Rochester: Jon Rahm is used to being in contention after most of his LIV golf rounds this season. But for the first time after joining the league, he has taken the lead.
Thanks to a bogey-free 8-under 63, Rahm has a two-stroke lead over Abraham Ensor and Andy Ogletree after the first round at LIV Golf UK by JCB. Meanwhile, he tops the team leaderboard by one stroke in Legion XIII Smash GC, HyFlyers GC and Fireballs GC.
Friday's round was Rahm's 29th at LIV Golf. He is inside the top 5 after 13 of those rounds, including a tie for the lead after the first round in Jeddah.
Six other times, Rahm finished in the top 10. In each of his nine completed tournaments — he had to withdraw in Houston due to a foot infection — he has posted top 10 results, and he is currently second behind Tork GC Captain. Joaquin Niemann in the season-long points standings.
It's an impressive display of consistency that Rahm will hope to win his first individual LIV Golf title this week at JCB Golf and Country Club.
“Obviously there's not much to say but good things,” said Rahm, who entered the week tied for seventh at the Open Championship, his biggest result of the year. “Played really good golf all day. With days like this, it almost feels effortless.”
Rahm played in the same group as his teammate and former Ryder Cup partner, Tyrell 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 fall short — an 8-under score matched his lowest LIV golf round for par — but Hatton shot a 66, bouncing back from an opening double bogey. The pair fueled Legion XIII's 12-under total that also included Kieran Vincent's calculated score of 72. Legion XIII has won three team titles in its inaugural season and is second in the points standings behind Crusher GC.
“This is the first time I've played with any teammates at LIV Golf,” said Rahm, who pulled away from the pack with six birdies over his final nine holes. “I didn't know how it was going to go. I was a little curious.”
Hatton said: “We've shared some pretty good stages over the last few years, and we usually play well when we play together. So, it was good for both of us to have a good round of golf and some speed over the weekend.”
The winning answer ended with a flourish through the playoffs earlier this year in Hong Kong. The Fireball star birdied four of his last five holes in a brilliant putting round that saw him lead the field.
Ogletree's best finish of the first full LIV golf season is a tie for third in Adelaide. He battled a wrist injury that may have required offseason surgery and forced him to make some swing adjustments to ease 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 in a bad stretch,” the HyFlyers member said. “Today, I was at 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 Majestic GC local Sam Horsfield are four strokes ahead in a tie for sixth.
On a course that was unfamiliar to most players and expected to leave low scores, 35 of the 54 players in the field finished with a stroke average of more than one shot over par.
This was no surprise to Rahm. “You can't really call it a surprise when the best players in the world show up on the course,” he said.
Standings and Counting Scores for Friday's Opening Round:
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. LEGION XIII -12 (Rahm 63, Hatton 66, Vincent 72)
T2. Fireball GC -11 (Ancer 65, Garcia 68, Puig 69)
T2. SMASH GC -11 (Koepka 67, McDowell 67, Gooch 68)
T2. HYFLYERS GC -11 (Ogletree 65, Tringale 67, Mickelson 70)
T5. RIPPER GC-9 (Smith 66, Herbert 69, Jones 69)
T5. RANGEGOATS GC -9 (Wolf 67, Uihlein 68, Watson 69)
7. STINGER GC -8 (Oosthuizen 67, Burmester 68, Schwartzel 70)
8. TORQUE GC -6 (Munoz 68, Nieman 69, Pereira 70)
T9. Crushers GC-5 (KC 67, Lahiri 69, Caitlin 72)
T9. CLEEKS GC-5 (Meronk 68, Bland 69, Samooja 71)
11. MAJESTICKS GC-4 (Horsfield 67, Stenson 70, Westwood 72)
12. 4ACES GC -1 (Varner 69, Johnson 71, Reed 72)
13. IRON HEADS GC Even (Na 70, Vincent 70, Kozuma 73)
