Carlos Ortiz wins LIV Golf Houston for first win in Saudi-funded league

HUMBLE, Texas: Caleb Surratt has struggled to ignore the noise in his first few months since turning professional to join LIV Golf.

He is now determined to make noise.

Surratt, 20, LIV Golf’s youngest player, started the second half of the 2024 season with a bang, shooting a bogey-free 7-under 65 Friday at LIV Golf Houston to share the first-round lead with Cleeks GC. duo composed of captain Martin Kaymer and Adrian Meronk.

“Obviously I feel like the work is by no means done,” Legion XIII’s Surratt said, “but I’m really happy to be here playing for free for probably the first time this season .”

The Cleeks also made plenty of noise, shooting an aggregate score of 17 under to take a three-shot advantage over Torque GC in the team competition.

It is the first time Cleeks, who remain in the hunt for their first trophy of any kind, have led since last year’s opening round in Adelaide.

Kaymer’s team is definitely moving in the right direction. At the last LIV Golf event in Singapore, Cleeks finished second, their best result ever. Then, two weeks ago, Cleeks veteran Richard Bland won the Senior PGA Championship in his senior debut.

Today, Kaymer returned to form after a long recovery from wrist surgery, and his team led for the first time in over a year, even without Bland contributing a big score.

LIV freshman Kalle Samooja continued to show signs of progress with a 3-under 69 to round out the team score.

“I think what Richard did a few weeks ago really helped our team spirit,” Kaymer said. “We were in a really good place, but a win can make a big difference. …The way Richard plays is inspiring.

The trio of individual leaders are immediately ahead of Kevin Na (Iron Heads GC) and Carlos Ortiz (Torque). Seven players are two shots behind, including individual points leader Joaquin Niemann (Torque) and local favorite Patrick Reed (4Aces GC).

It came on a day when 41 of the 54 players in the field broke par, with nine of them achieving bogey-free rounds, as the winds calmed on a scorching afternoon at the Golf Club from Houston.

“When the wind calms down around here, especially when it’s this hot, we’ll be able to shoot some numbers,” Reed said.

For Surratt, the 65 is his lowest score relative to par in his 22 rounds since leaving the University of Tennessee at age 19 to join Jon Rahm’s expansion team.

He showed flashes in the first half of the season, most notably in Legion’s two team wins. But he was still adjusting to life as a pro and spent too much time worrying about things beyond his control – the chatter on social media, the expectations of strangers, the size of the crowds he had never seen before.

“That’s all I call noise,” said Surratt, who birdied six of his first 10 holes Friday. “…Once I started letting go of the things I can’t control, I was much freer and I’m very grateful for that.”

Team score counting

Standings and score tallies for Friday’s opening round of team competition at LIV Golf Houston:

1. CLEEKS GC-17 (Kaymer 65, Meronk 65, Samooja 69)

2. GC-14 COUPLE (Ortiz 66, Niemann 67, Muñoz 69)

T3. RIPPER GC-12 (Leishman 67, Jones 68, Herbert 69)

T3. LEGION XIII -12 (Surratt 65, Rahm 69, Hatton 70)

T3. 4ACES GC-12 (Johnson 67, Reed 67, Varner III 70)

T3. FIREBALLS GC -12 (Garcia 67, Puig 68, Chacarra 69)

7. GC-11 CRUSHERS (Casey 67, DeChambeau 69, Lahiri 69)

T8. IRON HEADS -10 (Na 66, Lee 70, Kozuma 70)

T8. MAJESTICKS GC-10 (Poulter 67, Westwood 69, Stenson 70)

10. SMASH GC-6 (McDowell 69, Koepka 70, Kokrak 71)

T11. HYFLYERS GC-5 (Steele 70, Tringale 70, Mickelson 71)

T11. STINGER GC-5 (Oosthuizen 69, Schwartzel 70, Burmester 72)

13. RANGEGOATS GC-3 (Wolff 69, Pieters 70, Uihlein 74)