The 2023 LIV Golf season reaches its finale this week when the Team Championship takes place at Trump National Doral where defending champions the 4Aces will bid to retain their title and bank a mega-money $50million purse.
What | LIV Golf Miami Team Championship |
Where | Trump National Doral, Miami, Florida, USA |
When | Friday 20th October - Sunday 22nd October |
How to watch | LIV Golf Plus app |
Odds | 4Aces 7/2, Crushers 4/1, RangeGoats 4/1, Torque 11/2, Stinger 9/1, Fire Balls 11/1 |
While the long-term future of LIV Golf remains uncertain amid talks of PGA Tour takeovers, the 2023 season finishes at Doral in Miami, Florida, with the Team Championship, a unique format pitting the 12 four-man teams up against each other over three days.
Beginning on Friday, the Team Championship starts with round one and features teams who were ranked fifth to 12th on the season-long team points list, with the teams ranked first to fourth receiving a bye and sealing automatic progress to Saturday's semi-final stage.
The teams ranked fifth to eight - Stinger, Fireballs, Ripper and Smash - will each play one of HyFlyers, Cleeks, Majesticks and Iron Heads (ranked ninth to 12th) for a place in the semis.
Stinger captain Louis Oosthuizen will have first pick of his team's opponents from the bottom four teams, then Fireballs will pick second and Ripper third before Smash will be left to face whichever team is remaining.
The winners will then progress to face one of the top four with the 4Aces, sitting on 192 points after LIV Jeddah, seeded No.1 and in possession of the first pick ahead of Crushers, Torque and RangeGoats.
The format for Friday and Saturday's matches is team matchplay, featuring two one-on-one matches between individual players and one foursomes (alternate shot) match. The team which wins two out of three matches will advance.
Sunday's final round features the four teams who progress from the semi-finals but the format is traditional 18-hole strokeplay with the cumulative 72-hole total of all four players making up a team score.
The 4Aces shot a combined seven-under 281 to take the title in 2022, beating the now defunct Punch by one shot in a thrilling end to the first LIV season.
Owned by Donald Trump since 2012, Doral was a regular destination on the PGA Tour and played host to an event each year from 1962 to 2016, before disappearing from the schedule when the WGC-Cadillac Championship moved to Mexico City.
Dubbed the Blue Monster because of the water hazards which surround the course, Doral underwent a significant Gil Hanse redesign in 2014, making the layout much more difficult, and now-LIV golfer Patrick Reed triumphed at four under in the 2014 edition.
The 4Aces skipper Dustin Johnson won the tournament at nine under in 2015 while Adam Scott won the final Doral edition of the WGC Championship at -12.
The Miami course, which typically plays to the strengths of longer hitters, played host to the inaugural LIV Golf Team Championship last season, when the Johnson-inspired 4Aces prevailed by one shot.
4Aces
The 4Aces dominated the 2022 LIV Golf season and deservedly claimed the team prize at Doral last year and Dustin Johnson and his teammates can take advantage of their top seeding to do the double in Miami.
After winning the individual LIV title last term, Johnson has finished fifth this season behind Talor Gooch, Cameron Smith, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau but he loves Doral, having won the WGC event there, and his presence can help the 4Aces mount another bold bid.
Johnson is joined by fellow Doral champion Patrick Reed, who finished sixth in the individual LIV standings, and Peter Uihlein, who has been in solid form on both the breakaway circuit and in a rare DP World Tour start when finishing 22nd at the Dunhill Links.
Pat Perez is undoubtedly the weak link in the quartet but he shrugged off the jokes to play a role in the win at Doral last season, shooting a two-under 70 in the final round, and he's had a better season on the LIV Tour this time around.
Fire Balls
Of those outside the seeded top four, the Fireballs can bring the heat in the Sunshine State and are the pick of the teams who are available at decent each-way odds.
Skipper Sergio Garcia is the highest Ryder Cup points-scorer of all time, so his experience could be crucial in the matchplay portion of the event, and his team arrive in Florida having just fired the best overall team score at LIV Golf Jeddah.
Carlos Ortiz has enjoyed a solid season, Abraham Ancer has posted his three best results of 2023 in his last three starts, and Eugenio Chacarra is a big talent who could soon turn things around, so the Fireballs have a chance of taking the overall team title.
This article was written by a partner sports writer via Spotlight Sports Group. All odds displayed on this page were correct at the time of writing and are subject to withdrawal or change at any time.
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