Talor Gooch Shoots Back-to-Back 62s, Leads LIV Adelaide by 10 Shots

Gooch is dominating the individual competition at LIV Golf’s Australia event and looks to help the RangeGoats win their first team title.

Talor Gooch took a commanding lead of LIV’s Australia event on Saturday after posting yet another 10-under 62 at The Grange Golf Club. Gooch has yet to make a bogey thus far and has lead his team, RangeGoats GC, to a first place position headed into Sunday’s final round. 

“Everything is just going my way,” Gooch said of his dominant run. “I’m hitting the ball where I want it to go. A couple times where I missed some shots I ended up in a decent spot, and yeah, it’s just a lot of people have asked the last 24 hours, ‘How did you do it? Give me the secret,’ basically, and it’s like, if I had the secret, we would write that book and everyone would know it.”

Gooch’s total of 20-under after 36-holes of competition is the lowest number any LIV golfer has reached in the history of the start-up tour. 

The Oklahoma State product made eight birdies and an eagle on the par-5 10th hole. None of Gooch’s birdies have come on the par-3 12th hole, however, which has been transformed into a “party hole” this week. 

“I hit a 3-wood from like 265 and hit it to like three feet,” Gooch saif of his eagle. “It was one of those shots if you had a bucket of balls you probably couldn't do it again. It was great.”

An eagle brings Talor Gooch to -16.

There's still 8 holes left to play in Round 2 🤯#LIVGolf pic.twitter.com/Zc6yomYO8e

— LIV Golf (@livgolf_league) April 22, 2023

The 31-year-old’s closest pursuers at the event are six golfers tied at 10-under for the tournament: Charl Schwartzel, Pat Perez, Abraham Ancer, Brooks Koepka, Louis Oosthuizen and Cameron Tringale. Local crowd favorite and world No. 6 Cameron Smith sits one shot behind that group at 9-under. 

Gooch’s team is captained by two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson, and the squad has the chance to capture their first team title on Sunday. Gooch explained on Saturday that LIV’s team-format will encourage him to keep his aggressive strategy in place despite the comfortable individual lead. 

“It's going to drive me even more to be aggressive and to go and put a good round up, not just try to coast to a win, if you will,” he said. “We can't just coast to a win as a team tomorrow, so we've got to go play some really good golf, and if we can get off to a really good start, then hopefully we can on the back nine coast to a team win.”