Axed LIV Golf star set sights on making Tour return after being dumped from breakaway league

LIV Golf defectors were determined, and Kalle Samooja is among five عمومی players demoted to LIV Golf at season’s end As a former golfer at Cleeks, Kalle Samooja is back at Q-School.

Having been shown the exit door at LIV Golf less than two months ago, former star Kalle Samooja is in Spain this week to participate in this week’s final stage of the DP World Tour Qualifying School.

Samooja was one of five players to lose their card for rest of 2024 LIV season along with, Branden Grace, Bubba Watson, Kieran Vincent and Scott Vincent. On the back of this, the Finnish star has sought to confirm his ambitions of featuring on the DP World Tour again.

Samooja competed on the Wentworth-based circuit before joining the LIV and claimed a Tour title at the 2022 Porsche European Open.

Now he is keen to make his way back, and has therefore entered Q-School, with the six-round event getting under way on Thursday. Samooja kicked off his week with a two-under-par 69 at Infinitum Golf in Tarragona, leaving him 39th on the leaderboard.

The Finn is no stranger to Q-School, having played his way onto the LIV circuit in the same fashion. Samooja was one of a number of players who entered the league’s maiden LIV Promotions event last year, which saw 72 holes contested over three days at Abu Dhabi Golf Club.

But it was Samooja who emerged victorious for the event to have the first of the three available positions in the LIV Golf roster. “Well of course it must mean something,” Samooja said about the promotion last year. “That’s why we’re all here. We all knew there is only three positions open, three cards, and everybody wanted those cards.

All I wanted was to get to Sunday and then hand myself a hundred and ten percent, and here we are. In my opinion, it is going to be massive, at least in scale. Golf is thriving again in Finland. We have guys, one guy on PGA Tour, European Tour, now LIV Golf, so it’s going to be massive for Finnish golf.”

However, after a single season partnering with Jon Rahm, Phil Mickelson and even Bryson DeChambeau, the Cleeks member failed to make the cut after the year finished 49th on the table. LIV Promotions will be back next month for the second year, although for the first time the breakaway league has provided just a single place on its team for competitors.

The Finn could enter the Promotions event again this time around despite being relegated in 2024 anyway, independently of his performance in Spain this week. There was no communication between Samooja and Jonas Mårtensson of his former team General Manager Cleeks GC of the course of action on whether or not the Finlander intends to partake in the promotion event slated for Saudi Arabia in December.