Patrick Reed clinched his first LIV Golf individual title – and his first professional win in Texas – with a dramatic playoff victory at LIV Golf Dallas on Sunday.
The 33-year-old Houston resident drained a 16-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole to beat Louis Oosthuizen, Paul Casey and Jinichiro Kozuma at Maridoe Golf Club. The win came in Reed’s 41st LIV Golf start and marked a long-overdue personal breakthrough after seven team titles with 4Aces GC.
“I don’t like hearing those numbers, that it took me 41 times just to win out here,” said Reed. “It took too long, I felt like, but to check two things off – to win for the first time on LIV and also doing it in my home state – means a lot.”
Reed had started the final round with a three-shot lead, which quickly grew to five after his playing partners Casey and Abraham Ancer both double-bogeyed the 1st. But five bogeys in a seven-hole stretch saw him fall behind Legion XIII’s Tyrrell Hatton.
He responded with nine consecutive pars on the back nine, including a key up-and-down at the par-four 12th after finding trouble off the tee. A closing 75 left him on six under, tied with Casey (72), Oosthuizen (68) and Kozuma (69).
“I looked down at my putter – it’s actually my daughter’s putter, and it says Windsor-Wells all over it,” said Reed. “I looked down and I said, ‘Come on honey, we’ve got to make one.’ For that putt to go in – it meant a lot.”
Oosthuizen, the Stinger GC captain, found water off the tee in the playoff, Casey missed the green from the fairway bunker, and Kozuma couldn’t get up-and-down – leaving Reed as the only contender with a birdie putt, which he buried to seal the win.
In the team event, Crushers GC, captained by Dallas local Bryson DeChambeau, stormed to their third consecutive victory with an 11-shot win – equalling the largest margin of victory this season. All four Crushers finished inside the top 11 on the individual leaderboard, lifting the team to the top of the season standings.
“Dallas showed up, and this is what I expected. This is what I thought was possible,” said DeChambeau, who tied for 9th on four under. “I’ve just got to say I’m super thankful to Dallas and super thankful for the team for playing as well as they did.”
DeChambeau’s efforts in promoting the event paid off, with more than 50,000 fans attending across three days. Saturday’s crowd of over 20,000 set a new LIV Golf single-day attendance record in the United States.
Crushers GC’s three-win streak matches the run posted by Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs GC earlier this season.
Casey, who narrowly missed out on a maiden LIV title, found solace in the team’s success.
“Losing in a playoff, I’m always a bit pissed off usually,” he said. “But then you kind of see the joy on these guys’ faces … I’m sitting here smiling because I know what it means for Bryson, the effort he’s put into the week. For us, this was like a little Crushers home game.”
Photo: LIV Golf
