Having sorted out the individual honours in Chicago last week, the LIV Golf League heads to Dallas for the 14th, and final event of the ’24 season. Maridoe Golf Club will set the scene for the Team Championship as the 13 teams lock horns in the final shake up to determine this year’s champions and winners of the $14 million first place prize. Graeme McDowell’s Smash GC come into the finale in fourth spot, with eyes on a big payday.
The action will take place over three days with a combination of match play and stroke play being deployed in what has the makings of an intriguing weekend. The action will begin on Friday the 20th with the quarter final rounds. The three top ranked teams heading into the event [Crushers GC, Legion XIII and Ripper GC] have received byes into the semi-final day on Saturday leaving the remaining ten teams to battle it out in head-to-head matches for the five remaining spots on Saturday.
The head to heads for the first two days will be match-play comprising three matches, involving all four players on each team. Two singles matches and a foursomes [alternate shot] match will all be played for one point each. Best of three wins. Teams’ opponents are determined by draft with the highest ranked team choosing their opponent until all five matches are allocated. The standard shotgun start will remain so expect action early, all over the course.
The five victorious teams will join the top three on Saturday for the semi-final round of action. This will follow the same format as Friday’s quarter final round with the eight paired off into four matches. All matches will be played to a finish and there will be no tied matches.
Sunday reverts to stroke play with all fifty-two on course. The winners of the semi-final matches will play for first to fourth spot in ‘tier one’. The four defeated teams from Saturday will compete for positions five to eight, while those vanquished on Friday will battle it out for ninth to 13th positions. All four players’ scores will count with the lowest cumulative score in each ‘tier’ taking the respective honours.
Built around a lake, Maridoe Golf Club will put up a par-72, 7,567-yard test for the teams’ last hurrah of the ’24 season. It will play a standard 36-36 split with three of the four par-5 holes followed by a par-3 to attack. Two holes, the second and 16th are both over 600-yards for the big hitters in the field to assault, while the 8th, at just 165-yards will test the iron play of the pack.
On learning their fate for the Friday groupings, players were asked if there would be any strategy changes now that they know who they face. Mickelson was on hand to give his thoughts. “I don’t think the strategy will change, no,” pondered the decorated left-hander. “I thought one of the cool matchups as I was looking through them was seeing the RangeGoats and Aces play because you have former teammates playing each other in a couple matches with Peter Uihlein and Dustin,” he added. “I think that’s going to be an exciting match. You’ve got two of the longest hitters, used to be partners, used to be teammates, playing against each other. Then having Bubba and Harold go against each other, I think that is one of the more interesting matchups. I don’t think our strategy will change per se, but I just thought that matchup was kind of interesting.”
The action in Dallas on quarter final Friday will kick off at 11.15am Dallas time with the five match-ups as follows: Match one will see Brooks Koepka and McDowell’s Smash GC take on the Ironheads GC. Next up we have Niemann and Torque GC as they face off with Mickelson’s HyFlyers. Match number three will pit Fireballs GC against Majesticks and the fourth sees Stinger GC face Cleeks GC. The final match-up on Friday will see the Range Goats take on the Four Aces as the teams vie for the monster prize pot at the season’s final showpiece event.