Staff WriterBy all accounts, LIV Golf Andalucía was supposed to be a sun-soaked Spanish stroll through one of golf’s great cathedrals. Instead, Real Club Valderrama turned into a tempestuous beast on Friday, halting play mid-round for the first time in LIV Golf history.
And who better to make sense of it than Ripper GC’s Cameron Smith—a man who’s practically grown gills playing golf in the wind. Yet even the Open Champion found himself staggered by the ferocity of Andalucía’s fury.
“You can play this golf course with no wind and it’s brutal,” Smith said. “When you get 30-mile-an-hour gusts, it’s definitely not an easy place to get around.”
No kidding.
The opening round of LIV Golf Andalucía was rudely interrupted when the wind kicked up its heels and made a mockery of golf balls and gravity alike.
By 5:07 p.m. local time, the horn sounded, sending players back to the clubhouse as officials threw in the towel on Mother Nature’s power play. With balls refusing to sit still and putts taking off like low-flying drones, the decision to suspend was inevitable.
“Ultimately the balls were moving a little bit too much for our liking,” admitted Brad Ullman, LIV Golf’s Vice President of Rules. “It was the right thing to bring them off the golf course.”
Ullman didn’t mince words when describing the Poniente winds that barreled in off the southern Spanish coast: “These Poniente winds of southern Spain are no joke.”
Smith, who had been putting on a ball-striking clinic, was cruising at 4 under through 13 holes before he caught a backhand from the breeze—doubling the 15th and bogeying the 16th to tumble back to 1 under. Still, that was enough to grab a share of the overnight lead with four others brave enough—or lucky enough—to stay in red numbers.
Joining Smith atop the leaderboard are 2023 Valderrama winner Talor Gooch of Smash GC, Majesticks GC stalwart Lee Westwood, Torque GC’s Joaquin Niemann, and Stinger GC’s Branden Grace. All sit at 1 under with between three and five holes left in their first round, which will resume Saturday at 8 a.m. local time.
Niemann, the steady Chilean and current Individual points leader, continued his curious trend of peaking in even-numbered weeks. He was the only player without a bogey on Friday, carding a birdie on the par-5 fourth and 14 pars like clockwork. You could’ve set your watch by him.
Gooch, meanwhile, endured a dizzying stretch of golf—three birdies, three bogeys—before dialling in a dart to two feet at the par-4 10th for a closing birdie. He knows this course intimately, and it showed.
Westwood, fresh off qualifying for next week’s Open Championship, came out like a man half his age. He birdied four of his first seven holes before the wind picked up and reminded him it’s called Valderrama for a reason.
A double bogey put the brakes on his charge, but he steadied the ship with four pars to end the day.
Then there’s Grace. The South African is fighting to avoid relegation for the second straight season but showed serious mettle on Friday. After a bogey-free start, he answered back-to-back dropped shots with birdies to climb into the mix.
Not far behind, Crushers GC’s Bryson DeChambeau and hometown hero Jon Rahm of Legion XIII lurk one stroke off the pace at even par—the only other players who didn’t finish over par.
On the team front, it’s a three-way scrap as Crushers GC, Legion XIII, and Smash GC all sit tied at 5 over. The Crushers are chasing a fourth straight team title, but at Valderrama, momentum lasts about as long as a tapas plate on a hungry day.
Play is set to resume Saturday morning, with the second round kicking off at 10:30 a.m.—weather permitting, of course. But if Friday’s mayhem was any indication, players might be wise to pack an anchor alongside their wedges.
As Smith summed it up: “Golf isn’t fair, at the end of the day. Were the conditions fair? Probably not for a little bit, but it is what it is. We’ll get on with it. I’m sure we’ll make a good tournament out of it.”
Fair? Maybe not. But entertaining? Absolutely.
