The first day of action of the LIV Golf League Team Championship served up a feast of match-play in Dallas, as 10 teams went head-to-head across five matches to fill the semi-final places with the top three on Saturday. The top three teams could enjoy the air-conditioning, having received byes into Saturday due to their league positions. Each team pairing consisted of three matches, two singles and one foursome match in a best of three format. The winners of each team pairing will go back into the draft for the same again on semi-final Saturday
The first match out saw Smash GC face the Iron Heads. Smash captain Koepka was ruthless in dispatching fellow captain Kevin Na in the top singles match beginning from the first. Koepka’s convincing 6&5 victory set the tone for his team-mates to follow as he led by example. Talor Gooch couldn’t follow his skipper’s lead however, falling to a defeat by one to Danny Lee in the second singles match.
It would be down Graeme McDowell and Jason Kokrak up against Kozuma and Vincent for the Iron Heads. The Smash pair were two-up through 13 holes and seemingly cruising before a dogged Iron Heads fightback forced a playoff hole. The comeback was completed on the first extra hole as the Iron Heads march on with Smash GC, the highest seeded team in the preliminary round, bowing out at the first hurdle.
Match two saw the fifth seeded team, Torque GC knocked out by Phil Mickelson’s Hyflyers, seeded 12th, in the second shock of the day. Torque captain Niemann did his job in the first singles match of the group, defeating Ogletree 4&3 only for Muñoz to come up short with a 3&2 loss to Cameron Tringale. Mickelson’s foursome saw him and Brendan Steele grind out a 2&1 victory over Pereira and Ortiz to seal the win 2-1 and advance to the next round.
The third face-off pitted Fireballs GC against Majestics GC and two victories for Puig, 3&2 over match-play veteran Ian Poulter, and 2&1 for Ancer and Garcia over Westwood and Horsefield were enough to see Fireballs into the semi-finals and rendered Chacarra’s tie with Stenson moot, even as it headed to extra holes to separate the pair. Chacarra would take the glory on the first extra hole to top off a 3-0 whitewash for the Latin four of Fireballs GC.
Stinger GC prevailed in the fourth of the head-to-heads as Louis Oosthuizen’s men completed a clean sweep over Martin Kaymer’s Cleeks GC. Burmester was efficient in a 4&3 dispatching of Samooja, while the skipper was joined by compatriot Schwartzel in a 4&2 scalping of Kaymer and Bland. Branded Grace required a 19th hole to shake off Adrian Meronk who staged a late rally only to ultimately come up short in the first playoff hole.
The final match-up of the day saw the Four Aces square off against the Range Goats to fill the final spot in the semis. Peter Uihlein nabbed a big 3&1 victory against opposing captain Dustin Johnson but DJ’s team-mates came to his rescue. Partick Reed had an impressive 5&4 win over Thomas Peters while Warner III and Perez had a tighter 2&1 defeat of Watson and Wolff to seal a 2-1 victory and secure Saturday golf for the Four Aces.
The five victorious teams now move forward to join Crushers, Legion XIII and the Rippers for a four-match repeat of today’s format while the losing five teams will have to wait until Sunday to compete in the stroke play finals to sort out positions nine to 13 on the final order.
The draft for the semis means the Crushers will take on the Iron Heads on the first match while Legion XIII will face the Hyflyers in match-up two. Next up is Cam Smith’s Ripper GC vs Sergio’s Fireballs and the final battle will be between Stinger and the Four Aces GC. Saturday’s action will again kick off at 17.15pm Irish time with another rollercoaster of action expected.
DeChambeau had a day’s rest today and after the draft explained what it was like with a watching brief. “Yeah, anytime you get a day off when others are playing, it’s huge,” he said. “That factored into a bit of our decision to play the Iron Heads. It’s a tough day, but I’m sure everybody is going to recover, and it’s going to be another hot one tomorrow. Lucky enough, that’s why we play well throughout the year is to get that bye, so we have a little bit of an advantage there. Yeah, it’s nice to stay in the air-conditioning.”