Tag: 4Aces

Dustin Johnson wins 2024 LIV Golf Las Vegas; Brooks Koepka’s Smash GC take team title

The win is the third of Johnson’s LIV Golf career.

LIV Golf made a bold decision to host an event in Las Vegas the same week as the Super Bowl.

While the league’s second start of 2024 was largely overshadowed by the big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, Saturday’s final round at Las Vegas Country Club was a tasty Super Bowl appetizer for sports fans with a knack for the chaotic.

Six players were tied for the lead at 10 under with three holes to play, but in the end it was Dustin Johnson who emerged victorious. The 39-year-old won 2024 LIV Golf Las Vegas at 12 under par following a 1-under 69 in the final round. The win is Johnson’s third since joining LIV Golf and is his third victory in as many years with the league. His first came at the LIV Golf Invitational Boston in 2022 and his last came at LIV Golf Tulsa in 2023.

“I knew it was going to be tough obviously with the conditions. But a lot of really good players were right around the lead,” Johnson said of his final round. “I knew I was going to have to play well if I wanted to win. Obviously making a clutch birdie there on 17 to give me a one-shot lead, then obviously did a great job at 18 and just had the two-putt for the victory.”

Talor Gooch (Smash GC) finished T-2 at 11 under alongside Peter Uihlein (RangeGoats GC), both of whom were previously traded by Johnson. Uihlein’s teammate Matthew Wolff finished fourth at 10 under, with three players tied for fifth: Graeme McDowell (Smash GC), Jason Kokrak (Smash GC) and Paul Casey (Crushers GC).

The team competition was close until the back nine, where Brooks Koepka’s Smash GC ran away with the trophy at 33 under, seven shots clear of runner-up 4Aces GC, captained by Johnson, at 26 under. Bubba Watson’s RangeGoats GC finished third at 24 under.

The league returns to action March 1-3 at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club with 2024 LIV Golf Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

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LIV Golf captain claims ’10 to 20 people’ are interested in buying his team

One word keeps popping up this week at the LIV Golf Team Championship: Interest.

DORAL, Fla. — One word keeps popping up this week at the LIV Golf Team Championship: Interest.

Ahead of the $50 million finale at Trump National Doral, players like Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson have hinted at what may be a busy offseason full of player movement, though it should be noted the same things were said last year and just a few players changed teams. On top of that, the highest-profile player that was signed was Thomas Pieters. Not exactly a needle mover.

The teasing of what may come continued Thursday, as a trio of captains dished on the current state of investment in LIV Golf, which owns 75 percent of each of the 12 franchise teams. The other 25 percent is owned by principal players, which would include captains such as Watson, Dustin Johnson and Joaquin Niemann.

“The evaluation, it’s not a small number,” said Watson, who most likely meant to say valuation. “But I think every team is going to be different. Some people want to know more. Some just people want to play golf. Just depends on which team you’re talking about and who it is. I want to know everything. I want to be part of it and move it forward and make the RangeGoats well-known.”

LIV Golf: Photos of 2023 Team Championship

Watson added that he has “had a few people” show interest in purchasing RangeGoats GC, who sit fourth and have a first-round bye for the Team Championship, and then clarified that “anywhere from 10 to 20 people have asked to buy the RangeGoats” and that he has “met with people this week.”

“There’s quite a bit of interest. Obviously like (Watson) said each team is going to differ. We have some interest,” added Johnson, whose defending champion 4Aces GC would undoubtedly be the most valuable franchise. “We’ll get more into that in the offseason once we are done after this week.”

“It is true there’s a lot of interest from individuals who want to buy into (the RangeGoats),” said Norman. It is the success of the product and the RangeGoats aren’t the only ones. There are other people interested in other teams as well too.”

“And remember,” he added, “our responsibility is to create as much value we can within each one of those franchises.”

Both Watson and Johnson discussed the challenge of taking on a new role and how they’re learning on the fly. For the two major winners, their careers have always been just about golf. Now they’re managing their teams and sponsors (though all 12 teams have general managers in some capacity).

“Right now, pretty focused on doing well on golf course,” said Torque GC’s Niemann, the league’s youngest captain by six years at 24 years old. “I think the better we do on the golf course, everything gets a little bit easier. But yeah, lucky to have a great team to support me in every aspect of how to run a business like Torque.”

While the team format still hasn’t fully caught on with golf fans, the players and LIV officials are all in (Brooks Koepka and Matthew Wolff aside). None of the 12 teams have been sold, but a few have inked partnership and sponsor deals over the last year. The timeframe for when franchises may be sold is up in the air, and the lagging framework agreement between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, LIV’s financial supporter, can’t be helping. Why would a company want to pony up money to own a team with an uncertain future?

The spin to the delay is teams have more time to find a proper fit for an owner, which the three captains agreed was more important than simply siding with the highest bidder.

“Yeah, like to have something that fits our team and something that fits our four players, what are our goals, and yeah, I mean, there’s all brands that we like to work with, something that is with our personality,” Niemann said before admitting, “there’s also a number, right.”

