Of the 68 players to tee it up, 48 players made more than $1 million, with 15 making more than $4 million.
DORAL, Fla. — With $4 million going to the winner and $120,000 going to last place at each event, players were bound to make a ridiculous amount of money in LIV Golf’s first year. And they did.
Of the 68 players to tee it up on the upstart circuit led by Greg Norman and backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, a whopping 48 players made more than $1 million, with 15 making more than $4 million, including Pat Perez, who earned $961,000 for his individual performances and $3,062,500 for team bonuses. Dustin Johnson, LIV’s inaugural regular-season champion and the captain of Perez and the 4Aces, blew away the field thanks to $10,575,267 in individual earnings for a $13,637,767 total.
This week, LIV Golf will host its team championship event at Trump National Doral in Miami, where teams will make at minimum $1 million ($250,000 per player). If a team advances to the semifinals, they’ll earn $3 million ($750,000 per player), with $4 million going to fourth place ($1 million per player), $6 million to third ($1.5 million per player), $8 million to the runner up ($2 million per player) and $16 million to the winners ($4 million per player).
Here’s how much money each player earned on the course in LIV Golf’s first regular season.
Peter Uihlein has made more than $11.3 million this year. He made just more than $4 million since joining the PGA Tour in 2011.
LIV Golf may be winding down its inaugural season next week at Trump National Doral, but in reality, the controversial tour is just getting started.
LIV’s final event will be held Oct. 28-30, a three-day extravaganza on the Blue Monster that will determine the series’ season-long team champion and include a $50 million purse, double the prize money for each of the first seven events. The winning team will split $16 million and all 12 teams receive prize money.
Former President Donald Trump will play in the Pro-Am — closed to the public — on Oct. 27.
LIV, financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, will be rebranded as the LIV Golf League next year and include 14 events. The league will stick to its 54-hole, no-cut format.
The most recent event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, won by Brooks Koepka, determined the season-long individual champion.
Dustin Johnson captured the $18 million bonus by claiming the individual title, followed by Branden Grace ($8 million bonus) and Peter Uihlein ($4 million bonus). All three reside in Jupiter.
Uihlein, 33, has pocketed more than $11.3 million in prize money and bonuses. He made just more than $4 million since joining the PGA Tour in 2011.
“Just a lot happier out here than I have been the last five years playing on Tour,” Uihlein said following the final round of the event in Saudi Arabia in which he lost to Koepka in a playoff.
“The team aspect of it I like. I was never really a fan of the lone wolf kind of thing that we had to do. But being a part of the team, practicing, hanging out, kind of like college. It resonates with me and sticks with me. I really like it.”
Each event in the LIV series included 12 four-man teams. Those teams will be seeded for Doral based on their finish at the first seven events.
Dustin Johnson plays his approach shot to the 17th green during the first round of a LIV Golf tournament at Rich Harvest Farms. (Photo: Jamie Sabau/USA TODAY Sports)
Dustin Johnson’s team leads LIV standings heading into finale
4 Aces, captained by Johnson and including Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch and Pat Perez, leads the team standings with 152 points. Johnson’s team has won four of the seven events.
Crushers captain Bryson DeChambeau leads a team that includes Anirban Lahiri of Palm Beach Gardens, Paul Casey and Charles Howell III. They are second with 96 points and have three runner-up finishes and a third place in seven events.
Fireballs is third with 93 points and includes captain Sergio Garcia along with Carlos Ortiz, Abraham Ancer and Eugenio Chacarra.
The all-South African Stinger team captained by Louis Oosthuizen and including Jupiter’s Branden Grace, Palm Beach Gardens’ Charl Schwartzel and Hennie Du Plessis, is fourth.
Smash, captained by Brooks Koepka, is fifth with 62 points after winning the team competition at Jeddah. Koepka’s team includes Uihlein, his brother Chase Koepka of West Palm Beach and Jason Kokrak.
“We’re excited for Miami,” said Brooks Koepka, who finished eighth in the season-long individual standings. “I think everyone is playing really well and that’s what we need.”
