Greg Norman calls LIV Golf 'transformative' and team aspect a 'game-changing model'

With about one month remaining in LIV Golf's inaugural season, CEO Greg Norman called the team aspect a "game-changing model" that is delivering an "innovative, one-of-a-kind experience" for players and fans.

"This has been a transformative year for golf and we're just getting warmed up," said Norman, who lives in Palm Beach Gardens. "After only five LIV Golf events, the sport has entered a new era ... one designed to be daring and different."

The season finale, Oct. 28-30 at Doral Golf Club, will be highlighted by the team championship — a seeded, knock-out tournament featuring both match play and stroke play. That tournament will offer a $50 million purse, double the prize money for the series' first seven events. The winning team will split $16 million and all 12 teams will receive prize money

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LIV Golf, which will be rebranded as the LIV Golf League next year, is financed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. The 2022 season has two events remaining — Oct. 7-9 in Thailand and Oct. 14-16 in Saudi Arabia — before concluding on Doral's Blue Monster.

Each tournament in the LIV series comprises 12 four-man teams. Teams will be seeded for Doral based on their finish at the first seven events, starting with 32 points for each winning team. The top eight teams from each event receive points.

After the first five events, 4 Aces, captained by Jupiter's Dustin Johnson and including Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch and Pat Perez, leads the team standings with 136 points. The team has won the past four events.

Johnson, who won the individual portion of the LIV event outside of Boston, tops the LIV money list with $12.525 million.

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 second with 72 points. Stinger won the season-opening tournament outside of London.

Majesticks GC with captain Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Henrik Stenson and Sam Horsfield follows with 57 points and is one point ahead of Crushers. Bryson DeChambeau captains Crushers and the team includes Anirban Lahiri of Palm Beach Gardens, Paul Casey and Charles Howell III.

Teams will be seeded 1 through 12 for the final event at Doral. The top four seeds receive a bye and the fifth- through 12th-seeded teams will compete in head-to-head match-play competitions Friday. The highest-ranked teams select their opponents.

All 32 players among those eight teams will compete simultaneously in a shotgun start. For each head-to-head team matchup, 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. The four teams earning two points will advance to Sunday's team championship.

On Sunday, all 16 players will compete in twosomes, with team captains playing together. All four scores count toward the team’s score and the team with the lowest score is the LIV Golf Invitational Series Team Champion.

Following the 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.

Tickets for the LIV event at Doral go on sale Thursday at LIVGolf.com.

Tom D'Angelo is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at tdangelo@pbpost.com. 

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: LIV Golf team competition highlights $50 million season finale at Doral