Regardless of all of the background noise concerning the brief and long-term way forward for LIV Golf, the league’s occasion in Mexico Metropolis went forward as scheduled, with Jon Rahm bouncing again from his poor efficiency on the Masters with a dominant six-shot victory at at Membership de Golf Chapultepec.
Rahm, who has risen to world no.20 together with his win, fired a last spherical seven-under 64 to complete a distance forward of nearest challenger David Puig.
It’s essentially the most decisive of the spaniard’s 4 particular person wins since becoming a member of LIV Golf previous to the 2024 season – and it additionally helped make him the league’s winningest participant throughout all competitions. Together with his Legion XIII staff additionally claiming the staff trophy Sunday by 9 pictures, Rahm has now celebrated 16 completely different LIV Golf trophies, placing him one forward of Crushers GC’s Bryson DeChambeau, regardless of taking part in two fewer seasons.
“A bit of little bit of disbelief,” stated Rahm, who completed at 21 underneath only a week after a disappointing tie for thirty eighth on the Masters. “In the event you would have instructed me final week on Thursday afternoon that I’d be profitable by a six-shot margin this week, I’d not have believed you due to how unhealthy I performed. Hell of an effort, and simply what a Sunday.”
Coming into the day with a two-stroke lead, Rahm opened with a par, then drove the 318-yard par-4 second, the place he two-putted from 66 toes for birdie. He adopted by driving the inexperienced once more, this time on the 390-yard par-4 third, his good tee shot ending inside 3 toes for eagle. Birdie putts from 14 toes and 20 toes on the following two holes prolonged his result in six pictures.
In the meantime, his Legion XIII teammate Tyrrell Hatton, who began the day simply two pictures behind and taking part in within the last group with Rahm, suffered a double bogey on the drivable second gap and by no means actually recovered, capturing a a 72 and completed in a tie for fifth.
Puig, nonetheless, saved the warmth on together with his personal scorching begin that included birdies in three of his first 4 holes in addition to an eagle on the par-5 seventh. When Puig birdied the tenth, Rahm’s lead was down to 3.
However Rahm adopted a key par save on the tenth with a birdie on the par-5 twelfth, whereas Puig bogeyed the par-4 thirteenth and fifteenth holes. That gave Rahm ample respiration room down the stretch, permitting him the chance to benefit from the stroll from tee to inexperienced on the par-3 18th, with followers reaching out to congratulate him on the well-received victory.
“That putt on the tenth gap was huge,” Rahm stated. “It’s only a second that the scorecard doesn’t present. That six-shot lead may have been three quick and possibly one or two coming down the stretch.”
In the meantime, Legion XIII was by no means actually threatened within the staff occasion, even when their LIV Golf-record 19-shot lead by means of 36 holes was decreased in half by the surging Fireballs. The staff victory is the ninth within the common season for Legion XIII, tying them with the Crushers for many of any staff.
Legion XIII entered the ultimate spherical with an opportunity to brush the person podium, with Rahm, Hatton and Tom McKibbin beginning within the prime three. Because it turned out, Rahm shared the rostrum together with his fellow Spaniards Puig and Josele Ballester of Fireballs.
FUTURE COMMITTMENTS
The match ended with LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil committing LIV Golf to returning to Mexico subsequent 12 months regardless of no public assurances being provided by the Saudi PIF that LIV Golf will probably be funded after the top of this present season.
O’Neil despatched an e mail to LIV Golf workers on Wednesday final week saying that the league would proceed “full throttle” in 2026 with out mentioning any plans for the long run.
He wrote: “The lifetime of a startup motion is usually outlined by these moments of strain. We signed up for this as a result of we consider in disrupting the established order. We now have confronted headwinds because the bounce, and we’ve answered each time with resilience and beauty. Now, we reply by doing what we do finest: placing on essentially the most compelling present in sports activities.”
Nonetheless, whereas chatting with a LIV Golf reporter stay on digicam on Thursday – in an interview clip that was subsequently taken down – O’Neil stated: “The fact is you’re funded by means of the season, and you then work like loopy as a enterprise to create a enterprise and a marketing strategy to maintain us going. However that’s not completely different from some other personal equity-funded enterprise within the historical past of mankind.”
Final week noticed the PIF launch particulars of its new five-year funding technique report, which contained no point out of LIV Golf or any reference to sport. As an alternative, the report stated that the Kingsdom’s focus will probably be on the home financial system to diversify Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil.
The PIF stated it deliberate to transition from “a interval of fast development and acceleration to a brand new section of sustained worth creation, with a strengthened concentrate on maximising affect, elevating the effectivity of investments, and making use of the very best requirements of governance, transparency and institutional excellence.”
