LIV Golf’s team championship introduces ‘hyper-stimulating’ environment to D-FW

CARROLLTON — On the cart path just off the 13th green Friday at Maridoe Golf Club, a volunteer raised his arm in the universal signal to halt traffic and conversation while Ian Poulter chipped on.
Fans politely obliged, though it seemed moot, considering the cacophony coming through speakers on all sides.
“Kinda ridiculous,” the volunteer said. “You hold up your ‘Quiet’ board, and the Stones are blasting behind you.”
In another nod to the spirit of this tournament, the Quiet board reads, “Zip It.”
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Welcome to the LIV Golf Dallas Team Championship, which isn’t like any pro golf tournament you’ve ever seen or heard in these parts.
From the DJs to the team concept to the format to the sight of pro golfers in short pants, it was different. Not as jolting as the commercials that announced it, but that probably was to be expected with its biggest stars, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, drawing byes the first day. Could have tamped down the size of the galleries.
Officials declined to release the number of tickets sold, but Albert Huddleston’s “sandbox of fellowship,” as he likes to call Maridoe, could stand to pack a few more this weekend.
Also hard to concoct a Mardis Gras-level of excitement when the heat index hit a whopping 108 Friday. The last time it was this hot for a Dallas-area tournament might have been ’63, when Jack Nicklaus used a towel as a pot holder to hoist the Wanamaker Trophy at Dallas Athletic Club.
“You wouldn’t expect this for September,” said Forrest White, a DeChambeau fan and lookalike from Oklahoma.
You wouldn’t expect this at the gates of Hell. Made the Sweet Tea Dunk Tank, one of a dozen side acts Friday, seem like a sweet gig at that. Other activities included a putting contest on a course shaped like a guitar, a kid zone, bubble show, fake tattoo station and a genuine mechanical bull.
Any takers?
“One guy lasted 32 seconds,” said the operator, who apparently has a different concept of the mechanical bull than John Travolta did in “Urban Cowboy.”
A saving grace of the shotgun format in which all went off at 11:15 was that it cut down on time in the sun for spectators who braved the challenging, rustic conditions. The three teams that drew byes – DeChambeau’s Crushers, Jon Rahm’s Legion 13 and Cam Smith’s Ripper – went out for a little practice and retired to the cool comfort of the locker room to watch the elimination process unfold on TV.
“That was worth the bye itself,” Smith said.
The format Friday was a little dizzy, so pay attention: Ten teams made up of 40 players competed for the right to make the weekend and $14 million first prize. Two individual matches and one foursome make up each match, with the latter played in alternate shot mode.
Or something like that.
“The challenge,” said Julian Collins of Southlake as he stood off the ninth green, “is we’re trying to understand the format. It’s match play, right? But why is it taking 30 minutes for somebody to get to the green, man?
“What’s going on?
If the format was a little confusing, Collins and his pal, R’Kes Starling, were down with everything else. Collins said PGA Tournaments feel more “corporate” than the LIV experience, which felt more like the rounds of golf they play. They liked the fact that the players were so up close and personal, you could probably reach out on the tee box and stop them in their backswings.
An “intimate experience,” Starling called it.
“Obviously the energy is different here,” he said. “We got multiple DJs and music all over.
“I mean, it’s a little hyper-stimulating.”
Of the fans polled by your intrepid reporter, LIV’s appeal to most boiled down to one golfer in particular: DeChambeau, whose Crushers, the defending champs, are the No. 1 seed this weekend. The Seals – Chad and Cassie and Cash, their 19-year-old son – have only been playing golf for a little more than a year, but they drove an hour from Leonard in East Texas to watch DeChambeau.
Why?
“They just love him,” Cassie said of her husband and son. “They watch his YouTube stuff. They love that.
“They’re just obsessed with Bryson.”
Of course, some people are just here to party. DeChambeau alluded to the area’s predilection when he said this week that Dallas is “a bit of a party town.”
Hard to say if any of the half-dozen covered, elevated bars rimming the course reminded anyone of the reported behavior at the Pavilion, the Nelson’s worst-kept secret back in the day. The difference with LIV Golf is that they’ve peeled back any pretensions. The party is a prominent part of the story, not a secret subtext.
No one appeared to have any issues, either, with the fact that LIV Golf is backed by Saudi money. Certainly not Caleb Randall of Hurst, who wore a black T-shirt with “Phil Mickelson was right” on the front in white letters.
What was he right about?
“I mean, political ideologies aside, I think we need to remember that this is a game and it’s for fun,” Randall said. “And I think he had the right intentions with stepping out, and I know he took a lot of flak for it. But I think it’s also helped. He’s bringing a lot more eyes to the sport, people that didn’t know about it.”
Randall noted the “welcoming” atmosphere Friday and the “vibe” in general.
“Everyone’s got a smile on their faces,” he said.
Depends on where you were at any given time, probably. Everything was popping at the bars, where a sign warned that if fans hear “Fore!” they should “crouch down and protect their face.”
A little warning for all those people new to the game, apparently.
For those who ventured far from the bars, the experience Friday was different, as one overheard conversation indicated.
“There’s a good tree on five, about halfway down,” one fan told another straggler.
“Good shady spot.”
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