Regardless of all of the background noise in regards to the quick 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 probably 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 workforce additionally claiming the workforce 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 enjoying two fewer seasons.
“A bit of little bit of disbelief,” mentioned Rahm, who completed at 21 beneath only a week after a disappointing tie for thirty eighth on the Masters. “Should you would have informed me final week on Thursday afternoon that I’d be successful by a six-shot margin this week, I might not have believed you due to how dangerous 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 ft 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 ft for eagle. Birdie putts from 14 ft and 20 ft on the subsequent 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 enjoying 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, stored 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 respiratory 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 mentioned. “It’s only a second that the scorecard doesn’t present. That six-shot lead might 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 workforce occasion, even when their LIV Golf-record 19-shot lead by means of 36 holes was lowered in half by the surging Fireballs. The workforce victory is the ninth within the common season for Legion XIII, tying them with the Crushers for many of any workforce.
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 event ended with LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil committing LIV Golf to returning to Mexico subsequent 12 months regardless of no public assurances being supplied by the Saudi PIF that LIV Golf will probably be funded after the tip of this present season.
O’Neil despatched an e mail to LIV Golf employees on Wednesday final week saying that the league would proceed “full throttle” in 2026 with out mentioning any plans for the longer term.
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 imagine in disrupting the established order. We now have confronted headwinds because the leap, and we’ve answered each time with resilience and beauty. Now, we reply by doing what we do greatest: placing on probably the most compelling present in sports activities.”
Nevertheless, whereas chatting with a LIV Golf reporter stay on digital camera on Thursday – in an interview clip that was subsequently taken down – O’Neil mentioned: “The fact is you’re funded by means of the season, and then you definitely 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 every other non-public 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 mentioned that the Kingsdom’s focus will probably be on the home economic system to diversify Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil.
The PIF mentioned it deliberate to transition from “a interval of speedy progress and acceleration to a brand new section of sustained worth creation, with a strengthened give attention to maximising influence, elevating the effectivity of investments, and making use of the very best requirements of governance, transparency and institutional excellence.”
