Dustin Johnson and his team 4Aces GC - Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch, Pat Perez - win Sunday's LIV team championship final; the four players split $16m in prize money; Johnson finishes season with a staggering $35,637,767 in earnings, which does not include his signing bonus of circa $100m
Sunday 30 October 2022 21:36, UK
Dustin Johnson's season of big LIV money finished with another seven-figure check, as his 4Aces GC clinched victory in the Saudi-backed LIV Golf team championship on Sunday.
Johnson drove to the green on the 370-yard par-4 16th to set up an easy birdie that provided a bit of breathing room, Patrick Reed birdied his last hole to put their squad ahead for good and 4Aces GC captured the title at Trump National Doral by one shot over Cameron Smith and Punch GC.
Johnson (70), Reed (70), Talor Gooch (71) and Pat Perez (70) shot a combined 7-under 281 on the par-72, and split $16m.
"I feel unbelievable," Perez said. Reed felt even better, making birdie on his final hole to give Johnson a one-shot lead to work with.
Johnson was on the par-4 18th green in two when Reed finished, while Smith - the other player in Johnson's twosome - needed a miracle that didn't arrive. Reed's birdie gave his team the lead, and two putts from Johnson later, it was over.
The victory capped a monster earnings year for Johnson, by far the biggest winner in the first year of LIV. Including his $18m for winning the season-long individual title, Johnson finished with $35,637,767 in earnings.
That's 14 per cent of the $255m in purses and bonuses won by all players in LIV's inaugural year, not including signing bonuses, which were massive and reported to be around $200m for Phil Mickelson, and at least $100m apiece for players like Johnson, Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau.
Smith (65), Matt Jones (70), Wade Ormsby (73) and Marc Leishman (74) finished at 6-under, splitting $8m. Smash GC's Brooks Koepka (74), Peter Uihlein (75), Jason Kokrak (68) and Chase Koepka (75) ended 4-over and split $6m.
Stinger GC, the team of Louis Oosthuizen (71), Charl Schwartzel (71), Hennie du Plessis (76) and Branden Grace (80), finished at 10-over and split $4m.
The payouts next year, when LIV grows from eight to 14 events, will reach $405m. And if more players join LIV in the coming months, there will be more signing bonuses, too.
"Next year we're going to play 14 events, plus...the majors," Mickelson said during the LIV Golf broadcast on YouTube, doing the knock-on-wood-for-luck move before saying the majors.
"And that's a lot of golf. I've got a lot of golf coming up next year and I really want to get back to the level that I know I can play."
The majors remain in some question since much of the qualifying process for them revolves around world rankings. For now, LIV players don't get points toward their Official World Golf Ranking. They've been trying to change that.
All 16 of the players who competed Sunday finished their LIV year with more than $2m in earnings, though most of them received much more.
Perez made just over $8m in seven LIV events, which is more than he had in his last five years on the PGA Tour combined.
Uihlein, who never won on the PGA Tour, finished his LIV season with just over $12.5m in seven events, which more than doubled his career earnings in 10 years as a pro.
"We've had a lot of headwinds," LIV CEO and commissioner Greg Norman said on the streamed broadcast prior to the start of the final round.
"We've weathered all the storms, and we're here. We've got a great crew of people and we've got a great product and we're off and running."
Get the best prices and book a round at one of 1,700 courses across the UK & Ireland
