Two Team Championship byes are taken, last one up for grabs in Chicago
BOLINGBROOK, Ill. – In the first two LIV Golf seasons, the top four teams in points earned byes for the opening-round quarterfinals of the Team Championship. That’s a significant benefit given the unpredictability of match-play competition while also providing an extra day of prep work.
This year, only the top three teams receive byes – and two are already spoken for.
Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers GC and Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII go into this week’s LIV Golf Chicago having already secured first-round byes. They’re currently 1-2 in the season-long standings, separated by only a half-point. Legion XIII has the most tournament wins this season with four; the Crushers have the most podiums with six.
Their battle is primarily focused on the top seed.
“There’s pride, I think, finishing No. 1 in the regular season,” said the Crushers’ Paul Casey.
That leaves one last bye unclaimed, and three teams are mathematically still alive – Cameron Smith’s Ripper GC, Brooks Koepka’s Smash GC and Joaquin Niemann’s Torque GC.
The Rippers currently are in the driver’s seat, with a 19.5 point advantage over Smash and 28 points ahead of Torque. With a tournament victory worth 32 points, the Aussie team’s lead is not yet safe, although a solo third or better would sew up the third seed.
Meanwhile, a victory by the Rippers could even lead to the No. 1 seed if the Crushers and Legion XIII play poorly at Bolingbrook.
"We've spoken a bunch over the last three weeks about getting that third bye for Dallas, and it's something that we're all thinking about," said Smith, whose team posted back-to-back victories in Adelaide and Singapore.
Smash is coming off its second win of the season at last month’s LIV Golf Greenbrier, with Koepka claiming the individual trophy. They became the first team to win with a reserve, as John Catlin replaced Graeme McDowell in the lineup.
McDowell is back this week and ready to help his team make some noise. Smash needs at least a tie for second to have any hope of earning a bye.
“Obviously we’re going to try and play as hard as we can this week," McDowell said. "There's a decent gap between us and third, and then you have to rely on guys in front of you not playing well. So, there's obviously a lot of moving parts.”
Even if Smash doesn’t earn a bye, the team would still benefit if it maintains its current fourth-place position. That would allow Koepka to pick Smash’s first-round opponent from any of the other nine quarterfinal teams.
That was the case in the inaugural year of 2022, when Smash finished fifth in points and had the first pick. Koepka picked RangeGoats GC (then named Niblicks), with Smash winning the quarterfinal match. They then shut out Majesticks GC in the match-play semifinals before finishing third overall in the stroke-play finals.
Besides Smash, the other three teams still mathematically eligible to finish fourth are Torque, Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs GC and Louis Oosthuizen’s Stinger GC.
“Obviously we want to play well this week, but there’s a big team championship event next week,” said Smash’s Jason Kokrak, coming off a third place at Greenbrier, his best LIV Golf individual result in 30 regular-season starts. “The bye would be great, but even if we don't get it, having the first pick and playing whatever other team that we pick is not a bad play.”
Torque’s only shot at a bye is to win in Chicago this week and hope the other pieces fall into place. The odds are long, but that’s where Niemann’s team is at after a surprising winless season. Last year, Torque won four times and earned a bye as the No. 3 seed.
“There's a lot that needs to happen,” Niemann said. “But we still feel pretty good knowing that worst-case scenario, we've got to play an extra day, match play against another team, which I feel like is a pretty good format for us.
“We've got four strong players for match play. If we make it through, we make it through, and if not, we're just going to have to have more fun doing one more day.”