By Steve Keating
MIAMI (Reuters) – LIV Golf has come in for plenty of criticism including a lack of competition but there will be no shortage of quality when the Saudi-backed venture concludes a controversial first season on Sunday when a team champion is crowned and a $50 million purse paid out.
While the four teams collecting semi-final wins on Saturday sound as if they were lifted from video games, the names of many of the players will be familiar to golf fans around the world, particularly the captains – major winners all.
Four Aces leader, ex-world number one Dustin Johnson; Smash GC captain, four-time major winner Brooks Koepka; Stinger leader, 2010 Open champion Louis Oosthuizen; and Open champion Cameron Smith, leader of Punch GC, will be headliners at Trump National Doral as their teams chase the $16 million winners’ prize.
The format for the final round will have all 16 players compete in twosomes with the scores of every golfer counting towards each team’s total.
Johnson, already sitting atop the LIV money list with $13.6 million from seven events, is sure to add to that haul after leading his team to a 2-1 semi-final win over the Cleeks.
Even if the 4 Aces finish runners-up, Johnson and team mates Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch and Pat Perez would split $8 million, which is more than the entire $6.5 million purse on offer at this week’s PGA Tour stop at the Bermuda Championship.
But despite a record purse, Johnson, who was paid a reported $150 million to leave the PGA Tour and sign on with LIV Golf, insisted it was not about the money.
“For us, it’s all about the competition,” he said following his 5&3 win over 19-year-old Jordanian Shergo Al Kurdi, a late call up for injured Cleek captain Martin Kaymer.
“We want to win the first championship in LIV Golf. It’s anybody’s ball game. There’s no favourites in my eyes.”
LIV officials will be hoping Sunday’s finale can build on two party-filled days, strong attendance and some surprisingly compelling golf.
The highlight of Friday’s quarter-finals was a tense battle between Smith and six-time major winner Phil Mickelson that saw the Australian clinching a victory for his Punch team with a birdie on the second last hole.
The semi-finals produced several tight matches, the most significant being the last with Oosthuizen beating Crushers captain Bryson DeChambeau on the fifth extra hole to see the Stingers through to the next round.
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Miami; Editing by Ken Ferris)
