Amercian Talor Gooch singled out his Australian-born caddy for praise after producing a sizzling 10-under par 62 in ideal scoring conditons on the opening day of the LIV Golf Adelaide event in Adelaide, South Australia.

Gooch, 31, stormed his way to the top of the leaderboard, and delighted a sell-out crowd with a laser-like display capped by five birdies in succession from the fourth hole, and also setting a new course record.

His effort, while a career low, is a third lowest in the history of tournament golf in Australia with Sydney’s Paul Gow owning the distinction of the lowest round in shooting a 12-under-par 60 in January 2001 on day one of the Canon Challlenge on the Castle Hill course in suburban Sydney.  (Footnote – Gow presented your editor with the signed ball and also penned ’60’ that I still have).

Gooch ended the day four shots clear of duo England’s Richard Bland, and with the American afterward singling out in long-time Australian-born caddy Malcolm Baker.

The Oklahoma-born Gooch is on a first visit to Australia since contesting the 2017 Australian PGA Championship at the resort-like Royal Pines course on the Queensland Gold Coast, and incidentally won that year and also succesfully defended a year later by Cam Smith, who ended the day just inside the top-20 with a three-under 69.

And it was at the Australian PGA Championship now six years ago he first teamed-up with Perth-born caddy Malcolm Baker.

“This is the first time I’ve been here. I played an Aussie PGA back in 2017 in Brisbane, and it was nothinAg like this type of golf,” said Gooch.

“My caddie, we’ve been together since 2017, and he’s from Perth, and all I hear about every basically week is how good Sand Belt golf is.

“It was, like I said, highly anticipated, and it’s lived up to the expectations so far. The course is phenomenal, and it’s just a fun, fun type of golf, and kind of similar to what I grew up on in the sense of Bermuda fairways, Bermuda tee boxes, kind of runoffs and bent greens, so for me, it’s very comfortable for me”,

Gooch admitted after hjs birdie on the eighth hole to move to six-under, he began thinking of a hopeful sub-60 round, adn while he did birdie 10, he only managed to then birdie the 13th, 16th and final holes.

“Yeah, whenever I birdied No. 8, I think — I don’t even know what I was for the day actually. I birdied 8, and I was like, I’ve just made a bunch of birdies, started doing the math in my head,” hes said.

“I’m like, I’ve got a couple of par-5s coming down the stretch; if I can make something happen, 59 is — so of course, when you make that many birdies, 59 for every golfer is going to enter the head at some point.

“So it was actually the tee ball on 9, I was like I’ve got to get this in the fairway, I’ve got to try and make an eagle. Of course I make a par, so that just shows you when you start thinking about those things what happens.

“A 59 definitely came in the head at one point in time. I for sure wanted to be the first 59 on LIV. That would have been a cool history book to have”.

Graeme McDowell, and on a first visit to Australia since the end of 2016, signed for a five-under 67.