LIV DALLAS TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
Best bets
3pts win Crushers @ 16/5
1pt each-way Fireballs @ 17/2
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Jon Rahm, former world No. 1 now LIV No. 1 after winning in Chicago on Sunday and wheeling away the $18m bonus that goes to their player of the year, bids to go back-to-back in Dallas by leading his Legion XIII squad to glory in the $50m LIV Team Competition which winds up their 14-tournament year.
The three-day knockout tees off on Friday at the Maridoe course at Carrollton, a 7567-yard parkland course in Dallas County where a 25-acre lake plays a big part in many of the holes. Re-designed in 2017, the Texas track has never hosted a professional tournament before but is primed for a birdie assault by 13 teams of four duelling for the $18m top prize ($4.5m to each player).
‘There will be nowhere to hide on Championship Sunday…’
The format is complex: the top three teams get a bye into the quarter-finals which is why Bryson DeChambeau-led Crushers, Rahm-inspired Legion XIII and Cam Smith’s all-Aussie Ripper are so short in the betting – they have one fewer match to play.
The other ten teams battle it out for five quarter-final spots on day one (two singles and one alternate-shot foursomes). Saturday cuts eight to four, but it’s all change on Sunday as the four teams left standing then face an 18-hole strokeplay contest in which every player’s score counts.
There’s a bonus for DeChambeau – as leader of the top team the Crushers, he gets to pick their Saturday opponents. That gives them quite an edge and as they (Paul Casey, Anirban Lahiri and Charles Howell) won this last year they must have every chance of repeating.
Crushers have won two team titles already this campaign – but Legion XIII’s triumph in Chicago last weekend brings their tally up to four, hence they are Fitzdares’ marginal favourites at 29/10 with DeChambeau’s crew at 16/5.
Those two dominate the betting and rightly so with not only Rahm but also Tyrrell Hatton in full flow this past two months, the flamboyant Englishman having played some of his best golf, won once, probably should have won twice, in that period.
But any weakness from their teammates Caleb Surratt and Kieran Vincent, ranked 44 and 54 (and last) in the LIV rankings, will be exposed in this format. There will be nowhere to hide on Championship Sunday when it comes to adding all four scores together.
DeChambeau, without a LIV victory this year, managed to pick up a US Open title on an “awayday” and has proved LIV’s most popular signing, fully embracing the team ethic and leading from the front.
Expect him to shine in Texas with scores in the low 60s his speciality and henchman Casey to continue his improved form, three top-tens and a solid 13th in Chicago last Sunday. Casey’s LIV breakthrough was snatched from his grasp by Abraham Ancer in a Hong Kong playoff in March. Lahiri and Howell, or Chucky Threesticks as they call him, are experienced campaigners who’ll provide strong back-up.
Yet there’s one team, the Fireballs, who might upset both Crushers and Legion. And as they have the extra match to play, they are at an each-way price, 17/2. These are the Hispanics, Sergio Garcia, David Puig and Eugenio Chacarra from Spain, Ancer from Mexico.
Garcia has raised his game since July, winning at his beloved Valderrama and following up with eyecatching efforts that have seen him finish up third to Rahm and Joaquin Niemann on the money list. He’s got his fading mojo back, Ancer won in Hong Kong, Chacarra captured an Asian Tour event in Scotland at the end of August and Puig is a newcomer with plenty of game.
Ripper look best of the rest, with Smith, Marc Leishman, Lucas Herbert and Matt Jones having the consistent, solid look that this format could well reward, Herbert showing his best form in his two latest outings when sixth in Greenbrier and Chicago.
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