By Rahul Banerji
LIV Golf’s tempestuous opening season will climax at the team championship in Miami from Friday with the final line-up of teams and seedings announced on Tuesday.
Few would have expected Greg Norman’s challenge to the established order to survive for so long and come this far, and yet the Saudi Arabia-backed league has managed just that.
When it launched, LIV Golf created the most profound schism world golf has known in at least four decades, dividing players, media and fans down the middle – most against, and some for.
Importantly, the players who signed up believed in the idea and its execution, and it was the golf they put on display that helped the league put down deeper and deeper roots.
On Friday, the 12-team, 48-player field will set out to cap the season, vying for an unheard-of $50 million jackpot at the Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami, livgolf.com said.
The Blue Monster course will stage the seeded knock-out tournament featuring both match play and stroke play and feature a field that includes four former top-ranked players in the world.
The top 36 players in the LIV Golf Invitational Series individual standings qualified for the finale, with league commitments and captains’ selections making up the remainder of the field.
The line-up
| Teams | Players |
| 1. 4 Aces GC | Dustin Johnson (capt) Patrick Reed Talor Gooch Pat Perez |
| 2. Crushers GC | Bryson DeChambeau (capt) Paul Casey Charles Howell III Anirban Lahiri |
| 3. Fireballs GC | Sergio Garcia (capt) Abraham Ancer Carlos Ortiz Eugenio Chacarra |
| 4. Stinger GC | Louis Oosthuizen (capt) Charl Schwartzel Branden Grace Hennie du Plessis |
| 5. Smash GC | Brooks Koepka (capt) Jason Kokrak Peter Uihlein Chase Koepka |
| 6. Majesticks GC | Ian Poulter (capt) Lee Westwood Henrik Stenson Sam Horsfield |
| 7. Torque GC | Joaquin Niemann (capt) Scott Vincent Adrian Otaegui Jediah Morgan |
| 8. Hy Flyers GC | Phil Mickelson (capt) Bernd Wiesberger Matthew Wolff Cameron Tringale |
| 9. Iron Heads GC | Kevin Na (capt) Sadom Kaewkanjana Phachara Khongwatmai Sihwan Kim |
| 10. Cleeks GC | Martin Kaymer (capt) Graeme McDowell Laurie Canter Richard Bland |
| 11. Punch GC | Cameron Smith (capt) Marc Leishman Matt Jones Wade Ormsby |
| 12. Niblicks GC | Bubba Watson (non-playing capt) Harold Varner III Hudson Swafford James Piot Turk Pettit |
“LIV Golf has revived the sport in record time during our beta-test season,” said Norman in Miami.
“It’s fitting that we tie a bow on this historic year with a dramatic and innovative team championship that will propel us into a team-focused league from 2023 onward.”
For the LIV Golf Invitational Series team standings, points were awarded based on teams’ finish at each tournament, from 32 points (first place) to 0 (9th-12th).
Following the seventh and final regular season event in Jeddah, team standings determined the top 12 seeds for the team championship.
The format
Top-seeds 4 Aces GC (152 points), second seeds Crushers GC (96), third seeds Fireballs GC (93) and fourth seeds Stinger GC (72) earned byes and automatically advance to Saturday’s semi-finals.
The remaining teams, starting with the fifth-seeded Smash GC led by captain and four-time major winner Brooks Koepka, will select their opponents for Friday’s quarter-final matchups.
Following Friday’s elimination, captains of the top four seeds and those of the four quarter-finals winners will select their opponents for Saturday’s semi-finals.
On Sunday, the 16 players from the four semi-final winners will compete in a shotgun-start round of stroke play.
Players will compete in twosomes, team captains will play together, and all scores will count. The team with the lowest score will be the LIV Golf Invitational Series team champions.
Also read: Drama in the desert as Brooks Koepka wins Jeddah cliff-hanger
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