After months of speculation and rumour over who is and isn’t going to play, 48 players all tee off together today at the inaugural LIV Golf Invitational Series event at the Centurion Club near London.
Phil Mickelson, coming back to golf after four months away from the game, and fellow American Dustin Johnson are the headline acts in a field battling it out for the $25million prize pool, with $4million for first. Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter are flying the domestic flag for the opening event in England, while fellow European Ryder Cup stars Sergio Garcia and Martin Kaymer are also in the field. There are some less well-known players too, with three amateurs and a number of Asian Tour players set to play.
Lefty has been on a sabbatical away from golf since his February appearance at the Saudi International, where he drew criticism both for his comments on Saudi Arabia and how he was using the new series as "leverage" against the PGA Tour, whom he criticised for its "obnoxious greed" over player media rights.
He released a statement earlier this week confirming his intention to participate in the LIV Golf Invitational Series, for which he is being paid $200million, according to Golf Channel's Brentley Romine. Mickelson missed his first Masters since 1994, and also decided against defending his PGA Championship title while he took time away from golf. It’s yet to be seen whether he’ll be in the field for the US Open, the one title missing for his career Grand Slam, and where he’s finished runner-up six times.
Johnson is being paid a reported $125million to join the LIV Golf Series and is in the field despite pledging his allegiance to the PGA Tour in February. Along with Talor Gooch (35) and Kevin Na (34) - who was the first to resign from the PGA Tour - World No.15 Johnson is one of three of the current top 50 ranked players to be teeing it up at Centurion.
Together with Westwood and Kaymer, DJ is one of three former World No.1 golfers to be in the field. He is third on the all-time list of cumulative weeks at the top of the rankings at 135 weeks, behind Tiger Woods (683) and LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman (331).
One of the unique aspects of this tournament is the 48-runner field has been split into 12 teams of four, with $5million of the prize money being divided between the top three teams. In a draft held this week in London, the 12 teams were set, though some teams were pre-decided.
Poulter, for example, already knew the line-up of the Majesticks team he captains, with fellow Englishmen Westwood, Sam Horsfield and Laurie Canter completing their line-up. Former Open winner Louis Oostheuizen already had two of his three teammates decided, and completed an all South African line-up for his Stinger team when he selected Hennie Du Plessis to join Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace.
Mickelson skippers the Hy Flyers and is joined by Justin Harding, 15-year-old amateur Ratchanon Chantananuwat and Chase Koepka, while DJ heads up the 4 Aces team alongside Shaun Norris, Oliver Bekker and Kevin Yuan.
LIV GOLF INVITATIONAL SERIES LONDON FIELD
- Oliver Bekker
- Richard Bland
- Itthipat Buranatanyarat
- Laurie Canter
- Ratchanon Chantananuwat (amateur)
- Hennie Du Plessis
- Oliver Fisher
- Sergio Garcia
- Talor Gooch
- Branden Grace
- Justin Harding
- Sam Horsfield
- Dustin Johnson
- Matt Jones
- Sadom Kaewkanjana
- Martin Kaymer
- Phachara Khongwatmai
- Sihwan Kim
- Ryosuke Kinoshita
- Chase Koepka
- Jinichiro Kozuma
- Pablo Larrazabal
- Viraj Madappa
- Graeme McDowell
- Phil Mickelson
- Jediah Morgan
- Kevin Na
- Shaun Norris
- Andy Ogletree
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Wade Ormsby
- Adrian Otaegui
- Turk Pettit
- James Piot (amateur)
- Ian Poulter
- David Puig (amateur)
- JC Ritchie
- Charl Schwartzel
- Kim Sihwan
- Travis Smyth
- Hudson Swafford
- Ian Snyman
- Hideto Tanihara
- Peter Uihlein
- Scott Vincent
- Lee Westwood
- Bernd Wiesberger
- Blake Windred
- Kevin Yuan
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