After finishing inside the top 10 in his first nine starts on the LIV Golf circuit, Jon Rahm finally managed to get his head in front when it mattered when capturing the league’s UK event held at a lively JCB Golf & Country Club.
The 29-year-old Spanish star earned two trophies at LIV Golf UK by JCB, claiming his first LIV Golf individual title while also leading Legion XIII to its fourth team victory of the season.
It was a victory that had been eagerly anticipated since the two-time major winner joined the league last December. But it was also a bittersweet win as it came at the expense of his close friend and Legion XIII teammate Tyrrell Hatton.
Rahm, playing in the group ahead of Hatton, finished off a final-round 4-under 67 that left him at 13 under. Hatton was also at 13 under as he played the 18th hole. The Englishman, playing in front of his home crowd, found the green in two, and then did well to knock his 76-foot birdie putt to 5 feet.
But with a chance to force a playoff against his captain, Hatton missed the par putt, leaving a muted celebration for the entire team.
“Obviously, you always want to win,” said Rahm, victorious for the first time since the 2023 Masters. “Selfishly you always want to get that done. But you don’t want to see a teammate and a good friend missing a putt for that to happen for me.
“It’s a bit of an unusual situation that I don’t think any of us are used to.”
Said Hatton, who shot a final-round 69: “Still pretty raw for me as an individual. It’s kind of hard to put that to one side. Golf is generally an individual sport, and ultimately your individual results will reflect what happens within the team.
“I’m really happy for the guys to have a solid weekend and for us to win our fourth event as a team, but it doesn’t change how I feel towards my own individual performance. It sucks to bogey the last in front of your home crowd to effectively miss out on a playoff. That’s unfortunately the reality of my situation at the moment.”
Both Rahm and Hatton started the final round intent on chasing down 36-hole leader Andy Ogletree of HyFlyers GC. Ogletree opened with consecutive birdies and led by four shots at one point before the rest of the field started to chip away at his lead.
Ogletree double-bogeyed the eighth hole but still had a share of the lead with Rahm after consecutive birdies at the drivable par-4 12th and par-5 13th. But the American followed with consecutive double bogeys on the next two holes to fall out of contention.
Englishman Paul Casey of Crushers GC was also in the hunt until he suffered his own double-bogey at the par-4 15th after an errant drive. Hard-charging Torque GC Captain Joaquin Niemann made a spirited run until a late bogey, while Ripper GC Captain Cameron Smith battled back from three early bogeys to make his presence felt.
In the end, though, it came down to Rahm and Hatton. The latter, who recently won his first LIV Golf title in Nashville, bounced back from a double-bogey at the sixth and was a bogey-free 3-under on his next 11 holes before reaching the 18th.
Meanwhile, Rahm seemed in command until he opened the door with a three-putt at the island-green 17th. At that point, Legion XIII was assured of the team title, but a playoff between teammates for the individual trophy seemed imminent – until it wasn’t.
It was an emotional victory on several levels for Rahm, who had finished in the top 10 in each of the previous nine LIV Golf tournaments he has completed.
“Finally got one done,” he said. “You never want to get those feelings to go on for too long, and to get over the hump feels great, incredible. It’s been a fantastic week and a fantastic year, and just relieved that it happened. … Feels like I got a lot of weight off my shoulders on that one.”
FINAL TEAM SCORES FROM LIV GOLF UK
1. LEGION XIII -26 (Rahm 67, Hatton 69, Surratt 71, Vincent 72; Rd. 3 score: -5)
2. RIPPER GC -23 (Jones 67, Herbert 67, Smith 69, Ormsby 71; Rd. 3 score: -10)
T3. CRUSHERS GC -20 (DeChambeau 67, Casey 70, Catlin 70, Lahiri 73; Rd. 3 score: -4)
T3. SMASH GC -20 (Gooch 70, McDowell 70, Koepka 72, Kokrak 73; Rd. 3 score: +1)
T5. FIREBALLS GC -19 (Puig 68, Ancer 70, Garcia 70, Chacarra 73; Rd. 3 score: -3)
T5. STINGER GC -19 (Schwartzel 68, Oosthuizen 70, Burmester 71, Grace 73; Rd. 3 score: -2)
T7. RANGEGOATS GC -18 (Pieters 68, Wolff 69, Uihlein 71, Watson 73; Rd. 3 score: -3)
T7. HYFLYERS GC -18 (Tringale 67, Steele 71, Mickelson 71, Ogletree 74; Rd. 3 score: -1)
9. TORQUE GC -17 (Niemann 65, Ortiz 73, Muñoz 73, Pereira 73; Rd. 3 score: E)
10. 4ACES GC -12 (Varner III 66, Johnson 68, Reed 70, Perez 76; Rd. 3 score: -4)
11. CLEEKS GC -11 (Bland 69, Meronk 70, Kaymer 73, Samooja 74; Rd. 3 score: +2)
12. IRON HEADS GC -2 (Kozuma 70, Vincent 71, Lee 74, Na 75; Rd. 3 score: +6)
13. MAJESTICKS GC -1 (Poulter 70, Westwood 71, Horsfield 76, Stenson 76; Rd. 3 score: +9)