Garcia, Gooch, Uihlein share lead at LIV Miami
Sergio Garcia of Spain shot a bogeyfree, 5-under 67 to grab a share of the lead at LIV Golf Miami after the first round Friday at Trump National Doral.
Garcia, Talor Gooch and Peter Uihlein head into the weekend with a one-shot lead on four players at 4-under 68 – Bubba Watson, Matthew Wolff, South Africa’s Dean Burmester and Zimbabwe’s Scott Vincent.
Garcia, 44, was one of the first players to leave the PGA Tour for LIV Golf in 2022, but he has yet to win on his new circuit. He lost a playoff at the season opener at Mayakoba to Chile’s Joaquin Niemann.
“I’ve just got to keep giving myself chances. It’s as simple as that,” said Garcia, who birdied three of his final five holes. “I think that some weeks you feel better than others, and I’ve been close a couple of times. Obviously a couple of times very close, and then another three or four times I’ve been fairly close, around the lead.”
With Garcia one of 13 LIV players headed to Augusta National next week for the Masters, it isn’t a bad time to find form.
“Obviously if you play nicely, it gives you a little bit of confidence for sure, but every week is different, and you never know how Augusta is going to play, the conditions you’re going to get,” Garcia said. “Augusta is very, very tricky, and it can be a little bit tough to swallow sometimes. Just got to keep your feet on the ground, and even if you win this week, you’ve got to go out there with your feet on the ground and just try to do the best possible.”
Gooch does not have an exemption into the Masters, but the outspoken golfer said he’s done trying to “influence people” with his words.
“I’m going to keep doing what I did last year. Even though it didn’t work, I’m going to keep trying to shoot good scores,” Gooch said. “The rule of 67 worked today.”
Uihlein’s team, RangeGoats GC, earned a healthy lead in the team competition as Uihlein’s 67 combined with the 68s from Wolff and captain Watson. At 13 under, they’re five shots ahead of Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII.
Rahm, the defending Masters champion, opened his week with a 3-under 69, part of a large tie for eighth that includes fellow major champs Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed.
LPGA Tour
Ireland’s Leona Maguire cruised into the weekend while the rest of the field scrambled to advance out of stroke play in the third round of the T-Mobile Match Play at Las Vegas.
Maguire responded to a bogey on the second hole with four birdies and no bogeys the rest of the round for a 3-underpar 69. That left her at 6-under 210 for the tournament to clear the field by three strokes in windy and cold conditions at Shadow Creek Golf Course.
“Today was a big mental win for me,” Maguire said. “I think going out we knew the conditions were going to be tough. It was going to be windy, it was going to be swirling, the greens were going to get firm in the afternoon.”
The field was cut to the top 65 players and ties after 36 holes on Wednesday and Thursday, then trimmed to the top eight after stroke play on Friday. Saturday morning will begin the single-elimination match-play bracket, with the semifinals taking place Saturday afternoon and the championship match contested on Sunday.
Angel Yin (1-over 73 on Friday), Rose Zhang (73) and Japan’s Minami Katsu (72) tied for second at 3 under. Yin and Zhang were co-leaders after Thursday with first-round leader Sei Young Kim of South Korea, who wound up alone in fifth at 2 under after a 74.
Another co-leader going into Friday, Spain’s Carlota Ciganda, blew up with a 13-over 85 and and fell to a tie for 32nd.