CARROLLTON, Texas — LIV Golf is coming to North Texas, and bringing a $50 million bag of cash.
The Saudi-funded golf league is holding its Team Championship at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton starting Friday, and the lucrative tour is closing out the year with a bang, though not all of the winnings will go directly to the players.
The winning team will receive $14 million in prize money, with each of the four players earning a 10% cut, $1.4 million. The rest of the money will go toward the team's operating budget. LIV has introduced a team format to professional golf in which the teams operate somewhat as franchises, with apparel and other marketing efforts.
In any case, $1.4 million apiece is nothing to sneeze at. That's about as much as pro golfers earned for winning a major championship up until the recent surge in earnings (largely driven by LIV's influx of cash into the game).
The second-place team will receive $8 million, with $800,000 apiece going to the team members.
LIV Golf team championship money breakdown
Here's the full money breakdown (team winnings/player winnings), via LIV's website:
- $14,000,000/$1,400,000
- $8,000,000/$800,000
- $6,000,000/$600,000
- $4,000,000/$400,000
- $3,250,000/$325,000
- $3,000,000/$300,000
- $2,750,000/$275,000
- $2,500,000/$250,000
- $2,000,000/$200,000
- $1,650,000/$165,000
- $1,300,000/$130,000
- $950,000/$95,000
- $600,000/$60,000
North Texas resident Bryson DeChambeau is in line to win the top prize. His Crushers GC squad currently sits in first place, ahead of LIV individual champion Jon Rahm's Legion XIII team.
The team championships will feature quarterfinals match play Friday and then semifinals match play on Saturday. The final round Sunday will be stroke play with all four scores counting toward a team's final results.
What is Maridoe Golf Club?
LIV and the PGA Tour had announced plans to merge last summer, but no deal has been agreed on yet.
The LIV team championship is the biggest score yet for Maridoe, which opened in 2017.
The challenging layout, which can stretch up to 7,817 yards, has been a popular training facility for Dallas-area tour pros, and the club has already hosted several top amateur events in its short history, including 2019 Trans-Mississippi Amateur Championship, the 2019 Texas mid-am championship, and the Maridoe Collegiate Invitational.
The LIV tournament will be the first pro tour event held at Maridoe.
"Maridoe is designed to be an enjoyable but demanding member’s club while always ready to provide a great test for elite golfers to entertain golf enthusiasts," Maridoe Golf Club founder Albert Huddleston said in a statement.
