LIV Golf makes surprise format change

LIV Golf has made a notable tweak to its shotgun start format.

The Saudi-backed breakaway league is in South Korea for the first time this weekend, where Bryson DeChambeau has a four-shot lead heading into the final round at the Jack Nicklaus Club.

The current US Open champion leads the current US Senior Open champion, Richard Bland, with Charles Howell III, Jason Kokrak, Dean Burmester and Talor Gooch all five behind DeChambeau.

And there will be a slightly different feel to DeChambeau’s push for the winning line on Sunday.

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Typically in the fledgling league, the leading group tees off on the first, with all 54 players starting from a different hole in their unique shotgun start format.

That of course, means LIV rounds finish sooner, with the idea being that it becomes a more digestable sporting event for viewers to take in.

One of the obvious problems with the shotgun start format, however, is that the winning player’s crowning moment is not guaranteed to come on the finishing hole, where most of the crowds gather.

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That is clearly something LIV are looking to avoid with an intriguing change ahead of Sunday’s final round. For the first time in a LIV event, the final three groups will all start on the first hole.

It means that the penultimate group of Gooch, Burmester and Kokrak will tee off 11 minutes after the rest of the field, with DeChambeau waiting 22 minutes to hit his first drive.

That, of course, will lead to slower final rounds than usual on LIV, but the change means that the champion would have to emerge from outside the top nine for the drama to conclude elsewhere.

The final three-ball will tee off at 12:46pm local time (4:46am BST), with DeChambeau seeking to convert his first LIV win of the season.

Ben Parsons is the Senior Writer at bunkered and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.