Among the many criticisms of players who signed with LIV Golf, one you’ll most often hear is that they no longer care about on-course results. Given the amount of guaranteed money many of them signed for, it’s not the craziest thing to suggest that some of them might be content with just going through the motions now that they no longer have to grind out cuts and fight for every dollar on Sundays down the stretch.
Abraham Ancer is apparently not one of those LIV Golfers, at least judging by the reaction he had to a chunked chip shot on Sunday at LIV Andalucia. At Valderrama’s par-4 fifth hole, Ancer’s 17th of the day in the shotgun-start format, the Fireballs GC team member made a disastrous double bogey that cost his squad the lead in the team portion of the event. Leading by one as Ancer stood over his third shot, the Fireballs suddenly trailed the Crushers by one after Ancer chopped his way to a 6.
Here was his reaction following his third, which managed to find the green but did not travel very far:
Look at this wind up — guy look’s like he’s loading up to take a fastball to deep left field:
Impeccable form. You don’t load up and fire the hips like that for a club throw if you don’t care a little bit. Does this mean Ancer cares that deeply about the team title or was he just that frustrated with his own play? Either way, it certainly pokes a tiny hole in the narrative that the LIV boys don’t care. Some serious fire from this Fireball.
Ancer wound up making birdie at the next hole, his 18th of the day, and the Crushers and Fireballs ended up in a tie after a brutal short miss from Anirban Lahiri. That led to a playoff for both the team title and the individual title between Lahiri and Fireballs captain Sergio Garcia, which Garcia won. Ancer can sleep soundly knowing he didn’t let the boys down.