Jon Rahm hailed the impact of Tom McKibbin to the Legion XIII team after his side secured their fourth victory of the season at LIV Golf UK by JCB.
Legion XIII overturned a three shot overnight deficit to Joaquin Niemann’s Torque GC with a 35-under total to win the team title by eight shots.
McKibbin finished in a share of eleventh place on the individual leaderboard on seven-under-par, his fifth finish of eleventh or better in his maiden season on LIV Golf.
Rahm has regularly been complimentary of McKibbin and his talents and he feels the 22-year-old Holywood man has been a vital cog in the wheel this year and helped his team defend their team crown this week.
“It’s always hard to say one thing, right? Obviously picking up Tom this year is a massive addition, right? He’s a phenomenal player. With all four scores counting this year I thought we played to our advantage. It showed early on and it’s showing now.
“Tom doing Tom things, just steady. He’s a great player in general. One thing you can never doubt is Tyrrell Hatton’s fight, he will give it everything to the end no matter how it’s going.”
“I think middle of the season none of us played our best. I said last week, I was looking forward to Caleb hopefully having a good tournament and not needing to birdie something like the last four holes for us to win. Good to see the scoreboard and see just that. He’s a phenomenal talent.”
It’s also back to back titles for Legion XIII who have extended their lead at the top of the team standings ahead of the season ending team championship in a fortnight.
“The team is looking good, two wins in a row now,” said McKibbin. “We are starting to play some nice golf together and very consistent which makes for a very good score come the end of the week. If we can build on that for the last two events we’ll be looking good.”
Leave a comment