Liv Golf, Danny Lee wins after playoff in four

The LIV Golf Tucson, second tournament of the Arab Superleague 2023 goes to Danny Lee (68 67 69) who in Arizona, with a birdie on the third playoff hole, made the individual competition his own by beating the Mexican Carlos Ortiz (71 68 65), American Brendan Steele (69 65 70) and South African Louis Oosthuizen (66 68 70). In Marana, on the Gallery Golf Club course (par 71), the team competition went to the “Fireballs GC” team led by Sergio Garcia, with Abraham Ancer, Ortiz and Eugenio López-Chacarra, who prevailed with a total of “-25” shots.

Danny Lee, statements

In the USA, Lee, Ortiz, Steele and Oosthuizen finished the regulation 54 holes with a total of 204 (-9).

It took three play-off holes to decide the winner with Lee first wasting a match point and then taking the entire stake. The exploit netted the South Korean $4 million, who hadn’t won a professional tournament since July 2015 when he triumphed on the PGA Tour in the Greenbrier Classic.

“I haven’t felt such joy for eight years. I thought victory wasn’t for me, but now everything has changed. It’s nice to see that I’m still able to play golf well”, satisfied Lee, 32, from Incheon.

Dustin Johnson’s comeback was late. The former world number 1, who dominated the first season of LIV Golf in 2022, finished 13th with 208 (-5). While after finishing in the lead the first two rounds the Australian Marc Leishman collapsed in the last 18 holes, who recorded the same score as Johnson.

For the “Fireballs GC” this is the second affirmation in the Arab Superleague after that of 2022 in the LIV Golf Invitational Bangkok. The feat allowed Garcia’s team to split a $3 million prize pool (750,000 per player).

LIV Golf, also known as the Super Golf League, is a professional golf circuit. It was founded in 2022, with the sponsorship of the Public Investment Fund (it is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia) 1. The circuit rivals the PGA Tour (United States) and the DP World Tour (Europe), offering substantially higher prize money.

The name LIV refers to the total number of holes to be played in each event (54 in Roman numerals, corresponding to 3 rounds of 18 holes), as opposed to the usual 72 holes (4 rounds of 18 holes) on other tours. Alternatively, 54 is the score obtained by scoring a birdie on every hole on a par 72.2 round.