Staff WriterLIV Golf Singapore began like a fistfight in a velvet room: elegant surroundings, brutal conditions, and not a moment of comfort for anyone who lost concentration. By the end of Thursday at Sentosa’s Serapong course, four men had navigated the chaos best — Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Lee Westwood and Richard T. Lee — each posting a 4-under 67 to share the first-round lead in a tournament already humming with tension.
That leaderboard tells one story. The more interesting one is how four very different paths arrived at the same number.
Rahm is the familiar metronome, all power and control, moving through LIV Golf with the sort of authority usually reserved for men carrying a clipboard and a grievance. DeChambeau remains golf’s mad scientist, still searching for the exact formula that turns near-misses into something properly explosive.
Westwood, at 52 and fresh from a torn tendon in his left wrist, turned up with the air of a man just hoping the machinery still worked and ended the day bogey-free. Richard T. Lee, the Canadian wild card, continued his habit of barging through historical doors and leaving them swinging on the hinges.
Seven players sit one shot back on 3 under, with another 10 lurking at 2 under, which is another way of saying nobody at LIV Singapore is ordering dessert yet.
Sentosa made them earn every inch
The Serapong is not a course that hands out compliments. It asks difficult questions, then changes the wording halfway through the exam. The wind shifted, the greens raced, and the penalty count climbed. More than half the field took at least one penalty stroke. The 15th played as the hardest hole on the course at +0.40, with nine players finding water and 18 playing it over par.
That is the sort of day when a 67 looks less like scoring and more like evidence.
Westwood’s was perhaps the most arresting. This is a player with 44 wins in a career long enough to contain several versions of modern golf, yet this marked the first time he had held a share of the lead as an original LIV Golf member. It also made him the oldest player in league history to do so.
“Seven weeks ago, I couldn’t hold the putter,” said the Majesticks Golf Club co-captain after his bogey-free round. “The specialist was worried that I’d torn the sheath in the wrist and I would need surgery to reconstruct it. To be sitting here, having a good week last week and then be leading this week is a very pleasant surprise.”
There was nothing sentimental about the round either. He hit 15 greens in regulation, scrambled perfectly when needed, and looked like a man who had remembered exactly how this business works.
Rahm keeps doing Rahm things
Rahm arrived at LIV Singapore carrying the confidence of last week’s win in Hong Kong, his first tournament victory since 2024, and he played like someone who had located the right gears again. He birdied three of his first seven holes, then finished with two more, and once again treated the par 5s as if they were a polite administrative exercise.
He birdied all three of them on Thursday. That means he has now made birdie or better on his last 11 par 5s and sits 12 under across that stretch, which is less a stat than a warning label for the rest of the field.
“I’m hitting it better off the tee, so it all starts with that on a par 5 where you’ve got to put it into play,” said Rahm, whose Legion XIII has a six-shot lead over DeChambeau’s Crushers on the team leaderboard.
“Once you’re in play, I’m long enough to have a comfortable number usually into the par 5s, and I think that’s been the main difference. It’s just everything so far this year is just a little bit better than it’s been in the past.”
That last line should concern everybody. Rahm has now shot 22 consecutive LIV Golf rounds under par, extending his own league record. He is not merely playing well; he is beginning to look settled, dangerous and faintly inevitable.
DeChambeau’s round had both thunder and static
DeChambeau’s 67 was a round with the usual Bryson ingredients: bursts of brilliance, one significant mechanical hiccup, and enough late birdies to make the whole thing feel combustible. He played his final 10 holes in 5 under and finished with three straight birdies, a sequence that dragged the round from good to properly threatening.
The double bogey at the par-4 fifth was the lone bruise, born from bunker trouble in both fairway and greenside sand. But the closing surge was the more revealing detail. He is close enough to smell it.
“Things just haven’t quite lined up yet,” he said. “… It may just pop up with one golf shot. I don’t know. I’m one swing thought away. I’m really close is what I’m saying. I’m close to figuring out what that exact thing is, but I have to dial in my irons a little bit more.”
He also arrived in Singapore with a small subplot in the bag, using Bettinardi wedges for the first time as he tries to sharpen spin control before major season. DeChambeau explained: “On 11, I hit it in the rough and I caught a jumper out of the left-hand rough. So, I didn’t really get to test the wedges, but they feel good. In practice, they’ve felt great. It’s going through the turf a lot better from the fairway. I am trusting of that, and hopefully that new bounce that I’m using is going to be a benefit to me in softer conditions because that’s really what I’m struggling with.”
If the irons catch up with the driver and the putter, LIV Singapore could become very loud indeed.