Top four seeds get first-day bye
The top four seeds receive a bye at Doral and the 5th through 12th seeds will compete in head-to-head match-play competitions on Friday, Oct. 28. For each head-to-head team match-up, three matches will take place: two singles matches and one alternate-shot foursomes match.
The four winners from Friday will join the top four seeds for the same format Saturday. Four teams earning two points will advance to Sunday’s team championship.
All 16 players will compete in twosomes Sunday, with team captains playing together. All four scores count towards the team’s score and the team with the lowest score is the LIV Golf Invitational Series Team Champion.
With no individual component for the Doral event, the only players on the course each day will be those from the teams scheduled to compete.
Following the $16 million first-place prize, the runner-up team will split $10 million, third place receives $8 million and fourth place takes home $4 million. The next four teams each split $2 million and the final four teams each split $1 million.
When the winning team is crowned, the season will end with LIV having awarded $225 million in prize money, plus another $30 million in bonuses.
That does not include around $1 billion in signing bonuses handed out by CEO Greg Norman and paid in yearly installments.
The Doral event begins Friday, Oct. 28 and runs through Sunday, Oct. 30 with the shotgun start each day at 12:15 a.m. Gates and fan village open at 9 a.m. each day starting Friday.
When Donald Trump played in the pro-am leading up to the LIV Golf Series event on his course at Bedminster, New Jersey, his group was the only one with carts — most of them occupied by a large group of Secret Service that tailed the former president — he offered tips on how to play the course to Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau and several times he praised the course. Unprompted.
Expect the same Thursday with Trump scheduled to play in the pro-am the day before LIV’s final event of the season starts at Trump National Doral.
The pro-am is not open to the public.
Trump’s group will play 18 holes with two pros, one each on the front and back nine. He played with Johnson and DeChambeau at Bedminster in July and his group was 6 under, one stroke off the lead. The pros in Trump’s group at Doral will be determined Wednesday.
“It was an honor,” DeChambeau said following his nine holes with Trump in July. “I mean, anytime you get to play with a president, whether past or sitting, it’s just an honor, no matter who it is. Very lucky to have a relationship with him and he’s always been generous to me.”
Trump has aligned himself with LIV, the breakaway tour financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, partly because of his disdain for the PGA Tour. Two of LIV’s eight events in its inaugural season will have been held on Trump properties and LIV’s schedule could include more Trump courses next season as it expands to 14 events.
In July, Trump told golfers on the PGA Tour to, “take the money now,” predicting the Tour would eventually merge with LIV Golf. Trump’s anger at professional golf stems from the PGA Tour moving its World Golf Championship event out of Doral and to Mexico in 2017 and the PGA of America moving the 2022 PGA Championship out of his club in Bedminster after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
“All of those golfers that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all of its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you get nothing but a big ‘thank you’ from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump is an avid golfer who has played several rounds with Hall of Famers and legendary golfers at his courses in West Palm Beach and Jupiter. He is believed to have played more golf than any other president while in office. During his round at Bedminster he said, “there’s no other president that can hit it like I can,” according to DeChambeau.
“That’s the funny one he talks about all the time,” DeChambeau added. “You know, it’s true from what I’ve seen, what I’ve heard, obviously I haven’t played with other presidents, but he’s up there.”
DeChambeau was asked about Trump’s game.
“He’s actually a really good golfer,” he said. “He stripes it down the middle of the fairway and has good iron game and putts it pretty well.”
Hall of Famer Ernie Els, who lives in Jupiter, has played several times with Trump and was in Trump’s foursome in April when the former president made a hole-in-one at his course in West Palm Beach.
“He hits the ball better than I’ve seen any … I mean he’s 75 (now 76),” Els told the Palm Beach Post in April. “But he can really strike the ball. He makes good contact. He’s got a good swing.
“Like any amateur, you got to do the short game practice. I keep talking to him about his chipping. He’s a pretty good putter. Back in his day, he had to be a 4- or 5-handicap. Today, he’s probably a 10, 12.”
Trump was asked in July how many holes-in-one he’s had in his life.
“Seven. Seven, legitimately,” he said. “People say, ‘Oh wow,’ I legitimately have had seven.”
