Jon Rahm relied on his impressive consistency this season to give himself the opportunity to defend his LIV Golf Individual Championship at LIV Golf Indianapolis and on Sunday he produced the kind of fireworks that earned him a second straight season-long title.
Rahm shot a career-best 11-under 60 to pass points leader Joaquin Niemann on the final day of the regular season at The Club at Chatham Hills that was delayed by an hour due to inclement weather.
It also gave him a chance to earn his first tournament title this season – but for the second straight week, he lost on the first hole of a playoff, this time to Niemann’s Torque GC teammate Sebastian Munoz.
It left the Legion XIII captain with mixed emotions after a season in which he finished runner-up four times and finished outside the top 10 just once (a T11 in Dallas) in 13 regular-season starts. No player could match the week-to-week tenacity displayed by Rahm, and ultimately that proved to be the difference over Niemann, a five-time tournament winner this season.
“It’s a great moment, but it just doesn’t feel great to finish the year losing two playoffs,” said Rahm, who finished at 22 under.
“I’m sure over time I’ll get over that, and I’ll really appreciate what I’ve done this year. To be able to win the season without actually winning a tournament, I know I’ll be proud of that,” he added.
Rahm’s solo second left him with 226.16 points this season, while Niemann’s tie for fourth on Sunday put him at 223.68. It’s the only time this season that Niemann finished inside the top 15 of the leaderboard without winning the tournament; his hit-or-miss season eventually caught up with him. It’s the second consecutive year in which Rahm has overtaken Niemann down the stretch to win the season-long title.
“It’s kind of hard to swallow,” said Niemann, who shot a 5-under 66 to tie for fourth. “But at the end of the day, I think it is what it is. I feel like it’s going to put something inside me to kind of work harder and try to be in this situation again next year and make it different.”
Niemann did get to celebrate a trophy with his Torque team, which set a LIV Golf record by shooting a cumulative 64 under to win by 10 strokes over Rahm’s Legion XIII team. It’s Torque’s first win since the 2023 season, ending a drought of 28 regular-season events without a win, and it came in front of the largest attended LIV Golf event ever held in the U.S., with more than 60,000 fans on the course for the three-day tournament.
In addition, Niemann was glad to see his teammate Muñoz break through with his first career win in six years and his first LIV Golf individual title after knocking on the door multiple times since joining the league.
Muñoz, who opened the week with an historic 12-under 59 on Friday that included 14 birdies and a double bogey, ended Sunday’s round with a terrific up-and-down birdie at the par-5 17th and a birdie in regulation at the 18th to tie Rahm – and then beat Rahm with a birdie putt from inside 6 feet in the playoff. Rahm saw his own approach shot in the playoff hit the flagstick, leaving him with a longer birdie putt that he missed.
“I got a little lucky that he didn’t hit as close to me, and I finished it quick,” Muñoz said, who moved to fourth in the season-long standings behind Rahm, Niemann and Crushers GC Captain Bryson DeChambeau. “First time I’ve ever beaten him, so really proud of that and happy that I got to go home with the trophy.”
Several other layers of drama played out in the final day, including the players at the other end of the points spectrum who were hoping to avoid relegation.
Majesticks GC Co-Captains Ian Poulter and Henrik Stenson jockeyed for position for the 48th and final spot in the Open Zone, with Poulter ultimately finishing 0.38 points – essentially one shot over the course of the season – over Stenson. Five other players also joined Stenson in relegation, including Torque’s Mito Pereira.
“Hopefully, I’ll have more opportunities in the future,” Pereira said. “If not, I know I gave my best these past two years.”
RELEGATED PLAYERS
Majesticks Co-Captain Henrik Stenson (49th in points) was one of five team players relegated after finishing in the Drop Zone (49th and below) in the season-long points standings. The other relegated players are HyFlyers GC’s Andy Ogletree (50), Torque GC’s Mito Pereira (51), Iron Heads GC’s Yubin Jang (53) and Cleeks Golf Club’s Frederik Kjettrup (T55). Jang and Kjettrup were in their first year in the league.
In addition, wild-card player Anthony Kim (T55) also was relegated.
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