[Picture: Getty]
Australia’s own Cameron Smith had his sizeable lead blown away by brutal southern Spanish winds that created a bizarre scenario and forced a suspension of play on day one at LIV Golf Andalucia.
Play was completed Saturday morning with Smith sharing the lead with Talor Gooch and Joaquin Niemann at two-under.
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The scoring average for the round was +3.05 while 16 of the 18 holes played over par. Smith was flying at four-under-par midway through his opening round before wind gusts of up to 60km/h wreaked havoc on the 54 players at Spain’s famed Valderrama.
With golf balls oscillating on greens across the course, Smith made a double bogey at the par-3 15th before a bogey on the 16th relegated him to one-under and tied for the lead with two holes remaining when play was suspended. It was a bitter pill to swallow after making four birdies and no bogeys in his first 12 holes.
A strange scene occurred on one putting green when multiple major winner Brooks Koepka and his Smash GC teammates refused to putt until maintenance officials watered the green – so strong were the gusts that some putting surfaces were unplayable.
Officials suspended play in the later stages of the back nine.
“It takes a lot of energy out of you. Just an extra — I think the extra thinking. This is quite a tough course to walk as well, the ups and downs, so you kind of get the physical effort and the mental effort,” Smith said after play, which he will finish by finishing the 17th and 181th on Saturday morning. “It was definitely getting to a stage with three or four holes to go that everyone was pretty tired out there and angry to be honest. It was a very frustrating day. All of that stuff combined is just really tough, and the golf course. You can play this golf course with no wind and it’s brutal. When you get 30 mile-an-hour gusts, it’s definitely not an easy place to get around.”
Niemann, who had won four times this season before Valderrama, was bogey free on his round with two holes to play. Fireballs GC Captain Sergio Garcia, who had won four times across various tours in his career at Valderrama, made two birdies and four bogeys and he sat two-over for his round – three shots off the lead.
