How to Bet: LIV Golf Championship – Miami

Welcome back friends. The time has come to break down the final tournament of the inaugural LIV Golf season. I have to say, there was a time I never thought this day would come, but damn am I extremely excited for what’s ahead. Similar to a lot of you guys and girls, I am a huge supporter of team golf, so I’m stoked about getting another full team event. The field is solid, the prizes are enormous, and the format seems both different and exciting enough to keep things interesting. Before I jump into LIV, I want to give a quick recap on both the PGA and LIV since we last spoke.

LIVin for the Drama

From a LIV perspective, we haven’t heard all too much since they locked in the fields after Boston. We are still awaiting formal announcements regarding the TV deal for the tournament which should give insight into what the future truly holds for LIV Golf. What we do know at least is there are some new players coming in – for example Mito Perreira seems to be a lock to join the field next year. We’ve also been patiently waiting for OWGR updates, but as of now LIV players have not received any points towards the tally and are dropping in rankings quickly. It has stung seeing Brooks finally bring himself back from the dead with a strong finish in Bangkok, then pulling off a win in Jeddah, just to see his ranking drop like a rock. Meanwhile, Rory won the CJ Cup against a field of janitors and plumbers which bounced him up to number one in the world. Hopefully there comes a resolution regarding this issue soon so we can at least make sure the majors don’t begin to fall apart.

PGA Catch Up

From a PGA perspective, Rory had his first start of the season at the CJ Cup and went home victorious. The bigger news here is that Rory has officially taken back the throne as world number one and seems to have found his stride again. We’ll see how long this one lasts — I think we can all agree that until Rory wins another major, nobody can truly say he’s back. The PGA is heading to Bermuda this week so they basically have a week off as LIV owns another fall weekend for golf.

Field

A couple notes on the team changes heading into the championship:

• Ian Poulter takes the captaincy from Lee Westwood for the Majesticks. An interesting move but likely something to do with Ryder Cup experience as Poulter has always been a legend for Europe.
• Hennie Du Plessis replaces Shaun Norris for the Stingers
• Adrian Otagui replaces Hideto Tanihara on Tourque for the final spot on the team

Schedule and Format

Definitely a different format than what we’re used to for team competitions — but since there are so many teams competing, the changes make a lot of sense. My favorite part is that all captains have to face off against each other, each day, so that should bring in some really exciting matches for us spectators. Friday and Saturday, we will have the captain singles and one single elected by the captain to face off, while the other two players play alternate shot. This does give a lot of power to the captain to make the right decision since the team can just win both singles to advance.

While I do love the singles match play on Sunday in past team tourneys, the stroke play for Sunday does make sense. This will bring even more importance to the overall depth of each team compared to other team tournaments. I think each team has a pretty big lag in their bottom player, so some guys are really going to need to step up.

Format

• As mentioned, the Aces, Crushers, Fireballs and Stinger all got byes to Saturday
  • As an extra wrinkle, in each round the higher seed gets to choose who they play, so there will be another selection show Friday night where the Aces will choose the first matchup
• Hy Flyers are in a very difficult position getting stuck playing Punch since they had the last selection
  • During the presser, it was funny to watch each team say they didn’t want to play against Punch, and then Phil basically said they’re fucked so the entire tour clearly fears Cam
  • Phil vs Cam might get ugly early, but I guess where there’s a hope there’s a prayer. Phil went in expecting a loss against Cam so put a lot of thought into the other matchups.
• I continue to consider the Iron Heads the worst team in LIV — after Poulter shit all over Na in the presser, I think we’re about to see a clean sweep
• Brooks vs HV3 should be a pretty exciting singles match. Brooks game has looked a lot better as of lately so I expect him to take care of business here
  • Very surprised they took on Niblicks with the first pick, but guess Brooks thinks they can dominate strategically.
• I thought Torque got the steal of the tournament, getting to choose Cleeks with the third pick. Cleeks star power is very minimal and if Niemann can take down Kaymer as he should, I would expect them to advance

Course

The tournament will be held at Trump National Doral at the Blue Monster course. Previously, the course hosted the WGC Championship where Phil, DJ and Sandy Reed all came away with victories. This will be the first course that we have some actual course history on which is a nice change of pace. The course is beautiful, with tons of water and some fun greens. They will be playing from 7,700 yards so the big hitters should hold a bit of an advantage. That being said, we also saw Stenson dominate at Trump Bedminster, so accuracy could be even more important here.

Odds for the Weekend

So this is the first event that I am genuinely upset that LIV hasn’t gone deeper into the gambling game. For these events, we can normally take all sorts of props but unfortunately all we have are team odds. I’ll still break it down, but definitely a bit bummed….

• 4 Aces, Crushers, Fireballs and Smash all have first round byes, making them clear favorites
• This will be all about depth and team chemistry as we have seen in previous team tournaments — for me that makes the three teams at 3500 extremely hard to buy into
• Punch is clearly under-ranked at the 11 seed due to Cam and Leishman joining late, and their odds reflect that
  • Cam and Leish have very strong chemistry and have won the Zurich Championship together
• Hy Flyers have some strong depth — and I think they could make a run at this IF Phil can keep up his current play. Phil’s recent team performances haven’t been the greatest, but this could be a big moment for him to get some redemption, and he lives for this type of shit
  • Facing Punch first makes Friday their potentially hardest challenge
• Stingers were fun at the start of the season but I think +900 is way too aggressive considering the last team change and Brenden Grace’s injury

THE PICKS

Winner – Majesticks +2000

I love this pick and I think this is way undervalued. The Majesticks have three Ryder Cup legends who know how to get wins at these types of tournaments. They played well in Bedminster with Stenson’s win, and had a second place finish for the team. I am confident that they can get through Friday with ease against the Iron Heads and will need to battle out Saturday against the Fireballs or Stingers. If they can get to Sunday, which I think with their previous experience that they will, they should have the most consistent team in the tournament. There will likely be a ton of pressure on Sam Horsfield to step up and make a play for the team, but as of right now I think he has the most promise compared to the other lowest players on the team.