Torque edge in on Varner’s victory parade at LIV Golf Washington

Harold Varner III birdied the 54th and final hole to seal a one-shot win over hard-charging South African Branden Grace as Torque GC eased home by three strokes in the team event at LIV Golf Washington on Sunday.

For the popular Varner, it was a moment to remember as the result at Trump National Golf Club Washington DC was his first professional win on home soil, and worth $4 million. Add to that the $125,000 for his team, the RangeGoats’ third-place finish and the 32-year-old has now amassed upwards of $7.5 million in earnings from the first seven events of the season.

“Very special,” Varner said after his 4 under 68 on the day. “I’ve never won in America. It’s my favorite country. ,,,But at the end of the day, I really wanted to celebrate with the RangeGoats,” Varner said. “That’s my team.”

Sunday’s result also took Varner from 19th to sixth place in the overall individual standings, which is headed by frellow RangeGoat Talor Gooch after successive victories at Adelaide and Singapore last month. Grace is now third, displacing newly-crowned PGA champion Brooks Koepka.

Torque’s run to the top of the podium was fired by their youngest member, David Puig who shot a 6 under 66 after an off-colour round on Saturday. Team captain Joaquin Niemann however dropped off a message of encouragement on Saturday which did the trick over the final 18 holes.

“David didn’t play well and I saw he was a little bit upset,” Niemann said on Sunday. “It’s nice to see what happened from yesterday to today. He’s a great player and being able to help him out, showing him a motivational message or something, inspired him to play well. I’m pretty happy for that and for David.”

It needed all of Varner’s experience and nerve to produce the result including a hole-out from the bunker for birdie at the par-4 11th to take the lead and a tee shot at the par-3 15th that set up another birdie for a two-stroke lead.

But Grace, who went down to Dustin Johnson in a play-off two weeks ago in Tulsa, birdied two of his last three holes, including his final hole to tie scores on 11 under. The American though calmly birdied the final hole to run out a one-shot winner.

“I knew exactly what I had to do, when I had to do it, how I had to do it,” Varner said. “I love that. That’s why you play, that moment.”

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Torque were in fact in line for both trophies before Varner intervened. Mito Pereira led Varner by one stroke overnight but wasn’t as sharp as the previous rounds en route to shooting 71 to finish

third. Still, a long eagle putt on the par-5 13th was a key moment in Torque’s tight battle with Stinger GC who were in search of a second consecutive team win after claiming the title in Tulsa.

“My irons weren’t very good today,” Pereira said. “Happy to finish third and obviously wanted to win. But we won as a team, so that’s pretty sick, too.”

The win took Torque to third in the team standings behind last year’s champions, 4Aces GC, and Stinger GC. But Niemann likes how his team is performing going into the second half of the 14-event season.

“We won already two times and obviously the more important win is the last one of the end of the year,” Niemann said. “I think this is good to prove to all the other teams that we are the team to beat.”

With the US Open coming up that 12 LIV Golf League members have already qualified for and a few others are in line at the remaining sectional qualifiers, the LIV Golf League season resumes end June at Valderrama in Spain.

Final team scores

1. Torque GC (-27): David Puig 66, Sebastián Muñoz 70, Mito Pereira 71

2. Stinger GC (-24): Branden Grace 66, Charl Schwartzel 70, Louis Oosthuizen 71

3. RangeGoats GC (-19): Harold Varner III 68, Talor Gooch 71, Wade Ormsby* 73

4. Crushers GC (-15): Bryson DeChambeau 70, Charles Howell III 70, Anirban Lahiri 71

5. Majesticks GC (-14): Henrik Stenson 71, Laurie Canter 71, Lee Westwood 72

6. 4Aces GC (-14): Pat Perez 71, Peter Uihlein 71, Dustin Johnson 73

7. Cleeks GC (-10): Graeme McDowell 71, Martin Kaymer 71, Bernd Wiesberger 71

8. Iron Heads GC (-9): Scott Vincent 69, Danny Lee 72, Kevin Na 72

9. Fireballs GC (-8): Carlos Ortiz 70, Abraham Ancer 74, Sergio Garcia 74

10. HyFlyers GC (-8): Cameron Tringale 70, Brendan Steele 71, Phil Mickelson 76

11. Ripper GC (-7): Matt Jones 69, Marc Leishman 72 , Cameron Smith 72

12. Smash GC (+2): Brooks Koepka 70, *Kieran Vincent 72, Chase Koepka 72

 

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