Gooch Grabs Early Lead at LIV Singapore, Mickelson Two Shots Back

Talor Gooch won LIV's Australia event last week, and leads a pack of challenges that includes Sergio Garcia, Brooks Koepka and Mickelson.

Talor Gooch continued his strong play by grabbing the first-round lead at the LIV Golf Singapore event at Sentosa Golf Club on Friday.

Gooch, who won the LIV Adelaide event on Sunday on the strength of consecutive 62s to start the tournament, shot 7-under par 64, eagling the final hole after a two-and-a-half hour rain delay.

His score was good for a one-shot lead over British Open champion Cam Smith, Masters runner-up Brooks Koepka, Sergio Garcia and Cameron Tringale.

Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Louis Oosthuizen are two strokes back after each shot 66.

“There's no pixie dust I've thrown on the clubs the last couple weeks,” Gooch said to reporters in Singapore following the round. “It's just the game comes and goes in waves, and hopefully we can continue to ride this wave for as long as we can and play a bunch of good golf.”

Mickelson’s Hy Flyers team leads the team competition after coming off its best result, a fourth-place finish in Adelaid. Tringale’s 65 was the team’s best score, with Mickelson’s 66 and James Piot’s 70 also counting. The top three scores go toward the team score each day. The South African team Stinger GC is one stroke back at 11 under.

LIV’s shotgun start was delayed Friday due to severe weather. It didn’t impede Gooch, who came back to birdie the par-4 13th – he started on No. 1 – and finished with an eagle at the par-5 18th. Gooch said prior to the round that he had been given an invite to next month’s PGA Championship.

Due to severe weather forecast for the weekend, the shotgun start for the final two rounds has been moved up two hours, with Saturday’s round starting at 8:15 a.m. local time (8:15 p.m. ET Friday), with Sunday’s final round at 8:05 a.m. local (8:05 p.m. ET Saturday).