LIV Golf Virginia Round 1: Bryson DeChambeau Storms Out of a Rain Delay to Share the Lead With Martin Kaymer

A thunderstorm parked itself over Northern Virginia for an hour and 47 minutes on Friday afternoon, and Bryson DeChambeau walked out of the clubhouse afterward like a man who had spent the break sharpening knives.

The Crushers GC captain was 1 under and buried in a tie for 18th when the horn blew at 3:58 p.m. ET. Six swings after the restart he was 5 under, and he finished there with a 66 to share the first-round lead of LIV Golf Virginia with Cleeks GC captain Martin Kaymer at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville. Six players sit one shot back at 4 under, and in the team race, Bubba Watson's RangeGoats GC leads at 9 under on a day when the team needed a stand-in to finish the job.

Six Swings, Four Strokes

The rain changed the golf course, and DeChambeau knew it. Play resumed just before 6 p.m. with four to five holes left for most of the field, and he came back to softer conditions than the ones he had been fighting all afternoon. At the par-5 14th he left himself a chip next to a slope, used the slope, and watched the ball trickle into the cup for eagle. He birdied the 15th, then missed the green at the 16th and holed another chip, this one from thick rough, for a third straight red number. His last putt at the 18th pulled up just short of one more birdie.

"I came out hot," DeChambeau said. He credited the soft conditions with making the eagle chip easier and admitted the closing chip carried a little luck. Luck or not, it was a four-stroke swing in the space of three holes from a player who arrived in Virginia with a U.S. Open title to defend next week at Oakmont.

Kaymer's Quiet 66

Kaymer got to the same number with far less noise. The two-time major winner made five birdies, three of them in a row at the fifth, sixth and seventh, and his putter was as good as anyone's in the field at 1.44 putts per hole. He even got a break at the 16th, where a loose tee shot still finished about 6 to 7 feet from the hole. Kaymer said afterward that he knows his game is good enough to contend, and a share of the lead is a welcome reminder of that for the Cleeks GC captain.

A Six-Way Logjam at 4 Under

The board behind the leaders is crowded and loaded with names. Jon Rahm (Legion XIII), Joaquin Niemann (Torque GC), Phil Mickelson (HyFlyers GC), Graeme McDowell (Smash GC), Marc Leishman (Ripper GC) and Anirban Lahiri (Crushers GC) all shot 67.

Niemann's card was the strangest of the bunch. He opened with a double bogey and a bogey, then went on a seven-birdie tear to get back to 4 under. McDowell went the other way, a picture of control: bogey-free, 17 of 18 greens and a perfect scrambling day. Only he and 4Aces GC's Thomas Pieters got through the round without a bogey.

Mickelson's 67 was his best opening round in more than a year, and it came on a course where he has not competed since the 2005 Presidents Cup. He got up and down four times in six tries and sounded like someone enjoying himself again. Leishman, meanwhile, arrived on a high after grinding through a U.S. Open qualifier in Maryland on Monday to grab one of four available spots, and he led at 3 under after just four holes before settling into the pack.

RangeGoats Lead With a Replacement in the Lineup

The team race came with a twist. Matthew Wolff was even par through eight holes when an injury knocked him out of the round, and Ollie Schniederjans took over for the RangeGoats. Schniederjans played the final 10 holes in 4 under, with an eagle and a closing birdie at the 18th, for a combined 67. That score counts only toward the team, but it counted plenty. Add Watson's 68, Peter Uihlein's 68 and Ben Campbell's 72, and the RangeGoats sit at 9 under, two clear of the field.

Crushers GC and 4Aces GC share second at 7 under. DeChambeau's 66 and Lahiri's 67 did the heavy lifting for the Crushers, while Charles Howell III (71) and Paul Casey (73) gave some of it back. The 4Aces were more balanced, with Pieters and Patrick Reed at 68, Dustin Johnson at 69 and Harold Varner III at 72.

Smash GC is fourth at 6 under, Torque GC fifth at 3 under and Cleeks GC sixth at 1 under. At the bottom, Majesticks GC limps out of Friday at 12 over, a deep hole with two rounds left in a format where all four scores count every day. Legion XIII, the early-season juggernaut, is tied for ninth at 3 over despite Rahm's 67.

Odds and Ends

Josele Ballester made his professional debut for Fireballs GC, shot 74 and saved his first birdie as a pro for the 18th. HyFlyers GC's Andy Ogletree owned the long-drive board with a 357.6-yard blast at the 14th, and Danny Lee led the field in driving accuracy, hitting 10 of 14 fairways.

What Saturday Brings

Two rounds remain, and the leaderboard is about as compressed as it gets: eight players separated by a single shot, with Rahm, Niemann and Mickelson all lurking at 4 under. DeChambeau and Kaymer have the top line, the RangeGoats have the team lead but a health question to answer, and the Crushers have two players in the top eight. Saturday decides who gets to play from in front on Sunday.

The full first-round breakdown is in the LIV Golf Round 1 recap (opens in a new tab).

Sources: LIV Golf (Round 1 recap), Reuters via Arab News, The Washington Times. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Chris Trotman/LIV Golf.