“All that’s out the window for the right number,” said a laughing Watson.

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Talor Gooch, Peter Uihlein tied for lead at LIV Golf Mayakoba after second day

The season-opening LIV Golf League event is up for grabs.

There’s a congregation of Oklahoma State Cowboys at the top of the LIV Golf leaderboard in Mayakoba.

Talor Gooch and Peter Uihlein are tied for the lead after the second round, sitting at 9-under 133. Gooch’s day included five birdies and no blemishes on his scorecard, and Uihlein had seven birdies, but he bogeyed two of his final three holes in the season-opening event for LIV Golf in Mexico.

Uihlein replaced Gooch on the 4Aces this season, with the latter going to play for the RangeGoats, and now they’ll be in the final group come Sunday.

Fellow former Cowboy Charles Howell III is third at 8 under. Meanwhile, Matthew Wolff, who won the NCAA individual national title for Oklahoma State in 2019 and the team title in 2018, is T-6 at 5 under.

LIV Mayakoba: Photos

Paul Casey, who led after the opening round, is T-4 at 6 under after signing for an even-par 71.

In the team competition, Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers are at 14 under with Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces two shots behind.

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Report: Dustin Johnson adds top-three LIV Golf player to 4Aces team just days after winning team title

DJ is shaking up his squad just two days after they won the team championship.

Just two days after winning the $50 million LIV Golf Team Championship with his 4Aces, Dustin Johnson is already making changes to his squad for 2023.

According to an ESPN report, Johnson is dropping Talor Gooch and adding Peter Uihlein to the team that won five of the eight events over the upstart circuit’s first year.

Uihlein finished runner-up in two of LIV’s last three regular-season events, as well as fourth at the opener in London, to come in third on the season-long points list. Over the course of the regular season, the 33-year-old made $7,314,786 in on-course earnings, but picked up an addition $5.5 million – $4 million for his third-place season finish and $1.5 million for Smash GC’s third-place showing at the team championship – to bring his first-year total to $12,814,786. The former top-ranked amateur in the world and 2010 U.S. Amateur champion made just more than $4 million on the PGA Tour after turning pro in 2011 over 126 tournaments.

Gooch is reportedly bound for Bubba Watson’s Niblicks GC, where he’ll most likely slot in alongside Harold Varner III and Hudson Swafford.

Ahead of last Saturday’s semifinal matches at the team championship at Trump National Doral, LIV Golf officials met with select members of the media to lay out its plans for the future, which included a transfer window similar to professional soccer where players will move between teams in a period of time directly after the team championship and before the start of the following season.

LIV’s goal is for teams to be locked by the end of this year, and this appears to be the first of a few inter-team moves, with upwards of six new names potentially joining in 2023 when the series transitions to the 14-event LIV Golf League.

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‘My hands were not real steady’: Dustin Johnson makes final putt, leads 4Aces to win LIV Golf Team Championship in Miami and claim $16 million prize

The 4Aces will take home the $16 team prize, with $4 million going to each player.

DORAL, Fla. — Four teams were left standing for Sunday’s final round of the LIV Golf Team Championship and it was Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces GC who came out on top.

Louis Oosthuizen’s Stinger GC were out of the picture for the majority of the day, leaving the battle for the top three to the 4Aces, Cameron Smith’s Punch GC and Brooks Koepka’s Smash GC. The latter fell off later in the round, leaving a two-way race to the finish.

The 4Aces led by one stroke with one hole to play before Punch’s Marc Leishman tied the 4Aces at 6 under with a late birdie, just his second of the day. Patrick Reed then delivered a birdie on his final hole to reclaim the lead at 7 under and eventually earn the win after his teammate Johnson made par on the last.

“Hell yeah, I knew where I was,” Johnson said of the late-round situation. “I was watching (Reed) make his putt. I was like, ‘All right, I’ve just got to two-putt and we win,’ because I knew Cam — I played with Cam. He hit it to 10 feet for par. He made everything he looked at so I knew he was making it. I’m like, ‘I’ve got to two-putt.'”

“I do not like stress, so that was a little more stress than I was looking for,” he continued. “If that was an individual tournament, it would have been no problem, that putt. It’s straight in from three feet. But with it being the team aspect and I knew the whole team — like I had to make that for the team to win — I didn’t like it very much. My hands were not real steady.”

“I don’t know where I hit it on the putter face, but it went in the middle.”

The 4Aces were unbeaten on American soil this year and were the dominant team for most of the season after winning four consecutive events during the series’ U.S. swing. Johnson also claimed the season-long individual title a week before the regular-season finale in Saudi Arabia. The win earns the team the top prize of $16 million, with $4 million going to each player.

Smith shot the low round of the day, a 7-under 65, as his Punch finished one shot back in second at 6 under to take home $8 million.

“65, yeah. That was probably right up there for me,” said Smith. “I feel like I really didn’t miss a shot today. I felt like I holed everything.”

Smash finished in third, 11 shots behind the leaders at 4 over, to take home $6 million. Stinger closed out at 10 over to win $4 million.

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