CRUSHERS MAKING SWEET MUSIC WITH FOUR-PART HARMONY

HONG KONG – In the first two LIV Golf seasons, just the top three player scores counted for each team in the final round of every regular-season tournament. In 2024, all four scores count each Sunday. Paul Casey, looking at the big picture, had initial concerns.

“Just on the basis of if there’s an injury or illness, what happens? What are the logistics for that?” Casey said. “My opinion was I wasn’t necessarily sure of it when it was announced.”

But when Casey viewed it from the perspective of his Crushers GC team, he couldn’t help but approve.

“Awesome for us,” he acknowledged. “It’s almost unfair. We have the depth. We have the strength. I feel like any one of us on the Crushers can win any given week on any given golf course.”

That strength has played out in the last two weeks, as the Crushers have rallied in both final rounds to win the team trophies, making up an 11-stroke deficit in Jeddah and a seven-stroke deficit in Hong Kong. The back-to-back titles have moved Bryson DeChambeau’s team to the top of the points standings, nearly 40 points ahead of Torque GC.

But the domination really goes back to late last year when DeChambeau switched drivers at LIV Golf Greenbrier, shot 61-58 on the weekend and won his first individual title. The Crushers finished second that week, followed it with another second-place finish at Bedminster, then blew away the field in the final day to win in Chicago, shooting 15 under the old three-counting-scores format.

In the season-ending Team Championship in Miami, the Crushers beat the Cleeks in the match-play semifinals, then won LIV Golf’s biggest prize in the stroke-play finale when all four scores count.

With their wins in Jeddah and Hong Kong, the Crushers have now won four of the seven most recent LIV Golf tournaments. Then consider this: In the six tournaments played with four counting scores on Sunday – the 2022 and 2023 Team Championships, and the first four events in 2024 – the Crushers have won three times.  And their cumulative final-round total of 41 under this season is 10 strokes better than any other team ( see chart below ).

“When four scores are counting, we're a pretty deadly team,” DeChambeau said.

Ironically, the first time a LIV Golf event involved all four counting scores in the final round, the Crushers weren’t even on the course.

It was the 2022 Team Championship, and only the four semifinal winners advanced to play the final stroke-play round. The Crushers were eliminated by Stinger GC in the semifinals, with DeChambeau losing an epic match against Stinger Captain Louis Oosthuizen that went 23 holes.

As disappointing as that semifinal loss was for the team, it also proved to be the flash point for raising the team’s results. In the very next tournament, the 2023 season-opener in Mayakoba, the Crushers won their first team trophy and first individual title on the strength of Charles Howell III’s four-shot win with a final-round 63.

Then it was just a matter of DeChambeau getting dialed in. 

“We said a year and a half ago; we just didn't have everything all fine-tuned,” DeChambeau said. “Now we've got it going, and hopefully it becomes a dynasty.”

Said Howell: “We’ve got a good captain whose playing good, and he pushes us. Obviously we all want to be part of it and contribute.”

Indeed, while the centerpiece remains DeChambeau, it’s the Crushers’ depth that sets them apart. As Casey mentioned, all four players are legitimate contenders to win individual titles. 

DeChambeau already has two wins; Howell has that Mayakoba victory; Lahiri has four runner-up finishes, including a playoff loss in Boston in his LIV Golf debut in 2022; and now Casey has his best LIV result, a tie for second after making the three-man playoff in Hong Kong won by Abraham Ancer.

No other LIV Golf team can say that all four players in their lineup have either won or finished second as a team member. Torque GC has four players who have finished either first or second, but Carlos Ortiz’s runner-up came when he represented Fireballs GC.

It’s the kind of depth that shows up the most in the final round. When the Crushers won by shooting 20 under on Sunday in Jeddah, it matched their LIV Golf record for lowest final-round team score. They had done it twice before when only three scores counted.

On a rainy Sunday In Hong Kong, they shot 14 under, lowest in the field, with Casey leading the way with a 64, DeChambeau contributing a 66, Howell a 67 and Lahiri a 69.

Despite not repeating as Mayakoba champs last month, the Crushers finished second to Legion XIII with a score of 13 under, having started the round in fifth place. The only time they’ve been out of sorts this season was in chilly Las Vegas in the final round when they shot 6 over to drop from second to fourth.

Casey said a key element to the Crushers’ success is that the internal competition among the team members fuels the team. On Sunday, he was so focused on winning the individual title that he and DeChambeau never even discussed the team leaderboard, even though they were playing partners.

“We've got a lot of encouragement within the team on an individual level, and I think that kind of takes care of the team element,” Casey explained. “… It just feeds itself. Nobody is singled out.

“I know you look at -- Bryson gets all the attention, as he should. If I hit the golf ball like that, you'd give me more attention. But the rest of us don't. Actually, it's quite nice because it takes the pressure off us to a certain degree. We kind of just float around underneath and do our thing. He's happy to take the attention. 

“We've got something. We keep encouraging each other, and that ends up being a great formula for the team success.”

On Sunday, the biggest talking point between Casey and DeChambeau concerned the apparel choices of the four players. Each one wore the same shirt for the final round but had a different colored half-zip outer layer

“We have a group chat,” Casey laughed, “and clearly nobody chats to each other on our team.”

The lack of coordinated effort can be seen in the post-round celebration photos with the team trophy. But what the Crushers may lack in uniform synchronization, they make it up with four-part harmony inside the ropes. Particularly on Sundays now when everybody’s voice must be heard.

FINAL-ROUND CUMULATIVE COUNTING SCORES IN 2024