Five-time Major champion Brooks Koepka leads the LIV Golf charge after day one of the 2024 Open Championship courtesy of a one-under-par 70.
Players were faced with strong winds on Thursday at Troon, which made for testing conditions where Daniel Brown shot a six-under-par 65 and Shane Lowry carded a 66.
Koepka dropped two early strokes before four consecutive birdies and managed to get it home under par. The former World No.1, who is the only four-time LIV Golf winner, is yet to crack the top-25 in Majors this year so will be very excited for the days ahead – although he’s hoping to improve his ball striking.
“I didn’t think I hit it very good. I putted pretty well today, which kind of kept me in it. But wasn’t too excited about the ball striking,” Koepka said.
If he were to win the Claret Jug, he would have secured three of the four Majors, with only The Masters remaining.
Joaquin Niemann and Dean Burmester are the only other two LIV players at par or better after carding level-par 71s, while there’s a logjam at two-over including 2016 Troon runner-up Phil Mickelson.
One of the pre-tournament favorites was US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau and the scientist struggled badly early on with an opening 42 and eventually finished five-over. DeChambeau blamed “equipment related” issues for his struggles and he’s set for a battle to make it to the weekend on Friday.
One of the surprises of the day has to be Cameron Smith, the 2022 Open Champion, who fell to a nine-over-par 80. He is facing his first Major missed cut in over two years, since the 2022 US Open.
The top-70-and-ties make the cut at The Open, so big names like DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Smith, 2016 Troon winner Henrik Stenson and Louis Oosthuizen all have plenty of work to do in order to qualify for the final two rounds.
Take a look at how all 17 LIV players got on in round one at Troon:
LIV Golf Leaderboard at The Open:
- T11: -1 Brooks Koepka
- T18: E Joaquin Niemann
- T18: E Dean Burmester
- T42: +2 Abraham Ancer
- T42: +2 Jon Rahm
- T42: +2 Tyrrell Hatton
- T42: +2 Adrian Meronk
- T42: +2 Phil Mickelson
- T69: +3 Dustin Johnson
- T82: +4 Andy Ogletree
- T82: +4 Sam Horsfield
- T96: +5 Bryson DeChambeau
- T96: +5 John Catlin
- T120: +6 Henrik Stenson
- T129: +7 Louis Oosthuizen
- T145: +9 David Puig
- T145: +9 Cameron Smith
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