LIV Dallas

CARROLLTON — It was good to see some old familiar faces when the LIV Golf players took to the course at Maridoe Golf Club on a warm and sunny Wednesday for the pro-am preceding the team championship to be contested Friday through Sunday this week.

The first player I saw was Dustin Johnson, “DJ”, the winner of a US Open and a Masters who once played every year in Dallas at the Byron Nelson. It seems he liked the convenience of the resort hotel at Las Colinas in Irving when the tournament was played there. The Nelson moved in 2018 to Trinity Forest in South Dallas and after just two years there to its present site in McKinney at Craig Ranch.

Likewise, Sergio Garcia was tuning his game with good North Texas memories of his Nelson victories in 2004 and again in 2016. The win in 2016 was a narrow one over Brooks Koepka, who is on hand this week as one of the top names along with Dallas’ Bryson DeChambeau and Spain’s Jon Rahm. Garcia also won the 2001 Mastercard Colonial.

Phil Mickelson was on the property at Maridoe Wednesday and has had his share of success in North Texas with a 1996 win at the Nelson and two wins at Colonial in 2000 and 2008. Mickelson was at the forefront of the LIV Golf movement when it split from the PGA Tour in 2021. It was controversial then and continues to be so as the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian backers of LIV continue to negotiate a merger. The sticking point is rumored to be an insistence that the players who left the PGA Tour have to pay some sort of fine to play again on that tour.

Speaking of controversial, I hadn’t walked very far, from the first tee to the ninth tee about 400 yards away when I saw “The Shark.”

Greg Norman strolling the fairways with a group that included Charles Howell III and his three amateur partners. Norman was bending the ear of those amateurs, who it turns out are movers and shakers with the Saudi Public Investment Fund that backs LIV Golf.

Norman is the CEO of LIV Golf, which gets its name from the Roman numerals for 54 since that is one of bigger wrinkles of the competition as opposed to the customary 72 holes used for all events of the PGA Tour and the four major championships — The Masters, PGA and US and British Opens. I wanted to ask Norman if he was the architect of the format that also features a shotgun start and some loud music playing near the first and 10th tee boxes. No luck speaking with Norman but you have to give him credit for recruiting some of the top players now on LIV.

At the Thursday press conference to reveal the unique format of the team championship, 10 captains spoke of their teams and how they were looking forward to match play for two days before an 18-hole medal play finale on Sunday. Absent were three captains of the top teams coming into this event — DeChambeau of The Crushers, Rahm of Legion XIII and Cameron Smith of Rippers GC, who have first round byes into the semifinals. Four teams survive the semifinals to play the 18 hole medal on Sunday to determine the 2024 team champion.

Just looking at the rosters, it is amazing how many major championship winners are playing this week. You can begin with DeChambeau, Rahm and Smith who have five between them and then continue with Mickellson’s six, Koepka’s five and then winnowing down with two by Johnson, Martin Kaymer and Bubba Watson and then one by Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Graeme McDowell and Patrick Reed. Add them up and you have 26 major titles among the talented field.

Even more of a contrast is the comparison to recent fields at the Byron Nelson and Charles Schwab Challenge since neither has an enhanced status termed signature events that attract the PGA Tour’s best players.

Yet at every turn it seems something is about to give to reunite the world’s best golfers. Until then, the rumors will continue and LIV will play its final event of 2024 in Dallas.

Such is the state of professional golf today.