Dustin Johnson, just two days after winning $50 million LIV Golf Team Championship together with his 4Aces team, is already making adjustments to his squad in 2023.
An ESPN report states that Johnson will drop Talor Gooch, and add Peter Uihlein. This team won five of eight events in the first year of the upstart circuit.
Uihlein was runner-up at two of LIV’s three previous regular-season events as well as fourth at London’s opener, which saw him finish third on the season-long points lists. The 33-year old earned $7,314,786 on-course earnings over the regular season. He also picked up $5.5 million – $4M for his third place season finish and $1.5M for Smash GC’s third-place performance at the team championship – to bring his first year total to $12,814,786. The former world number one amateur and 2010 U.S. champion was also a top-ranked player. After turning professional in 2011, the amateur champion earned just over $4 million on PGA Tour.
Gooch is reportedly heading for Bubba Watson’s Niblicks GC where he will most likely be alongside Harold Varner III or Hudson Swafford.
LIV Golf officials met last Saturday with selected media members to discuss its future plans. This included a transfer window, similar to professional soccer, where players can move between teams within a short time period immediately after the team champion and before the start the next season.
LIV hopes that all teams will be locked up by the end this year. This appears to be the first in a series of inter-team moves. Six new names could join the series in 2023, when it transitions to the LIV Golf League, which is 14 events.
