Talor Gooch Reignites Form, Shares Lead with Garcia and Uihlein at LIV Golf Miami Opener.

April 5th, 2024

by Liv Golf Staff

A year ago last April, Talor Gooch started his hot streak that led to the season-long LIV Golf Individual Championship. It looks like he may be heating up again, as the Smash GC star shot a 5-under 67 at LIV Golf Miami to share the first-round lead with Sergio Garcia and Peter Uihlein.

Meanwhile, Gooch’s former team, RangeGoats GC, opened up a five-stroke lead over Legion XIII thanks to Uihlein’s 67 and a couple of 66s from captain Bubba Watson and Matthew Wolff.

Gooch entered this week ranked sixth in points through the first four events, but he had yet to match the kind of performance he produced on a consistent basis in 2023 when he won three times, including his first LIV Golf victory in Adelaide last April. He said Friday’s round on the Blue Monster at Trump National Doral was the first time his ball-striking was up to his standards.

“This felt a little reminiscent of some of those deep rounds I had last year around this time of year,” said Gooch, who was traded from the RangeGoats to Brooks Koepka’s Smash team during the offseason. “Hopefully we can catch some of that fire we had this time last year and get it going.”

Garcia, the Fireballs GC captain, crafted the only bogey-free round of the day, thanks in large part to hitting 16 of 18 greens in regulation, the best performance by any player in the field Friday. He also had a terrific up-and-down on the par-3 13th to keep his scorecard clean.

“I wasn’t hitting it super-close most of the time, but I was hitting a lot of greens,” said Garcia, who has been part of two of the seven playoffs in LIV Golf history but is still seeking his first LIV individual win. “My lag putting was good. I didn’t put myself under a lot of stress. That obviously helped.”

Uihlein has been one of LIV Golf’s most consistent performers but is also seeking his first individual win. He’s won team trophies with two different teams, and after being traded to the RangeGoats in the offseason, he could join Gooch as the only LIV players to win titles with three different teams. Gooch won team trophies with 4Aces GC in 2022 and the RangeGoats last year, and his Smash team won earlier this season in Las Vegas.

One of LIV Golf’s longest hitters, Uihlein has also emerged as one of its leading putters. He led the field Friday in that category, needing just 23 putts.  “Played really well, putted nice and just kind of felt like I was plotting my way around there, which was good,” Uihlein said.

His teammates Wolff and Watson are the closest pursuers, along with Stinger GC’s Dean Burmester and Iron Heads GC’s Scott Vincent. Six more players are tied for eighth, including Koepka and Legion XIII captain Jon Rahm.

Saturday’s second round is set for a shotgun start at 1:15 p.m. ET.

TEAM COUNTING SCORES
Standings and counting scores for Friday’s opening round of the team competition at LIV Golf Miami. The three best scores from each team count in the first two rounds while all four scores count in the final round. The team with the lowest cumulative score after three rounds wins the team title.

1. RANGEGOATS GC -13 (Uihlein 67, Wolff 68, Watson 68)

2. LEGION XIII -8 (Rahm 69, Surratt 69, Hatton 70)

3. 4ACES GC -7 (Reed 69, Johnson 70, Varner III 70)

4. SMASH GC -6 (Gooch 67, Koepka 69, McDowell 74)

5. STINGER GC -5 (Burmester 68, Oosthuizen 70, Schwartzel 73)

6. FIREBALLS GC -3 (Garcia 67, Ancer 73, Chacarra 73)

T7. IRONHEADS GC -2 (Vincent 68, Na 70, Lee 76)

T7. CLEEKS GC -2 (Bland 71, Samooja 71, Kaymer 72)

T7. TORQUE GC -2 (Pereira 69, Niemann 71, Muñoz 74)

T7. CRUSHERS GC -2 (DeChambeau 71, Casey 71, Lahiri 72)

11. RIPPER GC +1 (Leishman 70, Herbert 73, Jones 74)

12. HYFLYERS GC +2 (Steele 69, Tringale 73, Mickelson 76)

13. MAJESTICKS GC +4 (Poulter 72, Stenson 73, Westwood 75)

ROUND 1 NOTES

GOATS IN CHARGE: Bubba Watson’s RangeGoats GC and Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII are the top two teams in driving distance average this season. Now they’re 1-2 on the team leaderboard after the first round on the demanding 7,701-yard Blue Monster course at Trump National Doral.

“No surprise,” said the RangeGoats’ Matthew Wolff.

The RangeGoats lead by five strokes, and perhaps that’s no surprise too, given that Watson has a terrific track record at Doral. Although he’s never won here, he has three runner-up finishes and a third place in previous pro tournaments held on the Blue Monster.

“You’ve just got to put it in play when you have an angle to the green, and I’m able to do that,” said Watson, the two-time Masters champion who will be among 13 LIV golfers competing next week at Augusta National. “I was able to do that the last few times I’ve played around here.”

Meanwhile, good friends Uihlein and Wolff ­– who were acquired by Watson in the offseason – have already shown that they can feed off each other, as they tied for second individually earlier this season in Las Vegas. Although they weren’t grouped on Friday, they did start just one hole apart.

“Every time I caught up to him, he was close to the hole, so I assumed he was hitting it pretty close,” Uihlein said.

Added Wolff: “I wouldn’t say we’re feeding off each other, but I would say when the rest of your team is playing well, it kind of motivates you to want to play a little bit better or have that little extra push.”

ANOTHER CHANCE FOR SERGIO: Fireballs GC Captain Sergio Garcia has participated in two of LIV Golf’s seven playoffs. He lost to Talor Gooch last year in Singapore, and in the 2024 season opener at Mayakoba, he and Torque GC Captain Joaquin Niemann produced an epic playoff in the dark that ended with Niemann winning on the fourth playoff hole.

Now he’s in position for another shot at an individual title after his opening 67 gave him a share of the lead.

Captain Sergio Garcia of Fireballs GC hits his shot from the 14th tee during the first round of LIV Golf Miami at the Trump National Doral on Friday, April 05, 2024 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Charles Laberge/LIV Golf)

“Just got to keep giving myself chances,” Garcia said. “I feel like my game is still not exactly where I want it to be. There’s still quite a bit of room for improvement.”

Garcia put a new putter in his bag this week – actually, it’s his old Scotty Cameron putter from when he burst onto the scene in 1999.

“Obviously, I have a lot of good memories from that with that putter,” Garcia said. “I wanted to bring it back, and it worked quite nicely today.”

GOOCH STEALS ONE: Co-leader Talor Gooch holed out for birdie at the 241-yard par-3 13th from an awkward stance in which his right foot was in the bunker and his left on the upslope with his ball resting in the rough.

“That was sick,” Gooch said. “You don’t practice that. You’re kind of standing there, kind of hoping to make par – and then when it happens to go in, it’s like OK, this could be a good day.”

ROUND 1 STATS LEADERS
Driving accuracy: Kieran Vincent, 85.71% (12 of 14 fairways hit)
Driving distance: Dustin Johnson, 318.9 yards avg.
Longest drive: Dean Burmester, 345.9 yards, 8th hole
Greens in regulation: Sergio Garcia, Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed, Jon Rahm, 88.89% (16 of 18 greens)
Scrambling: Sergio Garcia (2 of 2), Bubba Watson (2 of 2), 100%
Putting: Peter Uihlein, 1.28 putts per hole
Bogey-free rounds: Sergio Garcia (67)