{"id":13244,"date":"2026-05-29T20:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=13244"},"modified":"2026-05-29T20:03:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:03:20","slug":"gooch-goes-low-to-sit-atop-the-leaderboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/gooch-goes-low-to-sit-atop-the-leaderboard\/","title":{"rendered":"Gooch goes low to sit atop the leaderboard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Talor Gooch calls Asiad Country Club a shot-maker&#8217;s course. The OKGC captain showed today why it&#8217;s a terrific fit for his game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gooch shot a 7-under 63 in the second round of LIV Golf Korea to grab the 36-hole lead at 8 under, one shot ahead of Crushers GC Captain Bryson DeChambeau. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Five players are tied for third at 5 under \u2013 Ripper GC Captain Cameron Smith, Torque GC Captain Joaquin Niemann, HyFlyers GC&#8217;s Scott Vincent, 4Aces GC&#8217;s Thomas Pieters and Crushers GC&#8217;s Charles Howell III.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gooch&#8217;s OKGC team, playing just their second tournament since a name change and rebrand, have a one-stroke lead at 14 under over the Crushers, with Ripper GC in third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gooch, the 2023 LIV Golf Individual Champion, will be looking for his fifth individual title this weekend; two of his previous titles have come at Valderrama, the host course at next week&#8217;s LIV Golf Andalucia and another shot-maker&#8217;s layout. It appears he&#8217;s finding his form at just the right time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I wish I could say it&#8217;s as easy as picking a time to play great because if I could do that, I would just do it all the time,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gooch opened the season with four top-20 finishes but finished T43 and T39 in his last two starts. On Friday, he produced eight birdies, starting with a chip-in on his second hole, the par-4 ninth. He birdied six of his last eight holes to surge to the lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The game still doesn&#8217;t feel great, but we&#8217;re working hard, and we&#8217;re working in the right direction,&#8221; said Gooch, who entered the week ranked 29th in points but is projected to move to fifth with a win. &#8220;&#8230; Hopefully we can just kind of keep it going and get this train rolling.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DeChambeau, the 18-hole co-leader, shot a 2-under 68 that included 11 pars in his final 12 holes. He hit just 8 of 14 fairways and 10 of 18 greens in regulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;My putting saved me today,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I felt like I was hitting it really well yesterday, driving it well, and today just kind of went sideways.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Home favorites Korean Golf Club are in solo seventh, led by newcomer Doyeob Mun, who shot his second consecutive 68 to join Fireballs GC Captain Sergio Garcia in a tie for eighth. That leave him just four shots off the pace on a course in which he&#8217;s very familiar with on the KPGA Tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mun is making the most of his opportunity after a spot opened up due to the team&#8217;s roster shakeup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve actually never imagined that I would win, but if I do, this week would definitely be magical,&#8221; said Mun, the current KPGA Tour points leader. &#8220;So being able to actually play LIV Golf and getting a seat, that was super lucky, but also playing with all these giants, neck to neck, shoulder to shoulder, it will have been a memorable week. Let&#8217;s see how I play tomorrow.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Leaderboard <br><br>Individual<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Talor Gooch, <\/strong>OKGC (-8, 69-63)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Bryson DeChambeau, <\/strong>Crushers GC\u00a0(-7, 65-68)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Cam Smith, <\/strong>Ripper GC (-5, 67-68)<br><strong>Joaquin Niemann, <\/strong>Torque GC (-5, 66-69)<br><strong>Thomas Pieters, <\/strong>4Aces GC (-5, 66-69)<br><strong>Scott Vincent,<\/strong> HyFlyers GC (-5, 65-70)<br><strong>Charles Howell III, <\/strong>Crushers GC (-5, 65-70)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Team <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>OKGC <\/strong>(-14) &#8211; Talor Gooch, Captain (69-63), Harold Varner III (68-69), Jason Kokrak (68-70), Graeme McDowell (68-71)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Crushers GC<\/strong> (-13) &#8211; Bryson DeChambeau (65-68), Travis Smyth (72-66), Charles Howell III (65-70), Anirban Lahiri (68-73)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Ripper GC<\/strong> (-11) &#8211; Cameron Smith (67-68), Lucas Herbert (71-66), Marc Leishman (69-68), Elvis Smylie (71-69)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>HyFlyers GC<\/strong> (-5) &#8211; Brendan Steele (70-69), Scott Vincent (65-70), Cameron Tringale (72-70), Michael LaSasso (68-71)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Fireballs GC<\/strong> (-4) &#8211; Sergio Garcia (67-69), Josele Ballester (70-70), Luis Masaveu (68-71), David Puig (70-71)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Talor Gooch calls Asiad Country Club a shot-maker&#8217;s course. The OKGC captain showed today why it&#8217;s a terrific<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-13244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-golf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Taylor-Gooch--scaled.jpg",2560,1708,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Taylor-Gooch--150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Taylor-Gooch--300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Taylor-Gooch--768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Taylor-Gooch--1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Taylor-Gooch--1536x1025.jpg",1536,1025,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Taylor-Gooch--2048x1366.jpg",2048,1366,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Taylor-Gooch--825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Taylor-Gooch--590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/international\/\" rel=\"category tag\">International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Taylor-Gooch--scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13246,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13244\/revisions\/13246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}