Crushers GC team members celebrate their third title of the season at LIV Golf Chicago and securing top seeding for next week’s team championship in Dallas. Image courtesy LIV Golf/Mike Stobe.
From a Correspondent
Bolingbrook: Jon Rahm’s first regular season since joining LIV Golf ended with his second tournament win in three starts, a perfect streak of top-10 finishes, and the coveted season-long individual championship.
Those are impressive accomplishments but nothing beyond what the Legion XIII captain and two-time major winner expected from himself when he began this new adventure in his career last December.
“I wouldn’t say it exceeded my expectations … but it definitely met what I expected,” Rahm said on Sunday.
The 29-year-old Spanish star shot a bogey-free 4 under par 66 at Bolingbrook Golf Club to hold off Torque GC captain Joaquin Niemann to win both LIV Golf Chicago and the overall title.
Niemann and Fireballs GC captain Sergio Garcia tied for second, three shots back.
Anirban Lahiri shot a closing 3 under 67 to match his first round score and climb into a share of sixth place alongside his Crushers GC captain Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Henrik Stenson and Lucas Herbert.
The India star started Sunday well with two birdies on his first four holes and picked up a further two shots on his second nine. A dropped shot on Lahiri’s 16th hole was the only blemish on a day 6 under 66 was the best card.
Riding his performance and good displays from DeChambeau and Paul Casey, the Crushers also took their third title for the season ahead of the team championship in Dallas next week.
Solid show
The team hadn’t won a tournament since Hong Kong in March and had just a half-point lead over Legion XIII in the team standings. Top seeding was on the line at Bolingbrook, and so was the ability to send a message to the other 12 teams.
The Crushers delivered on both counts, winning by one stroke and securing the top seed, which will allow DeChambeau to pick his opponent in next Saturday’s semi-finals.
It was the Crushers’ second consecutive win in Chicago; they won last season at Rich Harvest Farms.
“We wanted to prove a point,” DeChambeau said. “We wanted to show that we’re back, and we wanted to have some momentum going into next week. Feel like we’ve got ourselves in a good place.”
The three-day counting score of 14 under was the second lowest total by any winning team this season, a testament to the toughness of Bolingbrook.
In shooting 11 under, Rahm played bogey-free golf for the last 38 holes and dropped just one shot all week. He also won in LIV Golf UK in July and came close in Greenbrier last month, losing in a playoff to Brooks Koepka.
Mr Consistent
Rahm finished in the top 10 in all 12 regular-season tournaments that he finished.
The lone outlier was his WD due to a foot infection in Houston. It was his consistency all season that fuelled his final point total of 235.17, nearly 16 points better than Niemann, also a two-time winner in 2024.
“It was quite fun to see Jon Rahm play as well as he did this year,” said DeChambeau “That’s a year.”
The battle between Rahm and Niemann for the individual championship was just one of several races to be determined in this week’s regular-season finale.
Final seedings for Dallas were finalised, with Crushers GC, Legion XIII and Ripper GC earning the three byes for next Friday’s quarter-finals.
With Rahm and Niemann finishing 1-2, Garcia overtook Legion’s Tyrrell Hatton for the final bonus-earning spot on the podium. The margin between Garcia and Hatton, who finished solo fourth, was one point.
“It was a good fight,” Garcia said.
The battle between Rahm and Niemann was exceptional. Rahm entered the day with a three-stroke advantage over Niemann, who needed to finish ahead of Rahm on the leaderboard to win the championship.
Niemann started with birdies on two of his first three holes to apply early pressure, but Rahm never wavered.
Standing strong
He made three birdies in his first 10 holes, and then made two consecutive par-saving putts on 11 and 12 to avoid giving Niemann an opening.
A three-putt par on the par-5 14th was the only negative of Rahm’s round, but he bounced back with a birdie on 17 to close out any hopes of a late Niemann rally.
The fact that the season’s three best players finished at the top of the Chicago leaderboard was a fitting finale.
