$50,000,000 LIV Golf season ending Championship format explored
With just one tournament left in the LIV Golf season, the Team Championship will tee off on Friday (October 20). The event will feature an astronomical $50,000,000 purse, of which all teams and individual players will receive at least a share.
The LIV Golf Team Championship will be played at Trump National Doral Miami, Florida. The system used will be a combination of Match Play and Stroke Play, in addition to the Win and Advance method. However, all teams and players will compete in the third and deciding round.
The tournament will begin with a quarterfinal round on Friday. The top four teams from the regular season (4Aces GC, Crushers GC, Torque GC, and RangeGoats GC) are seeded for the semifinal and will not participate in this round.
The fifth through eighth-ranked teams will choose their opponents from the ninth through 12th-seeded teams. The winners will advance to the semifinal on Saturday (October 21). At that time, the teams ranked one through four will also choose their opponents.
The quarterfinal and semifinal will be played in match play format (two singles matches and a foursomes match). One of the singles matches will pit the captains of each team against each other, while the other will be played by the highest-ranked players on each team, excluding the captain. The other two members will play foursomes.
Each singles match will award one point to the winner, while the winning duo in foursomes will also earn one point for their team. The points earned are accumulated for the final day.
The final round, called Championship Sunday, will feature all LIV Golf players playing for their respective teams. All scores will count toward the final standings of the team tournament.
What can we expect from the LIV Golf Team Championship?
So far, only the pairings for the quarterfinals have been announced, which are as follows:
- Stinger GC (5) vs. IronHeads GC (12)
- Fireballs GC (6) vs. Majesticks GC (11)
- Ripper GC (7) vs. Cleeks GC (10)
- Smash GC (8) vs. HyFlyers GC (9).
These matches set the stage for some very interesting clashes. That is the case of Brooks Koepka vs Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia vs Henrik Stenson and Cameron Smith vs Martin Kaymer.
Mickelson, Stenson and Kaymer have not been in good form for most of the season, but they are very experienced players with a lot of quality, so no one can be careless against them.
As for the semifinal, it remains to be seen which teams will qualify after the quarterfinal. However, the chance to see Koepka playing against Dustin Johnson or Bryson DeChambeau and Talor Gooch play Cameron Smith is more than enough to keep the golf world's attention.
In the inaugural season of LIV Golf, the 4Aces GC team won the Team Championship. At that time it consisted of Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Pat Perez and Talor Gooch.