Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka are among the team captains who will go head-to-head Friday on the opening day of the $50 million 2023 LIV Golf Team Championship in Miami.
Mickelson and Koepka, who have 11 major championships between them, are one of the four pairs of team captains set to meet in the season-ending event. Other matchups are Sergio Garcia vs. Henrik Stenson, Cameron Smith vs. Martin Kaymer, and Louis Oosthuizen vs. Kevin Na.
All 12 LIV teams will compete in match play and stroke play this weekend at Trump National Doral Golf Club. Teams were seeded following last weekend’s tournament in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with the top four receiving a bye straight into the semifinals.
The top four seeds, in order, are 4Aces (Dustin Johnson, captain), Crushers (Bryson DeChambeau), Torque (Joaquin Niemann) and RangeGoats (Bubba Watson).
The captains of the eight teams that will be in action on Friday met to settle their head-to-head opponents for the team play.
Oosthuizen, captain of the fifth-seeded Stinger, chose to compete against Na’s Iron Heads. Garcia picked Stenson’s Majesticks for his Fireballs team, and Smith said his Rippers would play Kaymer’s Cleeks.
That left Koepka’s team, Smash, against Mickelson’s HyFlyers.
Mickelson said Koepka will provide a challenge as he seeks to get the HyFlyers off to a good start.
“Brooks has played some of the best golf of anybody in the world this year. He won the PGA. He played phenomenal in the majors,” Mickelson said. “Played phenomenal out here. Just won last week.”
“So I’ve got my work cut out for me, but I have the utmost respect for him and any time I have a chance to play with him or against him, I enjoy it,” he continued. “…I’m hoping that I can play some of my best golf because I know I need to to just make it competitive.”
The Friday quarterfinals will feature two singles matches and one foursomes match within each team head-to-head competition. The four winning teams advance to the semifinals.
The Saturday semifinal matches will follow the same format, with the four winners advancing to the finals to compete for places 1-4 on Sunday.
The four semifinal losers will compete for places 5-8, and the four teams eliminated in the quarterfinals will compete for places 9-12.
On Sunday, all 48 players from the 12 teams will compete in one round of stroke play. All four individual scores count toward the team scores.
The lowest team score among the four teams that advanced to the finals will be crowned the 2023 LIV Golf Team Champion.
Kaymer missed last year’s inaugural team championship due to a wrist injury that required surgery, and he said Wednesday he is excited to compete in the team event.
“Last year was very difficult, coming here, being the captain, not competing, but the team did well last year. They won their first match,” Kaymer said. “This year, obviously I’m on the team. I know the golf course well from the past, from the World Golf Championships events we played here. My game is getting better. I’m still obviously recovering from my injury.
“But last week I played the way I usually play. So I’m back in form, I would say, and that made me — that gave me a little bit more confidence going into this week.”
–Field Level Media