“You can’t really script it that much better, right?” Rahm said. “… It was definitely a stressful day, but that pressure is a privilege.”
Said Niemann: “I knew I had to do something great, and I felt like I did. I played amazing golf. But I feel like to beat someone like Jon Rahm, you’ve got to do things better.”
No one in the 2024 LIV Golf League was better than Rahm. The championship ring that he received post-round Sunday was a fitting tribute, even if it needs to be resized to fit his finger. The season-long title, meanwhile, is a perfect fit.
“It’s a different feeling,” Rahm said. “Just being able to culminate all the good golf all season, and especially doing it by winning individually today I think is what makes it so much more special.
“Knowing that I had to win and getting it done is something to really be proud of and something to reflect on.”
Five players finished in the Drop Zone and will be relegated out of the 2025 season and will need to qualify their way back – Cleeks GC’s Kalle Samooja, Iron Heads GC’s Scott Vincent, Stinger GC’s Branden Grace, RangeGoats GC captain Bubba Watson and Legion XIII’s Kieran Vincent.
Dallas seedings
1. Crushers GC
2. Legion XIII
3. Ripper GC
4. Smash GC
5. Torque GC
6. Fireballs GC
7. Stinger GC
8. Cleeks GC
9. RangeGoats GC
10. 4Aces GC
11. Majesticks GC
12. HyFlyers GC
13. Iron Heads GC
Final standings
1. Crushers GC -14 (Lahiri 67, DeChambeau 68, Casey 70, Howell III 71; Rd. 3 score: -4)
2. Legion XIII -13 (Hatton 65, Rahm 66, Vincent 66, Surratt 75; Rd. 3 score: -8)
3. Fireballs GC -12 (Puig 67, Ancer 67, Garcia 68, Chacarra 72; Rd. 3 score: -6)
4. Majesticks GC -11 (Stenson 66, Poulter 68, Westwood 70, Horsfield 70; Rd. 3 score: -6)
T5. RangeGoats GC -9 (Watson 65, Uihlein 67, Wolff 67, Pieters 68; Rd. 3 score: -13)
T5. Torque GC -9 (Niemann 66, Muñoz 67, Ortiz 71, Pereira 71; Rd. 3 score: -5)
7. Cleeks GC -8 (Kaymer 68, Bland 69, Samooja 71, Meronk 74; Rd. 3 score: +2)
8. Smash GC -7 (McDowell 66, Gooch 67, Koepka 70, Kokrak 70; Rd. 3 score: -7)
9. Iron Heads GC -5 (Kozuma 67, Na 68, Vincent 68, Lee 70; Rd. 3 score: -7)
10. 4Aces GC -3 (Varner III 67, Perez 68, Reed 69, Johnson 75; Rd. 3 score: -1)
11. HyFlyers GC -2 (Tringale 64, Mickelson 67, Steele 68, Ogletree 69; Rd. 3 score: -12)
12. Ripper GC E (Jones 67, Herbert 68, Leishman 68, Smith 74; Rd. 2 score: -3)
13. Stinger GC +6 (Grace 68, Oosthuizen 69, Burmester 73, Schwartzel 74; Rd. 3 score: +4)
Round 3 stats
Driving accuracy: Jon Rahm, Henrik Stenson, Paul Casey, Graeme McDowell, Marc Leishman, 78.57% (11 of 14 fairways hit)
Driving distance: Matthew Wolff, 364.6 yards avg.
Longest drive: Joaquin Niemann, 379.1 yards, 14th hole
Greens in regulation: Sebastián Muñoz, 88.89% (16 of 18 greens)
Putting: Ian Poulter, David Puig, Matt Jones, 1.30 putts per hole
Bogey-free rounds: Cameron Tringale (64), Jon Rahm (66), Joaquin Niemann (66), Henrik Stenson (66), Sergio Garcia (68), Bryson DeChambeau (68), Thomas Pieters (68), Paul Casey (70)
Also read: Rahm moves into pole position in two races at LIV Golf Chicago
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