{"id":32987,"date":"2024-04-29T09:22:50","date_gmt":"2024-04-28T23:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/?p=32987"},"modified":"2024-04-29T09:22:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T23:52:50","slug":"rippers-beat-stingers-in-first-team-playoff-hyflyers-steele-takes-individual-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/2024\/04\/rippers-beat-stingers-in-first-team-playoff-hyflyers-steele-takes-individual-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Rippers beat Stingers in first team playoff; Hyflyers’ Steele takes individual title"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

LIV Golf\u2019s first team playoff has been long overdue. But after 2-1\/2 seasons and 28 tournaments, it finally happened Sunday at LIV Golf Adelaide \u2013 and it resulted in an epic storybook ending for the hometown Ripper GC.<\/p>\n

The all-Australian team, captained by Cameron Smith, beat the all-South African Stinger GC on the second playoff hole to capture a victory that the entire country had been hoping to experience, with more than 90,000 fans attending the three rounds of competition at The Grange Golf Course.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is unreal,\u201d said Smith, standing on the 18th green and draped in an Australian flag with his teammates Marc Leishman, Matt Jones and Lucas Herbert. \u201cIt\u2019s a dream come true for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another dream was experienced by Adelaide individual champion Brendan Steele, who won the first trophy of any kind for his HyFlyers GC team. The 41-year-old American shot a gritty 4-under 68 to finish at 18 under, one stroke better than Stinger captain Louis Oosthuizen.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally surreal,\u201d said Steele, whose win was the 11th of his professional career but first since 2017. \u201cI\u2019m pretty overwhelmed, but to win this event is really special. I can’t say enough good things about the fans and the golf course and the whole experience this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steele entered the final round with a one-stroke lead and produced a string of five consecutive birdies on Sunday to give himself enough of a cushion against the hard-charging Oosthuizen, who shot a 7-under 65. Five players tied for third, two strokes back: HyFlyers teammate Andy Ogletree (65), Legion XIII Captain Jon Rahm (64), the Stingers duo of Charl Schwartzel (64) and Dean Burmester (67) and Torque GC Captain Joaquin Niemann (66), the season-long individual standings leader.<\/p>\n

Steele was able to hold off all challengers, and the Rippers appeared to be doing the same for most of the final nine holes, riding the support of the Adelaide fans to the top of the leaderboard. At one point, they led by as many as five strokes until the Stingers started to whittle away at the lead.<\/p>\n

When Smith bogeyed his last hole of the day, the 18th, while Oosthuizen birdied his next-to-last hole, both teams finished at 53 under for the week \u2013 a record-low counting score in LIV Golf history.<\/p>\n

That set up LIV Golf\u2019s first team playoff, with Smith and Leishman representing the Rippers, while Oosthuizen and Burmester represented the Stingers, with the scores for all four players counting for their respective teams on each playoff hole.<\/p>\n

The Stingers appeared to have the advantage on the first playoff hole, with Oosthuizen and Burmester hitting similar tee shots and approaches, leaving them within makeable but a challenging birdie range above the 18th hole pin. Meanwhile, Smith was in trouble off the tee and found the bunker with his approach, while Leishman\u2019s approach came up short and rolled back toward the fairway.<\/p>\n

As he walked toward the green, Leishman estimated his chances of extending the playoff at 25% \u2013 and that\u2019s being optimistic, he added. But each Ripper managed to save par, while the Stinger duo each missed their birdie putts, Oosthuizen\u2019s lipping out.<\/p>\n

Steele was able to hold off all challengers, and the Rippers appeared to be doing the same for most of the final nine holes, riding the support of the Adelaide fans to the top of the leaderboard. At one point, they led by as many as five strokes until the Stingers started to whittle away at the lead.<\/p>\n

When Smith bogeyed his last hole of the day, the 18th, while Oosthuizen birdied his next-to-last hole, both teams finished at 53 under for the week \u2013 a record-low counting score in LIV Golf history.<\/p>\n

That set up LIV Golf\u2019s first team playoff, with Smith and Leishman representing the Rippers, while Oosthuizen and Burmester represented the Stingers, with the scores for all four players counting for their respective teams on each playoff hole.<\/p>\n

The Stingers appeared to have the advantage on the first playoff hole, with Oosthuizen and Burmester hitting similar tee shots and approaches, leaving them within makeable but a challenging birdie range above the 18th hole pin. Meanwhile, Smith was in trouble off the tee and found the bunker with his approach, while Leishman\u2019s approach came up short and rolled back toward the fairway.<\/p>\n

As he walked toward the green, Leishman estimated his chances of extending the playoff at 25% \u2013 and that\u2019s being optimistic, he added. But each Ripper managed to save par, while the Stinger duo each missed their birdie putts, Oosthuizen\u2019s lipping out.<\/p>\n

\n

Team Counting Scores<\/h4>\n

Standings and counting scores for Sunday\u2019s final round of the team competition at LIV Golf Adelaide. The three best scores from each team count in the first two rounds while all four scores count in the final round. The team with the lowest cumulative score after three rounds wins the team title. (* – won in playoff)<\/p>\n

1*. RIPPER GC -53<\/strong> (Herbert 65, Leishman 65, Jones 68, Smith 70; Rd. 3 score -20)
\n2. STINGER GC -53<\/strong> (Schwartzel 64, Oosthuizen 65, Burmester 67, Grace 68; Rd. 3 score -24)
\n3. HYFLYERS GC -48<\/strong> (Ogletree 65, Steele 68, Mickelson 70, Tringale 71; Rd. 3 score -14)
\n4. TORQUE GC -46<\/strong> (Niemann 66,\u00a0Mu\u00f1oz\u00a069, Pereira 69, Ortiz 73; Rd. 3 score -11)
\n5. LEGION XIII -42<\/strong> (Rahm 64, Hatton 67, Surratt 68, Vincent 70; Rd. 3 score -19)
\n6. IRON HEADS GC -41<\/strong> (Kozuma 68, Na 69, Lee 71, Vincent 73; Rd. 3 score -7)
\nT7. CLEEKS GC -40<\/strong> (Kaymer 64, Meronk 66, Bland 69, Samooja 69; Rd. 3 score -20)
\nT7. CRUSHERS GC -40<\/strong> (Lahiri 67, Casey 68, DeChambeau 70, Howell III 71; Rd. 3 score -12)
\n9. RANGEGOATS GC -38<\/strong> (Pieters 67, Wolff 69, Uihlein 71, Watson 71; Rd. 3 score -10)
\n10. FIREBALLS GC -35<\/strong> (Ancer 64, Garcia 66, Chacarra 67, Puig 69; Rd. 3 score -22)
\n11. SMASH GC -31<\/strong> (Koepka 66, Kokrak 69, Gooch 70, McDowell 71; Rd. 3 score -12)
\n12. 4ACES GC -30<\/strong> (Perez 68, Johnson 69, Reed 72, Varner III 72; Rd. 3 score -7)
\n13. MAJESTICKS GC -11<\/strong>\u00a0(Westwood 69, Horsfield 71, Stenson 71, Poulter 74; Rd. 3 score -3)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LIV Golf\u2019s first team playoff has been long overdue. But after 2-1\/2 seasons and 28 tournaments, it finally happened Sunday at LIV Golf Adelaide \u2013 and it resulted in an epic storybook ending for the hometown Ripper GC. Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4187,"featured_media":32988,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[59,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guests-news","category-liv-golf"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32989,"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32987\/revisions\/32989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grangegolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}