LEADERBOARD<\/a><\/p>\nNiemann, the Torque GC Captain, and Gooch, in his first season as the OKGC captain, share the 54-hole lead at 9 under at the challenging Asiad Country Club. One stroke back is HyFlyers GC\u2019s Scott Vincent, with Ripper GC Captain Cameron Smith and Crushers GC\u2019s Charles Howell III tied for fourth at 7 under.<\/p>\n
Crushers Captain Bryson DeChambeau, winner of last year\u2019s LIV Golf Korea when it was held outside Seoul, suffered two late bogeys to drop into a share of sixth with 4Aces GC Captain Dustin Johnson and RangeGoats GC\u2019s Ben Campbell. Johnson produced the lowest round of the day, a 6-under 64.<\/p>\n
On the team leaderboard, the Crushers \u2013 who won in Korea last year \u2013\u00a0are at 16 under, one shot ahead of OKGC, which is playing just its second tournament since rebranding from their previous Smash GC name. Ripper GC is solo third at 12 under.<\/p>\n
Niemann is LIV Golf\u2019s all-time individual wins leader with seven, including five last season. He\u2019s yet to win this season, but that might change if his putter remains as hot as it was on the back nine Saturday when he rolled in three long birdie putts, including a big breaker from 34 feet, to shoot a 4-under 66.<\/p>\n
\u201cPutting did behave a lot better today than the first two days, so pretty happy about that,\u201d said the 27-year-old Niemann, the league\u2019s youngest captain. \u201cIt did love me a lot. I did love it a lot, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gooch has four wins, including two at LIV Golf Andalucia, the next tournament on the 2026 schedule set for next week when he will defend his title from last year.<\/p>\n
Gooch entered Saturday as the solo leader but started his round with 14 consecutive pars before posting his lone birdie at the par-5 15th for a bogey-free 69.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’ve got to stay patient and just wait for your time and hope that it comes, and it unfortunately didn’t come much today,\u201d Gooch said. \u201cBut that’s why we stay patient. Maybe tomorrow it’ll come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vincent continues to thrive since joining HyFlyers GC as a reserve filling in for captain Phil Mickelson. The Zimbabwean shot a 3-under 67 and is now in position to chase his first individual title.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinning out here is not easy,\u201d said Vincent, who has finished top 10 in each of his first two starts with the HyFlyers after playing as a Wild Card player to start the season. \u201cI think just big picture-wise, just putting myself in this position is just great for me, try and get better and develop as a player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUSAN, South Korea \u2013 Joaquin Niemann and Talor Gooch have combined to win 11 LIV Golf individual titles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-703575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}