Team Championship format change offers captains flexibility with match-play lineups

CARROLLTON, Texas – A change in format for the first two rounds at this week’s Dallas Team Championship at Maridoe Golf Club should provide an interesting twist as LIV Golf captains decide on their match-play lineups.

Captains are no longer required to play each other in singles for Friday’s quarterfinals and Saturday’s semifinal match-play rounds. In the first two years of the Team Championship, captains were required to match up, limiting the possibilities for the other two matches in their team vs team showdown.

Now, captains are allowed to play non-captains or even partner one of their teammates in foursomes. For someone like Ripper GC Captain Cameron Smith, that opens up the potential of playing with Marc Leishman, a partnership that won the PGA Tour’s team event in New Orleans in 2021.

“It’s a good move,” Smith said of the format change. “It gives teams an opportunity to kind of play around with maybe stacking a side or doing something like that.

“It’s way better being able to choose who you pick for matches. It creates a bit more drama.”

Smith won’t have to decide on his lineup until after the quarterfinals, thanks to the first-round bye the Rippers earned by claiming the third seed in the season-long points race. The other two teams with byes are Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers GC, the defending Team Champions and this week’s No. 1 seed; and Individual Champion Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII, the expansion team that won a league-best four regular-season titles while earning the No. 2 seed.

On Friday and Saturday, teams seeded 4-13 will compete in head-to-head match-ups, with the higher seeds choosing their opponents. Each of those team match-ups will consist of two singles and one foursomes match, with the team winning two (or all three) matches advancing to the next round.

Sunday’s final round will revert to stroke play, with teams competing in tiers based on their results in the first two days. The Championship tier will consist of the four semifinal winners playing for LIV Golf’s Team Championship; Tier 2 will consist of the four teams defeated in the semifinals; and Tier 3 will consist of the remaining five teams. The cumulative score of all four players on each team will count.

In the first two years of the Team Championship, HyFlyers GC Captain Phil Mickelson has had the difficult task of facing Smith, Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson in Singles. Mickelson’s team is seeded 12th and will play Friday, but he won’t know the opponent until later this week.

He thinks the HyFlyers, whose roster includes LIV Golf Adelaide winner Brendan Steele along with Cameron Tringale and Andy Ogletree, will benefit from the format change.

“It’s very helpful for our team by having the flexibility to utilize all four players in the best possible way,” said the World Golf Hall of Famer. “Steely and myself play a lot of golf together and we play as partners. We know how to communicate; we know to get the best out of each other. There’s a lot of synergy for us and I think we provide our best alternate-shot format as partners.

“Andy Ogletree, who won the U.S. Amateur, is kind of a quiet, tough competitor. You put him out just on his own and he just fights and is gritty. He’s really, after overcoming some injuries this year, now playing some incredible golf. Having the ability to put he and Camo out there, quiet guys who just like to get out and compete, could give us our best options in singles.”

The all-South African Stinger GC also will compete on Friday as the seventh seed. Captain Louis Oosthuizen – who beat DeChambeau in an epic semifinal battle in 2022 that went 23 holes and sent the Stingers into the Championship finals – has a solid singles record in his career: 26-20-3.

But Oosthuizen also has success as a partner, particularly with Stinger teammate Branden Grace. They were a perfect 3-0 at the 2015 Presidents Cup, beating U.S. players such as current LIV golfers Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Bubba Watson, and also won a 2017 match that included Koepka. Oosthuizen also partnered with another Stinger, Charl Schwartzel, at the 2013 Presidents Cup, beating Mickelson and current Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley in fourballs.

While Oosthuizen has been the Stingers’ most consistent player this year, Dean Burmester won the team’s only trophy in 2024 with his individual victory in Miami and could relish playing No. 1 singles. Oosthuizen has already told him he’ll be playing one of the singles matches.

“The fact that he backs me to beat anybody on a day is exciting,” Burmester said. “So, if I get a Brooks or a Bryson or a Jon, just have to deal with it, right? I mean, it's part of being out here with some of the best in the world.”

Oosthuizen likes having options, especially at a Maridoe Golf Club course that his team is unfamiliar with. “You have to look at what the golf course presents, the kind of conditions out there,” he said. “It might be where you have two other guys playing singles because it would fit them more. Definitely it helps a lot that captains don’t have to play each other. If you want to really be strategic, you have free reign to do what you want.”

Cleeks GC Captain Martin Kaymer and RangeGoats GC Captain Bubba Watson have each played more than 40 singles matches in their careers. But they have multiple teammates who’ve produced better results this LIV Golf season.

Adrian Meronk and Richard Bland both finished in the Lock Zone for the eighth-seeded Cleeks, so Kaymer could decide to tab them for singles while he partners with Kalle Samooja. Matthew Wolff, Peter Uihlein and Thomas Pieters all finished with more points than Watson, who finished in the Drop Zone and will be relegated. But Wolff and Uihlein are close friends and could make a formidable partnership for the RangeGoats, seeded ninth.

Likewise, Majesticks GC’s top player this year is their only non-captain, Sam Horsfield. The three co-captains, Henrik Stenson, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, finished next to each other in points. Horsfield and Stenson were partners in 2022, while Pouter and Westwood lost in foursomes last year.

With Smash GC as the No. 4 seed, Koepka will have the option of choose his team’s quarterfinal opponent. Koepka and 2023 Individual Champion Talor Gooch will likely be the singles players, but perhaps not in that order. Jason Kokrak and Graeme McDowell could make an excellent partnership; McDowell is 3-1 in foursomes in the first two Team Championships.

“G-Mac has an incredible track record in the team style,” Kokrak said. “I’m down to just go out and have some fun and take down whoever’s in front of us.”

One unexpected visitor in Friday’s quarterfinals is Johnson’s 4Aces GC. Winners of the 2022 Team Championship, the Aces were the No. 1 seed in the first two years but dropped to 10th this season. Not only will they play for the first time in the quarterfinals round, but they won’t get to pick their opponent.

Of course, it’s doubtful any of the seeded teams above them will want to face the Aces. Johnson and Reed are major champions with successful match play track records, while Harold Varner III and Pat Perez are feisty competitors determined to end the season on a high note after nearly being relegated.

“I love our team,” Perez said. “I think we’ve got a chance to beat anybody. I put DJ and Reed against anybody in singles matches. Harold and I, we’re a pretty good alternate-shot team. I like our chances.”