Dallas recap: Cleeks end 2024 season on a low after hitting their stride in May, June and July
CARROLLTON, Texas – Cleeks GC will have to reflect on a 2024 LIV Golf season where they frustratingly lost steam over the closing stretch after hitting their stride in impressive fashion during the midway point.
The all-European combination, who won their first-ever LIV Golf trophy in June with the team title in Houston, had to settle for 11th place out of 13 at the season-ending Dallas Team Championship on Sunday.
As one of five teams who lost in Friday's opening quarterfinal matches at Maridoe Golf Club, the Cleeks were competing in Tier 3 for positions 9th through 13th on the final leaderboard and they closed with a 1-under total of 287 in the concluding strokeplay format.
Captain Martin Kaymer of Germany and Englishman Richard Bland both carded 2-under 70s, Finland's Kalle Samooja returned a 71 and Poland's Adrian Meronk, the 2023 DP World Tour Player of the Year, failed to register a single birdie in his 76.
"It's quite frustrating when you are only playing for ninth place at best," said Kaymer. "It took us 24 hours to get our heads around things after we lost in the quarterfinals. Obviously, we tried to finish as high as possible. That was our only goal today."
Cleeks GC had arrived in Dallas with a collective spring in its step. All four players liked the look of the links-style Maridoe layout and they were looking to feed off memories of their mid-season form when they strung together a superb run of second, first, joint sixth and joint sixth in four consecutive starts.
However, the eighth-seeded Cleeks were whitewashed 3-0 in Friday's quarterfinals by seventh-seeded Stinger GC, who had two players - in captain Louis Oosthuizen and Dean Burmester - who ended the 2024 regular season ranked in the top 10 in the points standings.
"We just didn't play good enough," said Kaymer who, partnered by Bland, lost 4 & 2 to Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel in the foursomes. "The Stingers, they were hard to beat, and particularly in our match, we gave them too many holes. They didn't really need to fight for much.
"They played solid, but we made the mistakes. Whenever we had the momentum on our side, we made a mistake. They didn't do anything special and we had our chances, but then we kind of ruined it for ourselves."
In the two singles matches, Meronk was edged out by Branden Grace after 19 holes while Samooja, who earned his LIV Golf spot this year through the Promotions tournament, was beaten 4 & 3 by an in-form Burmester.
"Adrian tried everything and in Kalle's match, he played fairly decent but Dean had a fantastic day on the golf course," said former world number one Kaymer, who won the 2010 PGA Championship and the 2014 U.S. Open. "And they you're already two matches down.
"If everybody takes care of their own game, that's the ultimate and that's the best you can do. That's what Adrian tried, that's what Kalle was trying, and Richard and me for sure. We just didn't play good enough."
Overall, though, the Cleeks can look back on several high points during their 2024 LIV Golf season. Their best moment came at LIV Golf Houston in June with their first-ever team victory and Meronk ended that week in second place - just one stroke behind winner Carlos Ortiz of Torque GC.
Asked to assess his team's season, Kaymer replied: "We're going to look back on our year as a team after this week. We're going to have a meeting, and we'll all reflect on what we can improve for next year. We were definitely going in the right direction in the middle of the year, but we couldn't continue that form.
"And I take the blame for most of it because I have not performed the way I wanted, especially after Houston. I was playing decent enough to have some good finishes, but I couldn't put good results on the score card. I need to do more, and to be more of a leader, more of a role model, in terms of results."
Kaymer's 2023 LIV Golf campaign was negatively impacted by pre-season wrist surgery, and it has taken him longer than he would have liked to produce consistently good form out on the course.
"It's more of a confidence thing for me," said the 39-year-old German. "The surgery now is done, the rehab is all done. Now it's just a matter of believing and seeing the good scores. I guess it's just a matter of keep doing what you're doing and waiting for that to change."