At LIV Golf's Season Finale, the Crushers Cashed in But Talor Gooch Was the Big Winner
DORAL, Fla. — Talor Gooch didn’t get to take part in the festive team victory celebration going on early Sunday at Doral, where music blared, bubbly flowed and the second season of LIV Golf came to an end with the team led by Bryson DeChambeau hoisting the trophy.
But it is fair to argue that Gooch was the LIV Golf League’s big winner.
He helped his RangeGoats team captained by Bubba Watson to a second-place finish in the LIV Golf Miami Team Championship, a result that came with a nice consolation prize of $8 million for the team with $800,000 going to each of the players.
Talor Gooch won three LIV Golf events and more than $35 million in 2023.
Sam Navarro/USA TODAY Sports
That’s in addition to the $35-plus million Gooch earned as LIV’s leading individual player, $18 million of that a bonus for winning the season title. He banked $17,320,012 for the 13 individual events, which included three victories and a playoff loss.
MORE: Complete prize money payouts from LIV Miami
"Obviously it was the best year of my career. We took it to a new level," Gooch said. "We beat on the door a few times last year coming down the stretch and just couldn’t get it done. Once we broke through in Australia, it instilled a lot of confidence, especially how I did it. It unlocked a new level of golf for me and a new level of belief."
"I played some really, really good golf this year and there a lot to build on."
But, of course, there is a caveat. There is with almost everything that comes with the LIV Golf League.
Gooch, who won the RSM Classic on the PGA Tour nearly two years ago for his first victory, will see his success undoubtedly questioned because he played in closed 48-player fields, with 54-hole events and no 36-hole cuts.
And then there is the stark reality that despite all that good play—he had 10 finishes in the top-15 and four in the top-7—he is not eligible for a single major championship in 2024.
At age 31 and playing some of the best golf of his life, that is a problem that highlights being part of the LIV Golf.
"Being able to play in the majors ... it's the pinnacle of golf," he said. "Of course, if I don’t get that chance, that’s going to suck. Hopefully the people will get together and talk it over and figure out and hope we figure out how the best of the best can get in the majors. It’s not in my control, but hopefully I’ve done enough to show that I deserve to be in those tournaments."
Gooch, who began this year ranked 40th in the world, is now 214th. (The SI World Golf Rankings, which include LIV Golf events, has Gooch ranked 24th; Data Golf has him 30th.) He was ranked 35th in the world after playing his last regular PGA Tour event at the Charles Schwab Championship in May 2022.
He soon after signed on with LIV Golf, and despite not playing another regular event on Tour, he still qualified for—but was ineligible to play in—the season-ending Tour Championship.
He played in three of the four major championships this year—the U.S. Open changed its Tour Championship top 30 criteria to require that a player be eligible for it—and didn’t fare particularly well, missing the cut at both the PGA Championship and the British Open after tying for 34th at the Masters. The world ranking points he earned at the Masters are the last he earned.
None of that is an issue for DeChambeau, whose 5-under-par 67 on Sunday along with a 65 shot by Anirban Lahiri, a 72 from Charles Howell and a 73 by Paul Casey meant a team score of 11 under par and a two-shot victory over the Range Goats.
DeChambeau won the 2020 U.S. Open so he is exempt in all of the major championships for the next two years. He’s also in the U.S. Open through 2030.
None of it mattered to him on Sunday. Lahiri’s 65 was steady but DeChambeau’s 67 was anything but as he didn’t make a par on the back nine until the 17th hole. At the 16th, he drove the ball some 100 yards past the short par-4 and had to hit over a hospitality venue—appropriately named Birdie Shack—from where hit a wedge onto the green and made a birdie to make things much easier playing the last hole.
"I didn't really know where everybody else stood because somebody could make an eagle or bogey or birdie, you just don't know how it's going to shake out," DeChambeau said. "So for me I was focused on making as many birdies as I possibly could and not making any big mistakes and that's what I tried to do."
Joaquin Niemann’s Torque team finished third at 6 under with the regular-season’s No. 1 team, the 4Aces captained by Dustin Johnson, in fourth at 3 under. Johnson wasn’t able to help the cause as he shot 3-over-par 75.
LIV Golf now has a three-month offseason before apparently beginning 2024 in early February. Numerous things are to occur in the interim, including some clarity on the "framework agreement" between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, LIV Golf’s financial backer.
That is unlikely to have any impact on 2024 but it could set the mood for how the season plays out. As will changes among the teams, any possible signings of new players and whatever else might come along.