To win LIV Golf Tucson on the second hole of a four-man playoff, Danny Lee birdied his final two holes for a final-round score of 69 This was his first victory in over eight years.
Lee earned $4 million (£3.28 million) from the $20 million (£16.41 million) payout for individual play, which was almost equal to the sum of his earnings from his previous four PGA Tour seasons.
Since the start of the Saudi-funded LIV Golf series last year, there have been two playoffs. Lee finished nine under par and joined Carlos Ortiz (65), Brendan Steele (70), and Louis Oosthuizen (70) in the playoff. Oosthuizen bogeyed the par-5 17th hole to go down by one, but he recovered by birdieing the 18th to enter the playoff.
Carlos Ortiz was eliminated in the first extra hole after he missed the par putt. When Lee’s approach shot from the fairway missed the green to the right and put him in a challenging situation with the pin to the right side of the green on the 18th hole, it appeared as though he had lost a golden chance.
Even though he was about 10 feet out from the green after Oosthuizen and Steele both missed big birdie shots, Lee decided to utilize his putter. When he rapped it, it was already moving quickly when it rattled on the pin and vanished for the winner.
“Since 2015, I have not been successful. I believed that I was simply not good at winning. Today has shown me that what I believed wasn’t true”, according to Lee, who joined LIV Golf in February and rose to No. 267 in the world rankings.
His most recent victory came at the Greenbrier Classic, which is no longer a PGA Tour competition but will be played this year as a LIV Golf tournament instead.
“It’s encouraging to know that I can once again play golf well.”, Lee stated.
With Lee’s Ironheads team finishing third, Ortiz’s Fireballs team defeated the 4 Aces to claim the team win.
After a strong start, Charles Howell III, who won LIV Golf’s season opening at Mayakoba, was in the lead. On the par-three eighth, though, he made a triple bogey and failed to make a birdie.
The weekend before the Masters, LIV Golf resumes play in a new event in Orlando after a week’s break.
