(LIV Golf) – ADELAIDE, South Australia – Phil Mickelson and his HyFlyers GC have yet to celebrate either a team or individual victory in LIV Golf. Now they’re one round away from a potential sweep of the two trophies up for grabs at LIV Golf Adelaide.
HyFlyer Brendan Steele shot an 8-under 64 in Saturday’s second round at The Grange Golf Club to grab a one-shot lead at 14 under over Iron Heads GC’s Danny Lee on the individual leaderboard. Meanwhile, the HyFlyers are tied for second place in the team competition, just one shot behind Torque GC.
“We’re definitely aware of it,” Steele said of the HyFlyers’ lack of trophy celebrations. “We know everything that’s going on. We’ve talked about it. We were talking about it flying over here. Phil was like, this is the time, guys. This is our trip.”
But to complete the trip, Steele will have to hold off a crowded individual leaderboard that has 14 players within five shots of the lead, including the season-long individual leader (Joaquin Niemann), the most recent individual winner (Dean Burmester) and the hometown favorite (Cameron Smith).
Steele was brilliant on Saturday; his 8 under total included nine birdies and is his best LIV Golf round relative to par. It may take a similar round on Sunday to win his first event of any kind in seven years.
“It’s going to be tough because there’s a lot of birdies out there, obviously,” Steele said. “It’s kind of a race to 20-under par I think at this point.”
To win the team title on a Sunday in which all four scores count, the HyFlyers will have to overcome a battle-tested Torque team that won four times last season and has yet to finish outside the top five in the first five tournaments this season.
On Saturday, Torque received three 5-under 67s from captain Joaquin Niemann, Mito Pereira and Sebastián Muñoz, meaning Ortiz’s 68 that left him in solo third on the individual leaderboard didn’t count.
Meanwhile, there’s the looming presence of the local favorites, the all-Australian Ripper GC led by Smith. The captain is tied for fifth at 11 under after a 7-under 65 on Saturday, and teammate Matt Jones is tied for ninth at 10 under after shooting 68.