LIV Golf goes on the attack at the International Series of Oman. Massive presence of players from the Saudi league and outstanding performance. Seven of the top fourteen belong to Yassir Al Rumayyan‘s circuit, as well as ten of the top 15. Dominance.
Among all of them, the Chilean Mito Pereira (-11) leads, after signing a very good card of 66 strokes today, finishing with four consecutive birdies between holes 15 and 18. One stroke behind Pereira is Matthew Wolff (-10), author of the round of the day. The American is regaining his best sensations after being scalded from Brooks Koepka‘s team and taking refuge under the wing of Bubba Watson. Wolff has made 63 strokes today, with nine birdies and no mistakes.
In third place are the Australian Kevin Yuan (-9) and the American Peter Uihlein (-9). Yuan is the only non-LIV among the top four. In addition, in the top 15 are Carlos Ortiz (-8), Louis Oosthuizen (-7), Dean Burmester (-6), Hudson Swafford (-6), Kieran Vincent (-5), Joaco Niemann (-5) and Lucas Herbert (-5).
As for the Spaniards, David Puig (-4) and Carlos Pigem (-3) are the face and Eugenio López Chacarra (+1), the cross. The first two have made the cut, although their sensations are quite different. Things didn’t go well for Puig today. He made 75 strokes and lost many positions in the ranking. The final stretch of his round, started by the 10, was especially cruel. A triple bogey on hole 6, par 3, stopped him in his tracks and another bogey on 8, another par 3, left him with a very bitter taste at the end of the day. Until that moment he was under par.
Analysing any other player, we could say that his chances of victory have vanished, seven from the lead and four from the top 5, but if we have learned anything with Puig it is never to say never. Last week was similar. He started the tournament very well, stumbled on the second day and finished with two rounds of 62 strokes to take the victory. We would do wrong to already discard the young player from La Garriga.
The big news of the day has been Carlos Pigem. Not only for the cut surpassed, which is always positive, but also for the very good card of 68 strokes he has handed in, clean of dust and straw, with four birdies and no bogey in the wallet. For those players who play the full season of the Asian Tour, as is the case with the Ilerdense, it will be very important to take advantage of the weeks of the International Series.
As we said, Chacarra has been left out of the cut. The Madrid player admits that he is going through a bad time. Today he made 69 strokes, a good card, but it was not enough to be there at the weekend. Speaking of LIV Golf, Kozuma, Schwartzel, Lahiri, Matt Jones and Danny Lee have also been left out.
