LIV Golf South Africa Round 1: DeChambeau and Howell Share the Lead as Southern Guards Feed Off the Home Crowd

LIV Golf finally landed in Africa, and the loudest noise at The Club at Steyn City on Thursday belonged to the home team.

Bryson DeChambeau and Charles Howell III each shot 8-under 63 to share the individual lead after the opening round of LIV Golf South Africa, a Crushers GC double act at the top of the board. Branden Grace of Southern Guards GC and Sergio Garcia of Fireballs GC are one back at 7 under, Talor Gooch and Jon Rahm sit at 6 under, and 10 players are bunched at 5 under. In the team race, the South African quartet of Southern Guards GC posted 18 under to lead by one, riding a gallery that seemed to treat every birdie putt like a penalty kick.

Crushers Up Top

DeChambeau arrived in Johannesburg fresh off a playoff win in Singapore the previous week, and the first look at South African golf did not slow DeChambeau down. The Crushers captain birdied four of the final six holes to get to 8 under, playing in the final group with Southern Guards captain Louis Oosthuizen and 4Aces GC captain Dustin Johnson. DeChambeau also led the field in driving distance at an average of 341.0 yards and hit the longest drive of the day, 353.4 yards at the 18th, per LIV Golf.

It is the sixth time DeChambeau has led or co-led after 18 holes in LIV competition. Two of the previous five turned into wins, at Korea in 2025 and Singapore this year. DeChambeau was blunt about the course, too, singling out the thick Kikuyu rough as brutal.

Howell's 63 was quieter and just as tidy. It was Howell's lowest opening round in LIV and a league-leading sixth bogey-free round of the season, built on the best putting in the field. Torrential rain the day before had softened the greens, and Howell led the field in strokes gained putting. It is also the first time Howell has held a share of the lead after 18 holes in LIV. Howell sounded like someone who knows what the weekend will feel like: "I'm quite sure the next three days will be pretty crazy and chaotic out there."

Home Cooking

The individual leaderboard belongs to the Crushers, but Thursday belonged to Southern Guards GC. The team that used to be Stinger GC is now built around South African identity, and the four players fed off the crowd from four different groups.

They did not start fast. Southern Guards played its first 12 holes at even par, then went 6 under over the next 12. The spark was Grace, who opened the final nine with an eagle at the 10th and finished with a 64. From there the whole roster caught fire: Southern Guards shot 10 under on its collective final nines and rolled in 187 feet of putts in that stretch. All four players birdied the 13th, the first time the team has done that in the same round since Chicago in 2024, per LIV Golf.

"This is what we hoped for," Grace said.

Charl Schwartzel's 66 might be the gutsiest round of the day. A back problem nearly forced a withdrawal, and Schwartzel was bogey-free through 14 before the pain flared at the 15th. Schwartzel hit 3-wood off the tee on the last two driving holes and still birdied the 17th. Dean Burmester added a 67, and Oosthuizen recovered from an early double bogey with three straight birdies to post 69.

DeChambeau summed up the scene in three words: "What an environment."

The Chasers

Garcia's 64 matched a personal best for an opening round in LIV, and Rahm went bogey-free for a 65, Rahm's fourth clean card of the season and 15th in LIV. Gooch also shot 65 and needed just 23 putts, the fewest in the field.

The 5-under logjam is a who's who: Cameron Smith, Schwartzel, Lee Westwood, Richard Bland, wild card Scott Vincent, David Puig, Harold Varner III, Thomas Detry, Jason Kokrak and Abraham Ancer. The field averaged 68.263, so a 66 kept players in touch rather than ahead.

At the other end, Phil Mickelson made a 2026 debut after missing the first four events of the season and shot 4-over 75.

A Tight Team Race

Since 2025, all four scores count for every team in every round, and that math makes a big lead hard to build on day one. It certainly did here. Smash GC is second at 17 under on the strength of Gooch's 65, 66s from Kokrak and Varner, and a 70 from Graeme McDowell. Crushers GC is third at 16 under, with the two 63s offset by Anirban Lahiri's 69 and a 73 from Paul Casey.

The top eight teams are separated by four shots, the closest spread after an opening round since every score started counting, according to LIV Golf. The previous mark was seven shots, at Hong Kong in 2025.

Torque GC also made a small piece of history, with three of its players making eagle at the 10th, the first time a team has done that on one hole in a LIV round.

Three Days of Noise Left

This is a 72-hole event, so Thursday settles very little. The Crushers have two players at the top and a captain who has made a habit of converting early leads. Southern Guards has the crowd, the momentum and a one-shot cushion, and a captain in Oosthuizen who said a Thursday crowd that size was all their dreams come true. The real question for Friday is whether the Kikuyu rough starts to bite as the greens firm up, and whether Schwartzel's back holds.

Full first-round details are in LIV Golf's Round 1 recap (opens in a new tab).

Sources: LIV Golf (Round 1 recap), FOX Sports, Arab News. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Montana Pritchard/LIV Golf.