By Rahul Banerji
LIV Golf’s top-tier Invitational series makes its Asian debut at the Stonehill Golf Club outside Bangkok on Thursday with the season-ending race for individual and team placings getting warmer.
Dustin Johnson leads the way with top-10 finishes at all five Invitationals so far including a playoff victory over Anirban Lahiri and Joaquin Neimann at Boston.
He is followed by South Africa’s Branden Grace and The Open champion Cameron Smith of Australia.
At 7,800-plus yards, the spanking new venue will suit long hitters like Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau and quite a few others.
DeChambeau incidentally finished second in the world long drive championship last week and has been hitting bombs on the range despite the rainy leadup to the Invitational.
Fat purses
The individual race covers the season’s first seven events, with a total purse of $30 million for the top three players, the LIV Golf website noted.
A solid $18 million purse goes to the winner, with $8 million for second place and $4 million for the third-place finisher. Players must play in a minimum of four events to be eligible.
Bangkok is the sixth event of the season, with next week’s LIV Golf Invitational Jeddah as the final tournament to determine the order of finish and the podium finishers.
Points are distributed in each event to the top 24 finishers, with tiebreakers determining the exact order. Each tournament winner receives 40 points down to one point for 24th.
With the win at Boston and four other top-10 finishes, Johnson has 118 points. Grace, the winner in Portland, has 79 points.
Smith, who won on debut at Chicago has 56 points from two LIV Golf starts. He is just one point ahead of South African Charl Schwartzel, winner of the inaugural event in London.
In the team race, Johnson’s 4 Aces are well ahead of the pack with four consecutive wins and a fifth place for 136 points.
The Stingers are second on 72 points from their London win, the Majesticks third on 57 and the Crushers, with Lahiri in the ranks, fourth on 56 points.
Golf in for 2026 CWG
After the Asian Games and the Olympics, golf has been added to a third multi-discipline event, for the upcoming 2026 Victoria Commonwealth Games.
It will be the first time golf has been included in the Games programme.
“Victoria 2026 is proposing to add … golf, coastal rowing, and the road (cycling) race and will work with the Commonwealth Games Federation and relevant international sporting federations to determine if this is possible,” the Commonwealth Games Federation said in a statement.
The 2026 Games will be held in four venues across the state of Victoria and will feature 22 sports and 26 disciplines, including nine fully integrated para-sports, the organisers added.
The news has created quite a buzz in India and opens the door for more golfers to vie for national colours in addition to the Olympics where Aditi Ashok’s heroics in Tokyo helped raise the sport’s profile greatly.
World Challenge field named
Hero World Challenge host Tiger Woods has announced the field for the 2022 Hero World Challenge, set to return to Albany in the Bahamas from November 28 to December 4 this year.
Korean sensation and Classic Open winner Joohyung ‘Tom’ Kim will be amongst five debutants seen in action in Albany thus year in addition to countryman Sungjae Im.
The 2022 Hero World Challenge field features defending champion Viktor Hovland along with seven major winners who have won a total of 11 major championships, the event website said.
“There are 16 PGA Tour winners committed to compete at Albany who have won a total of 87 events.
“The field features five players making their tournament debuts. Will Zalatoris, Cameron Young, Sungjae Im, Max Homa and Tom Kim will all tee it up at Albany for the first time.
“Since moving to Albany in 2015, only Jon Rahm (2018) and Hovland (2021) have won the event in their tournament debut. Three tournament exemptions will be announced at a later date,” it added.
The field includes past winners Jordan Speith (2014) and Hideki Matsuyama (2016), world no. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Tokyo Olympics champion Xander Schauffele.
Whether or not Tiger Woods will play remains up in the air as he continues to recover from a career-threatening car accident two years ago. The three exemptions announced have left that option open.
Lahiri loses sponsors
Indian golf star Anirban Lahiri has been dropped from the roster of Mastercard and Hero MotoCorp, his major sponsors.
Lahiri, who joined the LIV Golf series recently may have lost on his big backers but a reported signing fee with Greg Norman’s tour of $7 million will go some way in mitigating the loss.
Add another $2.5 million approximately for his LIV Golf earnings thus far and India’s top-ranked golfer has not come away from the rearrangement of his finances too badly.
In a tweet addressing the issue, Lahiri said, “I am very grateful for the support I have received over the years from both Hero and Mastercard.
“Any corporate that supports golf should be celebrated. That’s all I want to say,”
The tweet however, is no longer on display.
Also read: Bangkok set to host LIV Golf Invitational Series’ Asian debut
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