In this week's FPBcast, Mike Szvetitz and Gerry Ahern discuss Warriors-Celtics, as well as Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson's decision to follow the money
After announcing its plan in March to play eight world-wide events, LIV Golf made a major splash in recent days pulling in two of the biggest names in the sport: Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson.
Both announced their intention of playing in the Saudi-backed, alternative golf circuit run by Greg Norman, which offers enormous prize money purses and has been met with a lot of scrutiny across the game.
LIV Golf, financially backed by Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, had its inaugural tournament in early June in London, and will include other major champions as well, including Sergio Garcia, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka and Graeme McDowell.
But what is LIV Golf and how do the LIV Golf Invitational events work?
According to its website, LIV Golf’s mission is “to modernize and supercharge the game of professional golf through expanded opportunities for both players and fans alike.”
FrontPageBets breaks it down:
How the LIV Golf Invitational Series works
There will be eight total events, with seven of them part of the tour's regular season. The eighth-and-final tournament culminates the season with a match-play team championship.
The regular-season tournaments will have an individual champion as well as a team champion.
There will be 48 players in each tournament, playing as individuals and part of a four-man team.
Each individual golfer will compete in stroke play for the 54-hole tournament. The player with the lowest score after those three rounds will win. Just like a traditional stroke-play event.
There will be no cuts.
Each round will begin with a shotgun start, where each group starts on a different hole, at the same time. There are no staggered starting tee times.
For the season, the individual player with the most points after the seven regular-season events will be named the individual champion.
For the team competition, each four-man team score will be decided by the best two-stroke scores in the first round then the best three-stroke scores will count in the third round. The team with the lowest overall score after 54 holes wins.
Team format
In each tournament, there will be 12, four-player teams. Before each regular-season event, there will be a draft to determine the teams. Each team will have a captain who will select the three other members via a “snake draft format,” according to the LIV Golf website. Each team will have its own name, color scheme and logos.
The Team Championship will be the final event of the season, set up as a four-round, match-play.
Prize money
Each regular-season event will have a $25 million purse. Of that, each player gets a cut of $20 million, with $4 million going to the winner and $120,000 going to the last-place golfer. The other $5 million of the purse will go to the top three teams -- $3 million for first, $1.5 million for second and $500,000 for third. So it’s possible a golfer who wins the tournament and finishes on the first-place team could win $4.75 million for one tournament.
There will be a $30 million purse for the individual season championship, split between the top three golfers at the end of the seven regular-season events. The individual LIV Tour champion will win $18 million, while the No. 2 player takes home $8 million and third place gets $4 million.
There is a $50 million purse for the season-ending Team Championship event. The winning team will receive $16 million ($4 million per golfer), while the remaining 11 teams each split $1 million.
LIV Golf Invitational events
June 9-11: Centurion Club, London
June 30-July 2: Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, Portland, Ore.
July 29-31: Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, N.J.
Aug. 31-Sept. 1: The Oaks at The International, Boston
Sept. 16-18: Rich Harvest Farms, Chicago
Oct. 7-9: Stonehill, Bangkok, Thailand
Oct. 14-16: Royal Greens Golf & Country Club, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Oct. 27-30: Trump National Doral, Miami
How to watch
According to the tour’s website, the events will be broadcast on: LIVGolf.com, YouTube and Facebook.
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