Brooks Koepka became the first LIV Golf player to win two individual titles after the four-time major champion beat Sebastián Muñoz by one shot after 54 holes at Orange County National in Orlando, Florida.
Koepka started the final day at with a three-shot lead, but Muñoz – who opened with a 62 on Friday – provided constant pressure. He holed out from behind the green at the 16th hole to move within a stroke of the lead.
It ultimately came down to the final hole and the final group. Both Koepka and Muñoz found the green with their approach shots but faced long birdie putts. Both attempts came up well short, giving each player nervy 4-footers to maintain their positions. They both made their par putts, allowing Koepka to celebrate an individual win a closing 68 for a 15-under-par total.
Dean Burmester carded a seven-under 64 to finish tied-third with Patrick Reed, who posted a bogey-free 67, with Matthew Wolff sharing fifth spot alongside Chile’s Mito Pereira. Dustin Johnson ended the week in seventh spot, with Peter Uihlein, Carlos Ortiz and Sam Horsfield rounding off the top 10 on the leaderboard.
Koepka, who also won the final event of the last year’s LIV Golf Invitational Series in Jeddah, said: “I’ve been playing well for a few weeks now, but it just hasn’t really shown on the scorecard, as I’ve made a few dumb mistakes. So it was nice to come out this week and play pretty much mistake-free. “I’m very happy to get the win, and I’m happy with my form going into Augusta.”
Muñoz had the consolation of helping his team, Torque GC, to claim its first team title, with his score combining with those of Joaquin Niemann, Mito Pereira and David Puig to win the $3m first team prize with a score of -36. They finished one shot ahead of Koepka’s Smash GC, with the Dustin Johnson’s 4ACES squad taking third on -34.
“It’s pretty awesome,” said team captain Niemann. “The chemistry between the four of us is pretty good since day one. All the practice rounds, the games we do, it’s pretty easy for the four of us to hang out together. I think we knew we could win since the first week. It just came a little bit later than we thought.”
Muñoz shot a final-round 66 to lead the Torque counting scores, with Puig shooting 67 and Pereira shooting 68. “I just knew that I had Brooks against me, and I couldn’t let him beat me in counting scores because I wanted Torque to stay on top,” Muñoz said. “I’m really proud of what we achieved as a team, as I feel like it’s even tougher to win as a team.”
Speaking about his prospects at Augusta, and facing up against PGA TOUR players for the first time since last year’s Open Championship, Koepka added: “It’ll be great just to see all the good players back in one field again. It’s the first time we’ve seen it in a long time. That’ll be exciting. I’m looking forward to it, just to see everybody and compete against them. I’ll be honest, I do miss playing against Rory (McIlroy) and Scottie (Scheffler) and the others, and I’m sure they miss playing against us.”
For all the scores from LIV Golf Orlando, click here.
