Chicago Recap: Frustrating finish for Cleeks at Bolingbrook; Samooja falls agonizingly short
BOLINGBROOK, Illinois – A day that began with great promise for Cleeks GC ended up in frustrating fashion on Sunday as the all-European combination had to settle for seventh place on the team leaderboard at LIV Golf Chicago.
The Cleeks had started the final round in a tie for the tournament lead with Crushers GC but, while captain Martin Kaymer closed with a 2-under 68 and veteran Richard Bland with a 69, Kalle Samooja returned a 71 and Adrian Meronk a 74 to give the team a cumulative score of 2-over for the day.
There was added frustration for Finland's Samooja who, for much of the final round at Bolingbrook Golf Club, appeared to be on track to secure himself a spot in the Open Zone for next year before two bogeys in his last three holes put him back in the Drop Zone.
Players ranked 49th and below in points after LIV Golf Chicago will be relegated out of the league and must earn their way back in during the offseason. Samooja, who began the week in 53rd but worked his way up to a projected 43rd midway through the final round, ended up tantalizingly in 49th place.
"I've got to know Kalle really well this year," said Englishman Bland, who finished level with Samooja in a tie for 15th place on the LIV Golf Chicago individual leaderboard at 2-under.
"He's the nicest guy in the world and he deserves another crack. He's a hell of a player and he hasn't played anywhere near like his potential this year. But I guess we are kind of examined on the whole year, and it is what it is."
Samooja, who earned his LIV Golf spot this year through the Promotions tournament, had a mixed start to Sunday's final round. He double-bogeyed his opening hole, the par-4 second, before offsetting a birdie at the fifth with a bogey at the sixth. He then picked up further shots at the seventh, eighth and 10th to get to 1-under for the day, and 4-under overall - and comfortably inside the Open Zone.
Samooja bogeyed the par-4 12th before rebounding with a two-putt birdie at the par-5 14th. However, he bogeyed the par-3 17th, where he overhit the green off the tee and had to contend with a fluffy lie for his second shot.
He went on to push his tee shot way right at the par-4 first, ending up in thick prairie grass from where he did very well to hack his ball back out into the fairway but he was unable to save par - and his place in the Open Zone.
"I was interested in what Kalle had done since we kind of knew that the team aspect had probably slipped us by," said Bland, who celebrated individual wins earlier this season at the Senior PGA Championship and the Senior U.S. Open Championship – after his first two starts in the over-50 ranks.
"I holed about a five-footer on my last hole for par. If I would have known that he had bogeyed two of his last three holes, I might have helped him out. He deserved that. He looked so good for much of today, and I know it could have been a big six, seven holes for him. I'm gutted for him. He's such a great guy."
With the 2024 LIV Golf regular season now over, the Cleeks will head to next week's season-ending Team Championship in Dallas occupying eighth place in the standings. They will be looking to regain collective form after disappointing finishes in their last three events – 11th, 12th and seventh.
Midway through this season, the Cleeks had hit their stride and they strung together a hugely impressive run of second, first, joint sixth and joint sixth in four consecutive starts.
"We just didn't really kick on from Houston," Bland said of LIV Golf Houston in June when Cleeks GC clinched its first-ever LIV Golf trophy. "We just didn't really kick on. Yeah, there was a lot of golf -- Adrian played a lot of golf this summer and I knew he was a bit fatigued maybe the last sort of five, six weeks.
"In some respects, I think we all were. It's a lot of traveling but we're playing solid golf. We now have the team championship next week, and who knows: hopefully we can give it a good run."