.
"And then to be able to be with all of them and their families in the build-up and the look back at what it meant is just a very satisfying way to end the season. The Ryder Cup is really three episodes of the whole season, the build-up and then the two-episode finale in Rome. There was nothing we looked back on and thought 'I wish we had cameras for that' because we had everything."
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