Top-10 finish for Lahiri as Jon Rahm scores a title double at LIV Chicago

Anirban Lahiri overcame his Saturday slump to bring in a top 10 finish at LIV Golf Chicago that also helped his Crushers GC team with their third title of the season even as Jon Rahm scored a fabulous double with the event title and the overall championship at Bolingbrook Golf Course on Sunday,

Lahiri carded his second 3 under par 67 of the week to finish in a tie for sixth place along with Crushers skipper Bryson DeChambeau and three others. The 2023 champions also sealed top billing for the team finale in Dallas next week.

Legion XIII captain Rahm was consistency personified through his first regular season at LIV Golf that saw him win a second tournament win in three starts besides logging a perfect run of top-10 finishes that ended with the season’s individual championship.

On Sunday, the Spaniard returned a bogey-free 4 under par 66 to total 11 under par and ward off his closest challenger, Joaquin Neimann of Torque GC, who shared second place on the Chicago leaderboard with Sergio Garcia on 8 under totals. The result gave the duo second and third place in the season’s standings and a share of the bonus on offer for the top three finishers in the individual standings.

“I wouldn’t say it exceeded my expectations … but it definitely met what I expected,” Rahm, 29, said later. “You can't really script it that much better, right? … It was definitely a stressful day, but that pressure is a privilege.”

Rahm finished in the top 10 in all the 12 regular-season tournaments he played, the lone exception being LIV Houston that he did not start owing to a foot infection. Rahm finally totalled 235.17 points, nearly 16 better than Niemann, after they entered the Chicago event separated by less than three points.
 
“It was quite fun to see Jon Rahm play as well as he did this year,” said DeChambeau. “That’s a year.”
Crushers GC hadn’t won a tournament since Hong Kong in March and led Legion XIII by just a half point in the team standings. The top seeding and a bye in the Dallas quarter-finals was on the line at Bolingbrook, and the need to send a message to the other 12 teams in the league.
 
The Crushers delivered on both counts, winning their third title of the season by one stroke and securing top billing, which will allow DeChambeau to pick his opponent in next Saturday’s semi-finals. It was their second consecutive win in Chicago after Rich Harvest Farms last year.

Legion XIII and Ripper GC were second and third in the season’s standings and also earned a quarter-final bye at Dallas. 
 
“We wanted to prove a point,” DeChambeau said. “We wanted to show that we’re back, and we wanted to have some momentum going into next week. We feel like we’ve got ourselves in a good place.”
 
Lahiri led the way in the final round while DeChambeau shot 68, Paul Casey a 70 and Charles Howell III – in just his second start since returning from a leg injury – added a 71. Casey had a bogey-free round with 18 pars to mark a career-first. Their three-day score of 14 under was the second lowest total by any winning team this season, a testament to the toughness of Bolingbrook.
 
Casey said that Saturday’s round “felt like a Chicago major had broken out. Proved to ourselves that we’re in a good spot. We talked about it internally, we haven’t gotten a win in a while. Let’s go get one – and we did. We’re proud of that.”
 
For a team with three veteran players captained by the reigning US Open champ, it played to their strengths. And now they go into Dallas not only as the defending champs but with plenty of momentum.
 
With Rahm and Niemann taking the top two spots in the individual standings, Garcia passed Legion’s Tyrrell Hatton for the final bonus-earning spot on the podium. The margin between Garcia and Hatton, who finished solo fourth, was one point.
 
“It was a good fight,” Garcia said.
 
Rahm entered the day with a three-stroke advantage over Niemann, who needed to finish ahead of the Spaniard on the leaderboard to win the championship.
 
The Chilean opened with birdies on two of his first three holes to apply some pressure, but Rahm never cracked, making three birdies in his first 10 holes, and then two consecutive par-saving putts on 11 and 12 to avoid giving Niemann an opening.
   
Said Niemann: “I knew I had to do something great, and I felt like I did. I played amazing golf. But I feel like to beat someone like Jon Rahm, you've got to do things better.”
The 25-year-old from Chile also took in finishing second. “I'm pretty happy,” Niemann said. “I was telling my caddie that I don't feel any disappointment. I feel like I gave it everything that I had. It didn't feel like I gave a shot away the whole season. That for me is a win.”
 
Fireballs GC captain Garcia, who won his first LIV Golf tournament earlier this year in his native Spain in a playoff against Lahiri at Valderrama added, “More than anything, just to finish as high as possible, it's great against all these guys that are so good.”
No one in matched Rahm in  the 2024 season. The championship ring that he received on Sunday was a fitting tribute, even if it needs to be resized to fit his finger. The season-long title was a perfect fit.
 
“It's a different feeling,” Rahm said. “Just being able to culminate all the good golf all season, and especially doing it by winning individually today I think is what makes it so much more special. Knowing that I had to win and getting it done is something to really be proud of and something to reflect on.”
Meanwhile, team members standing 49th or lower in the final tally finished in the Drop Zone and were relegation out of the league though with a chance of earning their way back through the International Series and the LIV Golf Promotions tournament.
 
The five in the Drop Zone included Cleeks GC’s Kalle Samooja, Iron Heads GC’s Scott Vincent, Stinger GC’s Branden Grace, RangeGoats GC Captain Bubba Watson and Legion XIII’s Kieran Vincent.
 
Samooja came closest to moving up into the Open Zone this week, finishing tied for 15th at 2 under but two bogeys in his final three holes proved costly.