PGA champ Koepka tees off at LIV Golf DC with dollars on the mind

Brooks Koepka had more than a good card on the mind as he took a share of 28th place with a level par round in round one of LIV Golf Washington at Trump National DC on Friday.

Not only did the five-time major winner arrive late after celebrating his PGA Championship victory at Rochester last week, but his driver cracked part-way through his opening round, and talk emerged of an imminent deal concerning his team, Smash GC

While for the moment it is mostly Twitter-patter, there are suggestions that a sporting major is looking at a $2 billion buy-in on Koepka and Smash GC, and renaming the team Swoosh GC in line with its logo. 

“I don’t know where this is going to go from here but I forsee this as a massive turning point for Team Smash,” Koepka told commentator David Feherty in a television interview.

Koepka is a 25 per cent owner of Smash, as are most leaders in the 12-strong LIV Golf League. Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers GC, which Anirban Lahiri is a member of, too has evoked commercial interest as have at least a few other teams, heavy hitting for a series launched in the face of such concerted opposition and opprobrium over the last 18 months or so.

Koepka could therefore be forgiven for not being too broken up about being eight shots behind day one leader Harold Varner III of the RangeGoats. He had after all spent much of the week celebrating at home for adding a fifth major to his collection, attended hockey and basketball games and then arriving in Washington late.

“It felt good just to play golf again, kind of get it out of the way,” Koepka added. “Hopefully play a little better the next few days knowing the golf course a little bit more.”

At the top of the leaderboard, Varner shot an 8 under 64 Trump National Washington, DC, to hold a two-shot edge over James Piot, with Cameron Smith, Kevin Na, Mito Pereira and Andy Ogletree sharing third place on 4 under.

Varner’s RangeGoats GC shared the lead in the team standings with Iron Heads GC on 10 under, with the HyFlyers tied for third with Torque and the 4Aces on 8 under.

At LIV GolfTulsa, Varner tied a league record low score with a 61 that included two eagles. His two on Friday came in his first 10 holes, including a hole-out on nine and he now has 10 eagkes in all for the season already.

“Holing out never gets old – and it makes it a lot easier,” said Varner. “… You just want to have eagle looks, honestly. If you do that – I got lucky. I made some long ones in Tulsa, chipped in, but that’s part of it. I feel like I’ve been working on it.

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“The beginning of the year, I was kind of doing other stuff than playing golf,” he said. “If you just put your head down, I think good things happen. I want to play well. I don’t think I’m terrible at golf.”

4Aces captain Dustin Johnson was 3 under and tied for seventh place alongside team-mate Patrick Reed, while reserve layer Ogletree pushed the Crushers into a share of seventh after stepping in for the injured Paul Casey. Anirban Lahiri was 1 over 73 and team captain DeChambeau 2 under 70.

Team scores

T1. Iron Heads GC (-10): Kevin Na 68, Scott Vincent 69, Danny Lee 69
T1. Rangegoats GC (-10): Harold Varner III 64, Talor Gooch 70, Thomas Pieters 72
T3. Torque GC (-8): Mito Pereira 68, David Puig 70, Sebastián Muñoz 70
T3. 4Aces GC (-8): Dustin Johnson 69, Patrick Reed 69, Peter Uihlein 70
T3. HyFlyers GC (-8): James Piot 66, Cameron Tringale 69, Brendan Steele 73
6. Stinger GC (-6): Dean Burmester 69, Branden Grace 70, Louis Oosthuizen 71
T7. Cleeks GC (-5): Martin Kaymer 69, Richard Bland 71, Bernd Wiesberger 71
T7. Crushers GC (-5): Andy Ogletree 68, Bryson DeChambeau 70, Anirban Lahiri 73
T7. Majesticks GC (-5): Laurie Canter 69, Henrik Stenson 70, Lee Westwood 72
10. Fireballs GC (-3): Eugenio Chacarra 70, Sergio Garcia 70, Carlos Ortiz 73
11. Ripper GC (-2): Cameron Smith 68, Matt Jones 73, Marc Leishman 73
12. Smash GC (+2): Brooks Koepka 72, Matthew Wolff 73, Jason Kokrak 73

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