Round 1 of U.S. Open showdown goes to the PGA Tour
By Bill Felber
In Round 1 of the U.S. Open grudge match between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the PGA Tour guys basically mopped up The Country Club with the insurgents.
Eighteen holes into the national championship at The Country Club, players committed to the PGA Tour held 16 of the top 20 places compared with just two LIV Tour performers. (The other two are Korn Ferry Tour pro M.J. Daffue and Jason Kokrak, a PGA Tour player who rumors place in the grey zone between the PGA Tour and LIV.)
Adam Hadwin, a veteran pro whose name has not been connected to the LIV Tour, held the first-round lead at 4-under.
One behind at 3-under were Callum Tarren, David Lingmerth, Joel Dahmen, Daffue, and Rory Mcilroy…all save for Daffue solid PGA Tour guys
The scoring numbers are equally one-sided. The average first-round score of the 85 PGA Tour members said to be firmly committed to that Tour was 71.49 strokes.
That was more than a stroke below the 72.82 field average. It was also more than two strokes better than the 73.53 average of the 15 participants who have declared their loyalty to the LIV Tour.
The first-day results suggest that the characterization of the LIV Tour as a very well-paid Old Folks Home has merit.
Only two LIV players beat par Thursday. Dustin Johnson turned in a 68 that left him in a seven-way tie for seventh place. U.S. Amateur champion James Piot, who joined Johnson in last week’s London event, shot 69, tying 11 others at 1-under for 14th place.
The median score of a PGA Tour commit was 72. The median for a LIV Tour commit was 74.
The cutline won’t be set until following play on Friday. But of the 78 players who are among the current top 60 (2-over or better), 53 – that’s two-thirds– are PGA Tour commits.
Only six – that’s eight percent – are committed to the LIV Tour. LIV Tour players in jeopardy of missing the cut include most of the LIV Tour’s biggest names: Sergio Garcia (74), Talor Gooch (74), Kevin Na (75), Louis Oosthuizen (77), and Phil Mickelson (78).
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Of the 24 members of the World Golf Ranking top 25 who made Thursday’s start – Abraham Ancer withdrew citing illness – 20 positioned themselves to make the cut.
Nineteen of those 20 – Dustin Johnson being the sole exception – are viewed as solid PGA Tour commits.
Three more rounds remain to be played at Brookline before solid conclusions can be drawn regarding the relative performances of the members of the two competing Tours.
The early data, however, gives the establishment PGA Tour guys a huge edge and makes the LIV Tour guys look bad by comparison.