Despite a double bogey on his closing hole, Patrick Reed shot a 5-under-par 67 for the first-round lead at LIV Golf Miami on Friday at Trump National Doral.
Reed began his round on the 10th hole and put seven birdies on his card, reaching 7 under with a tap-in at the par-5 eighth. But at the par-3 ninth, he missed the green wide left and compounded the mistake by putting his second shot into a bunker.
He still held a two-shot lead over Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson (3-under 69).
“I mean, the first 17 were great,” Reed said. “No, as a whole I played solid. I hit the ball pretty well off the tee, hit some quality iron shots and made some putts, and I think that’s what you have to do around this place.
“… It was just an unfortunate finish, but at the end of the day, it’s still a solid round of golf.”
In LIV Golf’s first U.S. event of 2025, it was fitting that the top four players are all past major champions, three of them with at least one green jacket to their name with the Masters a week away.
Reed won the Masters in 2018. Mickelson has captured three green jackets, and Dustin Johnson won the 2020 edition that was delayed to November.
Johnson had a three-birdie run at Nos. 14-16 late in his round to get to 3 under, while DeChambeau was steady with four birdies and just one bogey.
“Obviously it’s a really fine line to being that good or just a little bit off, but yeah, I’ve got a lot of confidence in my game right now,” Johnson said.
DeChambeau’s team, Crushers GC, also holds a narrow two-shot lead in the team competition through one round. The four-man team of DeChambeau, Charles Howell III, Englishman Paul Casey and India’s Anirban Lahiri combined to go 2 under par, with Johnson’s 4Aces GC sitting second at even par.
Source: espn.com