Talor Gooch continued his scorching play of late, shooting a 7-under 64 on Friday to take the lead after the first round of play at LIV Golf Singapore.
Last week, Gooch was a wire-to-wire winner at the LIV event in Adelaide, Australia.
On Saturday, he’ll head into second-round action with a one-stroke lead over Brooks Koepka, Cameron Tringale, Spain’s Sergio Garcia and Cameron Smith of Australia. Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and South African Louis Oosthuizen are two shots back after recording 66s.
Gooch had a bogey-free Friday, recording five birdies and an eagle at No. 18 at the Sentosa Golf Club. He said he hopes to put together three strong rounds after struggling in the final round on his way to the win at Adelaide.
“I’ve been playing pretty good golf for a while, and the results haven’t really shown it. The first few tournaments of the year, it felt like I’d have two good rounds, and in the third round I’d have one or two bad swings, and it would kind of derail the tournament,” Gooch said. “Just continue to do the same things and just happen to get a couple more putts to drop, and that’s always helpful.”
Adelaide was Gooch’s first LIV Golf victory.
“There’s no pixie dust I’ve thrown on the clubs the last couple weeks,” Gooch said. “It’s just the game comes and goes in waves, and hopefully we can continue to ride this wave for as long as we can and play a bunch of good golf.”
The players had to cope with a weather delay of more than two hours, and with severe weather in the forecast, starting times for Saturday and Sunday were moved up.
Smith said he was happy with his play, despite the weather interruption.
“I definitely can’t remember the last time I hit 14 fairways,” he said. “Yeah, it was really solid today. … I felt like we kept ourselves going there after the rain delay. Everyone was getting a little bit tired, I think. Yeah, it was a good day all in all.”
Smith said increased play the past few weeks has sharpened his game.
“We’ve played a lot of golf recently, and I think it’s a good thing for the golf game but probably a bad thing for the body and the mind sometimes, as well,” he said. “
Leading the team event after the first round are HyFlyers GC. Tringale posted the team’s best score with his 65, with captain Mickelson (66) and James Piot (70) contributing to the 12 under cumulative score.
Singer GC stand one back with Oosthuizen (66), Charl Schwartzel (69) and Dean Burmester (69).
–Field Level Media
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