LIV Andalucia: Jason Kokrak finds missing clubs, grabs share of lead alongside Dustin Johnson
- Kokrak had been unable to play the course before Friday’s first round because of missing clubs
- Americans post matching four-under-par 67s to take one-shot lead over Anirban Lahiri
Dustin Johnson and Jason Kokrak share the lead at the LIV Golf Andalucia, but only one of the American golfers had played the course before Friday.
Kokrak put up a 67 in the first round at Real Club Valderrama in Sotogrande, to put a shiny bow on what he called a “kind of a crazy situation”.
The summary of events goes like this: starting in Detroit on Monday, Kokrak encountered multiple airport delays, resulting in missed connections and personalised clubs, trackable with location AirTags, never moving from where he left them before his flight stateside.
Misfortune multiplied and Kokrak wound up teeing off with only a fast-forward walking preview of the back nine beforehand.
“Cleveland to Detroit, Detroit to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Malaga, and then I didn’t get to the house until 1.00am Wednesday morning,” Kokrak said, detailing the next phase of the adventure including buying new irons and a putter in Spain.
“I finally got my Air Tags to update, and they had moved over to Paris, and then actually I went to lunch and then we got a call at lunch that Matt Wolff’s caddie’s girlfriend was flying in and just happened to be on the same flight as my clubs and saw them on the luggage rack, and she called Nick, who’s Matt Wolff’s caddie. She was like, ‘What do I do?’ And he was like, ‘Take them. Take them with you.’
“Somebody picked her up from the airport, and that’s how I got my bags. If not, I probably would have gotten my bags maybe this morning.”
