HOUSTON PREVIEW: RANGEGOATS ON CUSP OF MAKING MOVE UP
Team: RangeGoats Golf Club
Previous event team finish: 7th
Season-long team standings: 7th
Top finisher from previous event: Thomas Pieters, T5
Fun stat: RangeGoats GC continues to be the longest team in LIV Golf and leads in Driving Distance (308.5 yards).
Preview
The second half of the 2024 LIV Golf season gets underway in Houston and RangeGoats Golf Club can look to recent results and this week’s venue as reasons to believe a jump in the standings is in the cards.
The team currently stands No. 7 in the season-long standings and is coming off a seventh-place finish at LIV Golf Singapore. The finish in Singapore is a little misleading, however. The RangeGoats sat in third place and only two shots off the lead entering Sunday’s final round, but the team wasn’t at its best and could only muster a combined 4-under total as it fell down the leaderboard. Still, the team was right in the mix for most of the event, and a few shots here and there would have set up a podium run.
Different players have led the club at different times this season, and that’s a good thing considering the importance of the team-play element, especially on Sundays when all scores count. In Singapore, it was Thomas Pieters’ time. He finished T5 and finished just four shots behind winner Brooks Koepka.
Pieters now has three straight top-15 finishes on LIV Golf and a recent runner-up finish on the DP World Tour.
Teammate Peter Uihlein was more than solid in Singapore and finished T22 while recording three under-par rounds. Matthew Wolff wasn’t far behind at T30. Wolff started fast and was 9 under through two rounds, but a tough 5-over 76 dashed his hopes. Captain Bubba Watson finished T45 but had a nice 4-under 67 on Sunday. Watson is looking to get back to some early season form. His best finish of 2024 came at the second event of the year at LIV Golf Las Vegas where he posted a T15.
This week’s venue appears to line up with the team’s strengths, including its ability to blast drives. The course was designed by famed architect Rees Jones and major champion David Toms to host elite professional golf tournaments. Golf Digest ranks the course as one of the top 50 in Texas and one of the best public courses in the state.
It’s a course that appears to favor the long hitters since it plays 7,400+ yards, but the nuances on and around the greens – including the bunkers – will challenge players’ short games as well. One hole to watch this week will be the 315-yard par-4 12th, which should be easily drivable for every RangeGoats GC member.