After much off-season speculation about potential signings, LIV’s 2023 season team rosters were confirmed last week with Dean Burmester, Danny Lee, Brendan Steele and Thomas Pieters completing the lineups, and they’ll join Mito Pereira and Sebastian Munoz in teeing it up for the season opener at El Camaleón Golf Club in Mayakoba, Mexico.
Situated on the Yucatan Peninsula, the Greg Norman designed course is best known for the cave bunker at the seventh – officially called a cenote, these limestone sinkholes are common in the Yucatan region – and twice hosted events on the PGA Tour, won by Viktor Hovland and Russell Henley.
The 54-hole event kicks off today [Friday] with a shotgun start at 1:15 PM (6:15 PM Irish time) with last season’s individual points winner Dustin Johnson going off the first tee alongside reigning Open champion Cameron Smith and Mexico’s own Abraham Ancer, with Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and Bubba Watson starting a hole ahead. Watson is making his first start as a LIV Golf member after watching from the sidelines injured last season.
Graeme McDowell will begin on the sixth hole alongside Paul Casey and Marc Leishman, and Bryson DeChambeau, Henrik Stenson and Sergio Garcia will begin on the 18th.
After some off-season team shuffling, Dustin Johnson’s 4 Aces team now features DJ, Patrick Reed, Pat Perez and Peter Uihlein, with the latter replacing Talor Gooch on the roster, and the 4 Aces will begin the season as the favourites to take team honours once again, but Bubba Watson’s RangeGoats featuring Gooch, Pieters and Harold Varner III, and Brooks Koepka’s Smash team made up of the Koepka brothers, Jason Kokrak and Matt Wolff look the most likely challengers.
Cleeks team captain Martin Kaymer has had to withdraw due to injury, and he’s replaced by Englishman Laurie Canter who was ever present during LIV’s inaugural 2022 campaign before being dropped for the 2023 season.
No longer available to watch on YouTube, LIV announced on Thursday that this season’s events would be streamed to global audiences on the recently released LIV Golf Plus app or on the LIV Plus website which can be accessed by clicking here.
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