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For a second straight year, the discussion in the early days of US Open week won’t just be about the favourites to win the national championship but also the future of professional golf. The surprise announcement of a framework deal between the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour will no doubt be the talk of the driving range as players from the new series join their former fellow pros from the other tours will be teeing it up at Los Angeles Country Club.

Recall that a year ago at The Country Club, LIV Golf’s inaugural event had just been contested in London, and the pre-major talk was about what impact the circuit would have on the game.

While the same holds true this week, this year’s Masters and PGA Championship helped defuse the idea that there might be bitterness between players on the rival circuits. The storyline of LIV v PGA Tour played out mostly in just which group of players might perform better in the two majors. It remains a question now, too, whether the more spread out schedule LIV golfers play might help them be better prepared compared to PGA Tour players who have competed already in 10 designated events or majors since the start of the year.

Whether the USGA pairs any of the 15 LIV golfers in the field with PGA Tour pros is also far less of a concern than a year ago, yet it was a curiosity when the tee times were released on Monday afternoon. And, indeed, some of the high-profile players on both circuits have been put together.

So what here’s what in store for this year at LACC? Check out the threesomes for the first round on Thursday.

MORNING THREESOMES

Hole 1
(a) Omar Morales, Deon Germishuys, Jacob Solomon
Ryan Gerard, Yuto Katsuragawa, (a) Michael Brennan,
Hayden Buckley, Adam Svensson, Pablo Larrazabal
Carson Young, Dylan Wu, Roger Sloan
Ryo Ishikawa, Kevin Streelman, Matthieu Pavon
Shane Lowry, Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood
Sungjae Im, KH Lee, JT Poston
Gary Woodland, Adam Scott, Corey Conners
Collin Morikawa, Max Homa, Scottie Scheffler
Denny McCarthy, Joel Dahmen, Adam Hadwin
(a) Matthew McClean, Seamus Power, Ryan Fox
Mac Meissner, (a) Barclay Brown, Gunn Charoenkul
(a) Alexander Yang, Jesse Schutte, Andy Svoboda
Hole 10
Berry Henson, Ryutaro Nagano, Hank Lebioda
Michael Kim, Jordan Smith, (a) Wenyi Ding
Scott Stallings, (a) Preston Summerhays, Lucas Herbert
Jens Dantorp, Patrick Rodgers, Ryan Armour
Thomas Pieters, Aaron Wise, (a) Gordon Sargent,
Bryson DeChambeau, Francesco Molinari, Tyrrell Hatton
Tom Hoge, Sergio Garcia, Sepp Straka
Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, Jason Day
Patrick Reed, Matt Kuchar, Si Woo Kim
Xander Schauffele, Viktor Hovland, Jon Rahm
Martin Kaymer, Stewart Cink, (a) Michael Thorbjornsen
David Horsey, (a) Brendan Valdes, Paul Barjon
Jordan Gumberg, Kyle Mueller, (a) Bastien Amat

AFTERNOON THREESOMES

Hole 1
Brent Grant, Vincent Norrman, Charley Hoffman
Simon Forsström, Carlos Ortiz, (a) Maxwell Moldovan
Eric Cole, Thriston Lawrence
Adam Schenk
Luke List, Wilco Nienaber, Alejandro Del Rey
Adrian Meronk, Harris English, Joaquin Niemann
Alex Noren, Wyndham Clark, Austin Eckroat
Kurt Kitayama, Cam Davis, Russell Henley
Cameron Smith, Sam Bennett, Matt Fitzpatrick
Billy Horschel, Chris Kirk, Brian Harman
Brooks Koepka, Hideki Matsuyama, Rory McIlroy
Sebastián Muñoz, Nick Taylor, Taylor Montgomery
Olin Browne Jr, David Puig, (a) Karl Vilips
Corey Pereira, (a) Isaac Simmons, JJ Grey
Hole 10
Ross Fisher, Nico Echavarria, Paul Haley II
(a) Nick Dunlap, Nick Hardy, Sam Stevens,
Taylor Pendrith, (a) Aldrich Potgieter, Romain Langasque, France
Andrew Putnam, Victor Perez,
Abraham Ancer
Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington, Keegan Bradley,
Mito Pereira, Emiliano Grillo, (a) Mateo Fernandez De Oliveira,
Tom Kim, Sahith Theegala, Cameron Young,
Sam Burns, Dustin Johnson, Keith Mitchell,
Tony Finau, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay,
Davis Thompson, Min Woo Lee, Justin Suh
Taylor Moore, Mackenzie Hughes, (a) Ben Carr, Columbus
Patrick Cover, (a) David Nyfjäll, Frankie Capan III,
Austen Truslow, (a) Christian Cavaliere, Katonah, Alex Schaake

(a): amateur