Tour veterans Garcia, Johnson rediscover touch at LIV Golf Chicago

From dead last at LIV Golf UK two weeks ago, 4Aces captain Dustin Johnson fought his way into a share of the opening day lead in Chicago alongside fellow veteran Sergio Garcia of the Fireballs with solid 4 under oar cards of 67.

While Garcia has been a winner earlier in the season, Johnson was at the bottom of the leaderboard in England, but showed he may be finding some late season form at the challenging Bolingbrook Golf Club. They lead a group of six that includes fellow major winners Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm.

“To be honest, even in the UK, I did not play nearly as bad as my score,” Johnson said. “I know my score was horrible, but I actually hit a lot of good shots.

“It's close,” Johnson said when asked about his form. “I feel like I'm always close, and it only takes a couple shots here or there where my game just clicks back and I start playing good again.”

Added Garcia, winner in Hong Kong earlier in the season, “I've been working very hard on all parts of my game. Today I felt like I hit the ball pretty much as well as I hit the ball at the beginning of the year. I hit several shots very, very close, so obviously on the conditions that we had today, if you have five or six tap-ins for birdie, that helps a lot.”

In the team event, the all-South African Stinger GC outfit — winless in their last 31 starts — returned a 6 under total to lead Garcia’s Fireballs by one stroke, Johnson’s 4Aces and DeChambeau’s Crushers tied for third on 3 under. 

Friday was the second tine this year Johnson has gone from last at one tournament into the lead in the first round of the next event. He finished 54th in Hong Kong, then had the solo lead after 18 holes in Singapore, eventually tying for fifth.

Heading into Chicago sixth in the season-long points race, Garcia is now projected to move into fourth place even as the season-ending races is poised to sharpen u yet again. Rahm is tied for third on the Chicago leaderboard while points leader Joaquin Niemann – a five-time winner this season – is tied for 45th after an opening 74.

If Rahm wins this week and Niemann finishes no better than 18th, the Spaniard will take over the lead ahead of next week’s decisive event at LIV Golf Indianapolis. Behind them, DeChambeau has a mathematical chance to win the championship but needs to top at both Chicago and Indianapolis.

“Joaco has played pretty bad golf before in the first round and come back and almost won tournaments,” DeChambeau pointed out. “He's incredible out here. I think he'll do fine the next couple days."

“For me, I'm just going to focus on playing the best golf I can. … Going to continue to work hard to keep that ball in play and make some good putts when I need to. If I win this week, I'm one step closer to getting that title. But I want to win for the Crushers as well and see where our team stacks up.”

DeChambeau was the only player in the field to successfully scramble 100% of the time, as he was nine for nine in that category. He also leads the league in scrambling this season at 65.75%.

Others in the field have plenty to play for, too, including six-time major champion Mickelson, who is having his best season on LIV Golf. “I've played well this year, played consistent,” the HyFlyers captain said. “At 55, I think that's a cool accomplishment, and I would love to finish this year off right.

“Everybody is feeling a little bit of pressure. Everybody is in pursuit of something. We're all pursuing our own personal goals, but as a team, we would really like to get our first win.”