Rahm keeps his word with first individual title at LIV Golf’s Staffordshire event

Jon Rahm fulfilled a promise to his eldest son Kepa with victory at the LIV Golf UK event after having missed out on a few occasions recently. The Spaniard had been told by his wife Kelly the boy had a request, to please bring back a trophy. And Daddy duly obliged with his first individual LIV title at the JCB Golf and Country Club in Rocester on Sunday.

After successive top 10 finishes at LIV Golf Andalucia in Valderrama and the Open Championship last week, Rahm made good on his promise, but had to survive a few anxious moments as his Legion XIII teammate and good friend Tyrrel Hatton threatened to rewrite the ending in the individual competition but also buttressed the team’s charge to the top of the podium.

Rahm, 29, thus walked away from Rocester with both trophies, much as Sergio Garcia and the Fireballs had done in Valderrama two weeks ago. It was Legion XIII’s fourth team victory of the season and they remain in second place behind 2023 champions Crushers GC but have reduced the 40-point prior to the UK event to 15.5 points with two tournaments in the US to go before the season finale.

Playing in the group ahead of Hatton, Rahm carded a closing 4 under par 67 that left him on a 13 under total for the tournament. Hatton was also at 13 under as he reached the 18th hole and though the Englishman was on the green in two, he three-putted for a bogey to end his hopes for a playoff against his captain.

“Obviously, you always want to win,” said Rahm on livgolf.com after ensuring his first win since the Masters in 2023. “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.

“But just knowing I’m bringing a trophy home for them (his family), it feels good to see that it’s coming home,” said Rahm, who now heads to Paris for the Olympic Games with fellow-Spaniard David Puig. 

Added Hatton after his 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 Legionnaires started out on Sunday behind 36-hole leader Andy Ogletree of HyFlyers GC who opened with consecutive birdies and led by four shots at one point before the rest of the field cranked up the pressure and his game came undone.

Ogletree double-bogeyed the hole eight but still shared the lead with Rahm after consecutive birdies on the back nine before tripping up again with consecutive double bogeys to drop out of the running. Paul Casey of the Crushers too was sitting dangerously till he too double-bogeyed late in the day 

Overall individual leader Joaquin Neimann of Torque GC and Smith also rose up the leaderboard but were unable to fully close the gap on the two Legion XIII players at the top with Rahm snapping his streak of top 10s without a title. 

“Finally got one done,” he pointed out. “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.”

With his shared second place on Sunday, Neimann remained on course to top the season’s standings with a 24-point lead over Rahm and 46 points up on the third-placed Hatton with the final two tournaments on the schedule to go. 

The Chilean star and Rahm will also be among the seven LIV Golf members headed to Paris for the Summer Games men’s golf competition from August 1 to 4 at Le Golf National outside of Paris.

The others are David Puig (Spain), Mito Pereira (Chile), Carlos Ortiz and Abraham Ancer of Mexico and Poland’s Adrian Meronk. The 72-hole individual stroke-play competition tees off on Thursday.