Jon Rahm is accustomed to being in contention after most of his LIV Golf rounds this season. But for the first time since joining the league, he has the outright lead.
Thanks to a bogey-free 8-under 63, Rahm has a two-stroke lead over Abraham Ancer and Andy Ogletree after the first round at LIV Golf UK by JCB.
Graeme McDowell is also off to an excellent start after his four-under opening round. The Portrush man made an early bogey, but responded with six birdies and just one more bogey to sit tied for sixth alongside his Smash GC team captain Brooks Koepka.
Meanwhile, Rahm’s Legion XIII is atop the team leaderboard by one stroke over Smash GC, HyFlyers GC and Fireballs GC.
Friday’s round was the 29th that Rahm has completed in LIV Golf. He’s been inside the top 5 after 13 of those rounds, including a tie for the lead after the first round in Jeddah. Six other times, he’s been inside the top 10. In each of his nine completed tournaments – he had to withdraw in Houston due to a foot infection – he has produced a top-10 result, and he’s currently second behind Torque GC Captain Joaquin Niemann in the season-long points standings.
It’s an impressive show of consistency that Rahm hopes will peak with his first individual LIV Golf title this week at JCB Golf & Country Club.
“Nothing much to say obviously but good things,” said Rahm, who entered the week off a tie for seventh at The Open Championship, his best major result of the year. “Played really good golf all day. With days like this, it almost feels effortless.”
Rahm played in the same group with his teammate and former Ryder Cup partner Tyrrell Hatton, along with another Legion XIII player, Caleb Surratt, as the LIV Golf captains were grouped with their top two teammates for the first round.
Not only did Rahm go low – the 8-under score matches his lowest LIV Golf round relative to par – but Hatton shot 66, bouncing back from an opening double bogey. The duo fueled Legion XIII’s 12-under total that also included a counting score of 72 from Kieran Vincent. Legion XIII has won three team titles during its inaugural season and is second in the points standings behind Crushers GC.
“It was the first time I played with any teammates in LIV Golf,” said Rahm, who had six birdies in his final nine holes to pull away from the pack. “I wasn’t sure how that was going to go. I was a little curious.”
Said Hatton: “We’ve shared some pretty cool stages over the last few years, and we generally play well when we play together. So, it was nice for both of us to have a good round of golf and have some momentum going into the weekend.”
Ancer, the winner via playoff earlier this year in Hong Kong, finished with a flourish. The Fireballs star birdied four of his last five holes during a brilliant putting round in which he led the field.
Ogletree’s best finish during his first full LIV Golf season is a tie for third in Adelaide. He’s battled a wrist injury that may require offseason surgery and forced him to make some swing adjustments to alleviate the pain.
“I’ve had a lot of days where I’ve played 13 and 14 really good holes and then kind of held myself back by a bad stretch,” said the HyFlyers member. “Today, I was in it all day and played some solid golf.”
Hatton and Ripper GC Captain Cameron Smith are tied for fourth, while a group of seven players – including Smash GC Captain Brooks Koepka and local resident Sam Horsfield of Majesticks GC – are four strokes off the lead in a tie for sixth.
On a course that was unfamiliar to most players and expected to give up low scores grudgingly, 35 of the 54 players in the field broke par, with a stroke average of more than one shot under par.
It was not a surprise for Rahm. “You can’t really say surprising when the best players in the world show up at a course,” he said.
Rahm shot 63 despite failing to make a birdie on any of the three par 5s. It continues a recent trend in which he tied for seventh at last week’s Open Championship despite being unable to birdie any of the par 5s at Royal Troon.
“It’s funny,” Rahm said. “I don’t mean to be laughing. Recently, I feel like I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m not making bad swings. I don’t feel like I’m making terrible decisions, but it’s just I’ve got a little streak of bad luck on the par 5s. Didn’t birdie of them at The Open. Didn’t birdie any of them today. I don’t feel like I did anything terribly wrong.”