HONG KONG — Abraham Ancer and Dean Burmester shot 7-under 63s Friday to share the first-round lead at the inaugural LIV Golf tournament in Hong Kong.
Both players had strings of five consecutive birdies on the relatively short 6,710-yard Hong Kong Golf Club course.
They led by one stroke over a group that included Martin Kaymer and Louis Oosthuizen.
Joaquin Niemann, who won the Jeddah tournament in Saudi Arabia last week for his second LIV victory in three starts, shot 67, as did Jon Rahm.
Anthony Kim, who is making his second straight start after a 12-year layoff and finished 33 shots behind Niemann last week in Saudi Arabia, shot 76.
The Hong Kong tournament is the second of three LIV Golf events that are part of the Asian swing, with the third in early May in Singapore. The week before Singapore, the LIV series will be in the Pacific region with a second consecutive tournament at The Grange in Adelaide, Australia, from April 26-28.
The next LIV tournament will be in Miami from April 5-7.