PGA Tour vs. LIV, first round: Brooks Koepka tied for lead but combined scores weren't close

Numerous people this week at the Masters, from Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley to players on both sides of the current global golf feud between the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf League, have said the week should be about the competition, regardless of which tour someone plays on.

But let’s be honest – LIV has opened the door on this with numerous claims about “star-studded fields” and earlier this week, LIV CEO Greg Norman said, “How can our players not be extra motivated? There’s been insults recently that LIV is not real golf and I get truly miffed by that hypocrisy. Rory McIlroy implied we were opening some kind of circus and that LIV is an exhibition.”

Well, on the first round of the first major championship this year in which PGA Tour players are in the same field with LIV players, it wasn’t close.

While LIV member Brooks Koepka is among a three-way tie for the lead with Viktor Hovland and Jon Rahm at 7-under, the combined scores revealed a bit about the depth of each tour.

The 17 LIV players in the field (Kevin Na withdrew after nine holes because of an undisclosed illness) combined to shot 5 over, with six of them recording under-par scores. The first 17 PGA Tour players on the leaderboard all shot under par and combined to go 66 under.

The LIV players’ scoring average in the first round was 72.411. The equivalent number of PGA Tour players off the top of the board averaged 68.117.

Wait ... how about factoring in all PGA Tour players?

Okay. There are 51 PGA Tour players in the Masters field who have full status. We're not counting PGA Tour Champions members who are past Masters champions, amateurs or international players who don't have Tour membership.

Those players' stroke average in the first round was 71.39 and they were a combined 27-under.

Here’s the Tour vs. LIV leaderboards after the first round at Augusta:

PGA Tour

• 65: Viktor Hovland, Jon Rahm

• 67: Cameron Young, Jason Day

• 68: Shane Lowry, Xander Schauffele, Adam Scott, Gary Woodland, Scottie Scheffler, Sam Burns.

• 69: Justin Rose, Collin Morikawa, Jordan Spieth, Tony Finau.

• 70: Scott Stallings, Chris Kirk, Keegan Bradley (six more players shot 70; only three were counted to arrive at 17 players to match the number of LIV members in the field).

LIV Golf

• 65: Brooks Koepka.

• 70: Cameron Smith.

• 71: Patrick Reed, Phil Mickelson, Joaquin Niemann, Dustin Johnson.

• 72: Talor Gooch, Harold Varner, Abraham Ancer.

• 73: Jason Kokrak.

• 74: Bryson DeChambeau, Sergio Garcia, Charl Schwartzel, Mito Pereira, Thomas Pieters.

• 74: Louis Oosthuizen.

• 77: Bubba Watson.

• WD: Kevin Na.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: LIV vs. PGA Tour: How did players stack up after Masters first round