Horsfield leads, Reed hits hole-in-one at LIV Golf Adelaide

ADELAIDE: Patrick Reed started the celebrations early in Friday’s opening round at LIV Golf Adelaide, while Majesticks GC’s Sam Horsfield and a couple of Torque GC teammates followed with the lowest scores on what proved to be a challenging day at The Grange.

Horsfield moved atop the individual leaderboard with a 6-under 66, while Torque took the team lead at 8 under thanks to a pair of 67s by captain Joaquin Niemann and Carlos Ortiz.

Defending champions Ripper GC received massive support from the Australian fans but struggled to generate many fireworks. They will play catch-up this weekend, starting Saturday’s second round 11 shots behind.

But it was Reed who produced the biggest shot of the day, with a hole-in-one at the Watering Hole less than 20 minutes after the shotgun start. His 8-iron at the 151-yard par 3 set off scenes reminiscent of two years ago, when Chase Koepka delivered LIV Golf’s first ace at the famous party hole. Reed’s ace is the ninth in league history.

“It’s awesome to give the fans what they want,” said Reed on his fifth competitive ace — and sixth overall — of his career. “That’s why we want to be out here: Golf, but louder.”

The hole-in-one was one of the few highlights of his 1-over 73, however, with the rest of the day belonging to several other competitors.

Among them were multiple major winners Dustin Johnson (68), Bryson DeChambeau (68) and Brooks Koepka (69), each inside the top 10 on the leaderboard.

But it was Horsfield who emerged with the solo lead, thanks to shooting the only bogey-free round of the day. In fact, he has made just one bogey in his last 60 holes going back to last week’s LIV Golf Riyadh, when he tied for 12th. He’ll enter this weekend in search of his first LIV