Story By: Erin Zollars
Photos By: Sol Tucker
Sugar Creek, IL–
Usually when you go to check out a pro-am the day before the actual tournament, many of the players are not having a much fun with their amateurs as they were today in Chicago. Especially Brooks Koepka, who not only is trying to grab a victory for his team this weekend, but he is also working on his golf flex ahead of the 2023 Ryder Cup.
Koepka was the only LIV golfer picked to play in the 2023 Ryder Cup. He held the sixth and final automatic qualifying spot for the American squad until the final point-counting event at the BMW Championship, which left U.S. Captain Zach Johnson with the unenviable task of deciding if he wanted to include a LIV player on his team.
Today Koepka seemed very relaxed as he joined his amateur group on the back 9 holes at Rich Harvest Farms today.
Other notable groups on the course today were Reggie Bush with Zach Levine and Katie Kearney. Bush had quite a few sound clips about the weekend and a funny one that that Bo Don’t Know about showing up to play. This was in reference to the no show today for the legendary Bo Jackson, who was supposed to be paired with Bush and Levine.
Dustin Johnson had a bit of a chance to get ready for the weekend with his group and seemed super relaxed on the back 9 as well.
Johnson leads his 4 Aces team into the Chicago stop with his eyes on claiming yet another team title. They are followed closely by Joaquin Niemann’s Torque GC and the South African squad of Stinger GC. The top five of the team standings is rounded out by Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers and Bubba Watson’s RangeGoats as teams jostle for positioning with only two regular season events remaining before the LIV Golf Team Championship at Trump National Doral.
Below the standings going into Round 1 on Friday. Who is going to make it hot in there besides Nelly after the round tomorrow night. Stay tuned as it could be a wild weekend with Torque making a run just 9 points back of Johnson and his team.
LIV Golf Chicago team standings
| POSITION | TEAM NAME | PLAYERS | POINTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 Aces | Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Pat Perez, Peter Uihlein | 172 |
| 2 | Torque | Joaquin Niemann, Sebastian Munoz, Mito Pereira, David Puig | 163 |
| 3 | Stinger | Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace, Dean Burmester | 156 |
| 4 | Crushers | Bryson DeChambeau, Charles Howell III, Anirban Lahiri, Paul Casey | 146 |
| 5 | RangeGoats | Bubba Watson, Harold Varner III, Talor Gooch, Thomas Pieters | 143 |
| 6 | Fireballs | Sergio Garcia, Carlos Ortiz, Abraham Ancer, Eugenio Chacarra | 80 |
| 7 | Ripper | Cameron Smith, Matt Jones, Marc Leishman, Jed Morgan | 79 |
| 8 | Smash | Brooks Koepka, Chase Koepka, Jason Kokrak, Matthew Wolff | 52 |
| 9 | HyFlyers | Phil Mickelson, James Piot, Cameron Tringale, Brendan Steele | 40 |
| 10 | Majesticks | Ian Poulter, Henrik Stenson, Lee Westwood, Sam Horsfield | 23 |
| 11 | Iron Heads | Kevin Na, Scott Vincent, Danny Lee, Sihwan Kim | 19 |
| 12 | Cleeks | Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Richard Bland, Bernd Wiesberger | 16 |
