LIV Miami

We attended the LIV Golf - The Team Championship held at Trump National Doral Golf Course in late October… It was the ultimate team event and the conclusion of the first year of the LIV Golf Tour. This was truly our first LIV Golf event. A little skeptical at first for myself because of listening to negative people and postings. Well… until you actually attend an event… you haven’t experienced what this tour has to offer. The energy is incredible. The players seem to be much more relaxed while walking around getting ready to play. Practice putting was more like a greeting area for friends… that they hadn’t seen for a long time. Sure it is a little louder than the “Normal” PGA Tour event. But they claim to the “Different.” Event the marketing claims… Golf – Just Louder! Same activities for the attendees. Food Courts. Games to Play. But just more relaxed. When it was time for the shot gun start. All the players were in their positions to start, and the 15-foot-wide screen started the count-down. 10-9-8- okay… when it got to “0” – Music came up just a little loader to set the mode. Every marshal and rules officials must have had air horns because everyone was blowing them. But when the first tee was put into the ground, it was back to business. The business of golf! The unique Scramble Format used by the LIV Golf tour, allows the entire field to be on the course at the same time. The focus on who is in the lead and who should finish last on 18 is out the window. You really don’t know where you are in the mix of the field, when you start at one time… and finish basically at the same time. Now add it the Team Championship into the mix. No one knew the outcome until the last putt drops. In the case of the 2022 Team Championship. It wasn’t over… until Dustin Johnson made the last putt. Yet, Patrick Reed was on hole number 2 making a birdie to move the team to one stroke over Cam Smith’s Team Punch. Within seconds Pat Perez was made a par to keep 4-A’s one stroke ahead. The final putt and the champaign in the air… the music came up… and LIV Golf had won over this skeptic. For a final comment… if you haven’t experienced LIV Golf, yet you discount it and talk bad about it. Go experience it for yourself. Long LIV Golf! 22

Golf Central • Volume 23, Issue 8