Three-way tie for LIV Golf Miami lead as RangeGoats head team battle

Individual 2023 champion Talor Gooch, 2017 Masters winner Sergio Garcia and Peter Uihlein shared the lead after day one of LIV Golf Miami on 5 under par 67s while RangeGoats GC topped the team leaderboard at Doral’s Blue Monster course on Friday. Gooch started his run at top honours last April in Adelaide, and seems to be coming into that sort of form at the fifth event of the 2024 season.

The RangeGoats, led by former Hero World Challenge winner Bubba Watson held a similar five-stroke advantage over Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII in the team event riding on Uihlein’s score and matching 66s from Watson and Matthew Wolff. “No surprise,” said Wolff later. Watson has a solid record at Doral. Although he’s never won here, he has three runner-up finishes and a third place in previous pro tournaments held on the Blue Monster. “You’ve just got to put it in play when you have an angle to the green, and I’m able to do that,” said the two-time Masters champion who will be among 13 LIV golfers competing next week at Augusta National. “I was able to do that the last few times I’ve played around here.” Meanwhile, good friends Uihlein and Wolff – who were acquired by Watson in the offseason – have already shown that they can feed off each other, as they tied for second individually earlier this season in Las Vegas. Although they weren’t grouped on Friday, they did start just one hole apart. “Every time I caught up to him, he was close to the hole, so I assumed he was hitting it pretty close,” Uihlein said. Added Wolff: “I wouldn’t say we’re feeding off each other, but I would say when the rest of your team is playing well, it kind of motivates you to want to play a little bit better or have that little extra push.”

India star Anirban Lahiri started Friday well his team, Crushers GC in contention for a while before falling away as the round progressed. Still, with a level par 72, Lahiri was tied for 25th place having swapped birdie for bogie on the extended Doral track where the big-hitters tend to have more of a say.

Gooch is sixth in the 2024 individual standings and is yet to match his 2023 form when he won three times. He said Friday’s round was the first time his ball-striking was up to his standards. “This felt a little reminiscent of some of those deep rounds I had last year around this time of year. Hopefully we can catch some of that fire we had this time last year and get it going.”

Fireballs skipper Garcia had the only bogey-free round of the day, hitting 16 of 18 greens in regulation, the best performance by any player in the field Friday. He also had a terrific up-and-down on the par-3 13th to keep his scorecard clean. “I wasn’t hitting it super-close most of the time, but I was hitting a lot of greens,” said Garcia, who has been part of two of the seven playoffs in LIV Golf history but is still seeking his first LIV individual win. “My lag putting was good. I didn’t put myself under a lot of stress. That obviously helped.

“Just got to keep giving myself chances,” Garcia said. “I feel like my game is still not exactly where I want it to be. There’s still quite a bit of room for improvement.”

The consistent Uihlein is still to win an individual event though he has won team trophies twice with different outfits. One of LIV Golf’s longest hitters, Uihlein has also emerged as one of its leading putters. He led the field Friday in that category, needing just 23 putts over the 18 holes.

“Played really well, putted nice and just kind of felt like I was plotting my way around there, which was good,” Uihlein said. Wolff, Watson, Stinger GC’s Dean Burmester and Iron Heads GC’s Scott Vincent were tied for fourth place on 4 under 68s while a further six shared eighth place, including five-time major winner Brooks Koepka and defending Masters champion Jon Rahm. Day one standings

1. RangeGoats -13 (Uihlein 67, Wolff 68, Watson 68) 2. Legion XIII -8 (Rahm 69, Surratt 69, Hatton 70) 3. 4Aces -7 (Reed 69, Johnson 70, Varner III 70) 4. Smash -6 (Gooch 67, Koepka 69, McDowell 74) 5. Stinger -5 (Burmester 68, Oosthuizen 70, Schwartzel 73) 6. Fireballs -3 (Garcia 67, Ancer 73, Chacarra 73) T7. IronHeads -2 (Vincent 68, Na 70, Lee 76) T7. Cleeks -2 (Bland 71, Samooja 71, Kaymer 72) T7. Torque -2 (Pereira 69, Niemann 71, Muñoz 74) T7. Crushers -2 (DeChambeau 71, Casey 71, Lahiri 72) 11. Ripper +1 (Leishman 70, Herbert 73, Jones 74) 12. HyFlyers +2 (Steele 69, Tringale 73, Mickelson 76) 13. Majesticks +4 (Poulter 72, Stenson 73, Westwood 75)