England’s Steve Lewton is hunting down a last-gasp LIV Golf spot for a second successive year, and he is hoping to use the disappointment of last season’s LIV Golf Promotions campaign to his advantage as he tees it up in Riyadh with the big time within reach.
Lewton qualified for round two of this season’s event thanks to victory on the Asian Tour in the Mandiri Indonesia Open in September, where birdie on the second play-off hole was enough to see off Aaron Wilkin of Australia and China’s Sampson Zheng.
Last season in Abu Dhabi, Lewton had qualified in the first round thanks to a high-placed finish in The International Series Rankings.
He started the campaign in a field of over 60, and qualified comfortably in the top 20 and ties for round two by finishing T10 on four under. After the scores were reset and a host of big-name byes joined the field for round two, he did even better by finishing T2 in six under.
That gave the Englishman a place in the final 20 going into the final day, and with the scores once again reset he had just 36 holes for a shot at glory.
It wasn’t to be in the end, with Lewton falling away over the two rounds as Kalle Samooja from Finland won outright to secure a place on the roster.
Lewton is hoping the first-round bye could make the difference this year as he said: “I haven't got the stress of the first day this year. I found it quite stressful last year knowing, if you have one bad hole, you've pretty much played yourself out.
“So hopefully play well on the Friday (second round) and give myself a chance going into Saturday because it's just 36 holes and anyone can do it.”
Lewton’s game is trending in the right direction at just the right time. Having struggled since his win in Jakarta with four missed cuts, he finished T25 at International Series Qatar and T22 at the PIF Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers.
Both events featured star-studded fields full of LIV Golf League players, and he said: “It's been kind of weird, I haven't played as well since I've won, but I feel like my game isn't far off. It's really weird. I've missed quite a few cuts by one, just my short game hadn't quite been on.”
Lewton was part of a strong field chasing a LIV Golf spot last weekend on the final event of The International Series. Ultimately though, Joaquin Niemann of Torque GC won in Riyadh - enough to secure the season-long rankings title having also finished third in Oman.
As Lewton prepares for a second attempt at winning the golden ticket onto LIV Golf, he highlighted the positive aspect of competing for the chance in fields that include some of the biggest names in world golf, including Niemann, Cam Smith and Tyrrell Hatton.
He said: “You want that, honestly. You want to play the best players in the world because it improves your game 100%. Last week I played with some great players from LIV Golf. You want to learn, and you are not going to learn if you don’t play with them.”
The International Series is the most prized pathway in golf. It consists of 10 elite tournaments sanctioned by the Asian Tour and offers the year-long Rankings leader promotion to the LIV Golf League
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