Richard T. Lee keeps rewriting the wild card script
The freshest story on the board belongs to Richard T. Lee, who is only four starts into his LIV Golf life and already making league history. His 67 made him the first wild card player ever to lead after any round, and he announced himself early by holing out from a bunker for birdie on his opening hole.
Not subtle. Effective, though.
Lee knows Sentosa well from his Asian Tour days, and that local intelligence showed. He played the par 4s in 4 under, two shots better than anyone else in the field, and looked entirely comfortable in company that might have intimidated others.
“That could possibly change this week,” he said. “I’ve played this course so many times on the Asian Tour and I think I have a bit of an advantage on this course, knowing where the slopes are and where to miss it. I think it’s going to be a great week.”
Later, reflecting on the broader challenge of life as a solo act on LIV Golf, he added: “I’ve been playing tournaments all my life, and for me to come out on LIV Golf and play with these great players, I still have a lot of things to learn out there. I think just putting myself in position, keep playing better and better.”
And then the ambition arrived, plainly and without fuss: “That’s the plan, honestly,” he said. “I feel like a little loner out there playing by myself as an individual. I think if I play my best and maybe get a win possibly, I think there’s a possibility that I can get on a team.”
That gives LIV Singapore one of its best storylines heading into round two: a proven course horse trying to become far more than a novelty act.
The chasing pack is not exactly decorative
For all the attention on the four men at the top, this is not a leaderboard built for comfort. Louis Oosthuizen, Tyrrell Hatton, Thomas Detry, Marc Leishman, Charles Howell III, Cameron Tringale and Matthew Wolff are all just one back at 3 under.
Detry was immaculate in scrambling, going 7-for-7. Leishman was also perfect around the greens at 6-for-6. Tringale continues his strangely reliable Singapore habit, once again opening inside the top five at this event. Howell was among the most accurate drivers in the field. Wolff, meanwhile, produced the sharpest approach play of anyone on Thursday, gaining 4.98 strokes in that category.
“Feeling more confident with my swing, just control of the ball, knowing which way it’s curving, feeling like I know what to do if I need to not miss it a certain way,” Wolff explained about his success with the irons. “Just little stuff in my swing … I think it’s just confidence in the swing, really.”
Then there was Bubba Watson, who delivered the golfing equivalent of a car chase through a crockery shop. He began with five bogeys in his first five holes, then birdied 17, eagled 18, birdied 3 and 4, triple-bogeyed the sixth and somehow signed for a 3-over 74 that felt both terrible and oddly eventful.
“The course was playing tricky because the wind was variable, so it changed directions a lot, and by the end of the round it made different holes play different for other guys, and so it made it tough,” Watson said when asked to describe his round.
“The greens were lightning fast. I’ve never seen them this fast, making chips and shots into the green tougher. So tomorrow I just need to try to come out and just miss those two wayward shots that I hit today that cost me a lot and then try not to have the three-putts. The greens got me the first few holes because of how fast they were.”
He was not wrong. On a day like this, the golf ball behaved like it had its own opinions.
Legion XIII already have daylight in the team race
Beyond the individual intrigue, LIV Singapore also has an early imbalance in the team competition. Legion XIII, powered by Rahm’s 67, Hatton’s 68, Tom McKibbin’s 69 and Caleb Surratt’s 69, sit at 11 under and lead Crushers GC by six shots. That margin ties for the second-largest first-round team lead in league history.
They were also the only team to have all four scores count under par, which tells you something important about both the quality of the golf and the level of control. Crushers, despite DeChambeau and Howell playing well, were dragged back by a 74 from Anirban Lahiri. 4Aces are third at 4 under and still close enough to matter, but Legion XIII have already established the sort of cushion that allows a captain to breathe through his nose.
What round one means at LIV Singapore
The first round of LIV Singapore did not settle anything, but it sharpened several truths. Rahm is gathering pace. DeChambeau is hovering near ignition. Westwood is suddenly one of the week’s most compelling figures, which nobody would have predicted seven weeks ago when he could barely hold a putter. Richard T. Lee has a proper chance to turn a wild card cameo into something with real weight.
And Sentosa, bless it, is not going to make any of this simple.
Friday’s second round has been moved up to an 8:05 a.m. local shotgun start, with gates opening at 7:30 a.m. and the live broadcast beginning at 8 a.m. That earlier start feels sensible. On a course this exacting, with a board this congested and a field this volatile, there is no point wasting daylight.
LIV Singapore has already given us a leaderboard with pedigree, surprise and menace. The only thing it has not offered yet is certainty, which in professional golf is usually a sign that the real trouble is still to come.
