Valderrama has delivered its verdict in this 2024 edition of the LIV Andalucía as the tough golf test it has always been: the winning result with which Sergio García and Anirban Lahiri have gone out to play the tiebreaker, an accumulated -5, has been the most demanding in the history of LIV Golf. It is true that in the first tournament in the history of LIV, in London 2022, only eight players finished below par (this week there have been nine in Valderrama), but the winner of that event, Charl Schwartzel, went to a record of -7 and the second classified, Du Plessis, closed the three rounds with -6.
Needless to say, in this year 2024 none of the previous nine venues that have hosted LIV tournaments have come close to the demanding numbers of this week. In the toughest of all of them, Miami, it was necessary to reach an accumulated -6 to get into the final top ten of the tournament, while Dean Burmester won with an accumulated -11. This week Jon Rahm has finished within the top ten, in tenth position, with an accumulated PAR…
It was enough that on Thursday the westerly wind blew strongly in Valderrama for the bar of demand to rise decidedly, although in the next two days, with the wind much calmer, things have not been easy for the competitors either. In fact, as the general manager of Valderrama, Javier Reviriego, explained in the days leading up to the tournament: “we are not going to do strange things or rush the preparation of the course looking for greater difficulty”. As you can see, it is not necessary for this course to become a tough test again, capable of catching anyone off guard if they do not arrive that week with the game perfectly tuned and fall into the claws of frustration: last year Talor Gooch won in Valderrama with a spectacular accumulated -12 and this year he finished with a total of +12 and a difference, therefore, of 24 strokes.
