Kiwi golfer Danny Lee has started hot in the latest LIV Golf tournament in Adelaide, opening the competition with an eight-under 64 at The Grange to sit in second.
Packed galleries of more than 35,000 people turned up to day one as LIV Golf returned to Australia for the second year, with hometown favourite Cam Smith playing with Spanish Masters winners Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia attracting the biggest galleries of the passionate fans.
But it was the Iron Heads GC duo of Jinichiro Kuzuma (nine-under 63) and Lee, decked out in green and white chequered shirts, who stole the show to put their team in front for most of the day before Torque GC edged them to top the leaderboard late in the day.
Carlos Ortiz of Torque GC shares second with Lee, with teammate Mito Pereira in fourth at seven-under. Torque GC sit at 20-under with underdogs Iron Heads GC a shot back at 19-under.
Lee won a tournament in his maiden season last year, LIV Golf Tucson which came with a $4 million first-place cheque, but has struggled to record a top 24 finish in the opening five starts of 2024.
That puts him in a perilous position more than a third into the season with the players sitting in the bottom half of the season-ending standings facing a possible cut from the league next year.
Lee underwent wrist surgery at the end of last season and struggled to find form early in the season, especially on the opening day with only one under-par round, which came in the second tournament in Las Vegas
Playing together, it appeared the Iron Heads teammates spurred each other on with Kuzuma starting hot before Lee caught him up.
Lee started with a bogey on the 15th hole and was then blemish-free after following that with back-to-back birdies. He went five-under on the front nine followed by a chip-in at 10 for eagle which moved him to eight under.
That was followed by three birdies chances at 11, 12 and 13 to join the lead but he couldn’t get any of them to drop.
“Obviously, any kind of golf tournament if you start with an eight-under it’s very good, even with the bogey start I tried not to freak out. Me and my team have been working really hard on my game. There was a big change with my irons and my putter, going back to a short one. Been working really hard on my putting and really glad to see the hard work is paying off. Hopefully, I can keep this up,” Lee said after his first round.“I had a lot of fans come over from New Zealand and even Australians cheering for us pretty hard out there. We really enjoyed that. It’s big fun out here.”
Major winners Rahm (-5), Smith (-4), Bryson DeChambeau (-4), Phil Mickelson (-3), Brooks Koepka (-2) and Dustin Johnson (even) are all in the hunt but have ground to make up going into the weekend.
The total prize for the event is US$20m ($33.67m) for the individual positions, US$4m for the outright winner and US$3m ($5.05m) for the top team.
