LIV Golf has once again moved its season-ending Tag Team Championship tournament to Trump National Doral Golf Club in Florida.
The league announced on Monday that it was moving its championship event from Saudi Arabia to former President Donald Trump’s course outside of Miami, where it hosted its inaugural championship. The tournament will be played from October 20-22.
The team championship was originally scheduled for November 3-5 at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This tournament will now be played from October 13 to 15.
“We are thrilled to return to the Blue Monster in Doral to celebrate a historic year and crown the 2023 LIV Golf League Team Champion,” said Greg Norman, CEO and Hall of Famer of LIV Golf, in a statement, via ESPN. “The team concept has come to life this year in exciting new ways as our players and fans embrace the launch of team golf. We’re gearing up for an action-packed weekend with headline-grabbing entertainment that will put an exclamation mark on another can’t-miss LIV Golf event.”
The individual champion will be named after the Jeddah tournament. Talor Gooch holds a seven-point lead over Cam Smith in the standings after last week’s event in London. Brooks Koepka is third and 25 points behind Gooch.
The ranking of the teams after the event in Saudi Arabia will determine the seeding for the Championship Tournament, and the top four teams will receive a first-round bye. 4Aces GC, led by Dustin Johnson, currently leads the standings with 168 points. Torque GC, captained by Joaquin Niemann, is second with 129 points, and RangeGoats GC, captained by Bubba Watson, is third with 127.
LIV Golf will host a tournament August 4-6 in West Virginia. There are five tournaments left on the schedule.
It’s unclear what will happen to LIV Golf next season following the surprise announcement of its partnership with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour after more than a year of heated controversy. The PGA Tour is expected to lead the new entity, which will be largely funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and the Tour will have control over the future of LIV Golf. The partnership announcement drew widespread criticism and a PGA Tour board member actually resigned on Sunday over the deal. Multiple investigations have also been launched and two PGA Tour executives are expected to testify before a US Senate committee this week.
Trump’s courts have struggled to land major events since taking office. The PGA of America severed ties with Trump and moved the 2022 PGA Championship away from its Bedminster, New Jersey course after the uprising at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The R&A said last month that it no would not host an Open Brit at Trump’s Turnberry Golf Resort in Scotland when he also owns it. Trump has long pushed to bring the British Open back to Turnberry, which last hosted the tournament in 2009, about five years before buying it. Buffalo Bills safety Jordan Poyer even canceled a charity golf event that was scheduled for Trump’s Doral Club last month due to the backlash he said he received at the location.