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COVERAGE: Big Names Come Up Large In LIV Team Semifinal Showdowns

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Captain Jon Rahm of Legion XIII hits his shot from the third tee during the semifinals of LIV Golf Team Championship Michigan at The Cardinal at Saint John’s on Saturday, August 23, 2025 in Plymouth, MIchigan. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/LIV Golf)

PLYMOUTH, Mich. — Two of the names, you know.

Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau are arguably the two best golfers in LIV’s stable, especially when factoring in what they’ve done on the sport’s biggest stages.

Tidy, then, that both of the tour’s big men came up large to help push their teams through Saturday’s semifinals into Sunday’s three-team finale. Rahm’s Legion XIII will try to follow up its regular-season supremacy with a LIV Team Championship here at Saint John’s Resort, while DeChambeau’s Crushers GC will push for its second title in three years.

But there’s a third massive force that helped power his squad to the stroke-play final, one who has developed into one of the top players on LIV, even though he’s not particularly young.

His name is Dean Burmester, a 36-year-old South African who hits it as far as Rahm and Bryson and has found a home with his compatriots on Stinger GC, winning twice over the past two seasons and, on Saturday, edging this year’s five-win stud Joaquín Niemann 2 up in the decisive singles match of their showdown.

“From the start, I said Dean’s a great player,” said Stinger captain Louis Oosthuizen, who brought Burmester aboard at the start of the 2023 season. “He’s got the length. He’s got the short game, and he’s just got a good head on him when he goes out on the golf course and plays.

“He’s a great guy on and off the golf course, Dean. I know he’s got lots of wins still in him.”

With apologies to his individual victories in Miami last year and Chicago two weeks ago, this was probably Burmester’s most notable win. He birdied four of his first nine holes to put Torque GC captain Niemann four down at the turn, then fought off four Niemann birdies on the back to prevail.

It wasn’t the kind of massive upset that is endemic to the volatile match play format — Burmester was fifth in the league standings and eighth in total Strokes Gained — but it sure was impressive against the oft-spectacular Chilean. That went double considering Burmester knew his match was the decisive one, as teammate Branden Grace got smoked by Mito Pereira to level the Stinger-Torque matchup at one point apiece.

“Anytime you beat a guy like Joaquín Niemann,” Burmester told the Fox TV audience. “He’s a class player, and he proved it. … I saw Branden lost. I knew I had to win.”

Rahm felt similar heat in his singles battle with fellow Arizona State alum Phil Mickelson. Legion XIII’s youthful alternate-shot pairing of Tom McKibbin and Caleb Surratt took care of business, but HyFlyers GC’s Cameron Tringale knocked off a rally-minded Tyrrell Hatton 2 and 1 to improve to 7-0 all-time in LIV match play.

That meant the two Sun Devils born 24 years apart would decide a finals berth. The match started explosively, with the 55-year-old Lefty nearly driving the 375-yard first hole to set up birdie, but the two shot a combined two under on the front nine of the scoreable new Cardinal course at Saint John’s.

The pillow fight continued on the back, with three holes won with pars, but Rahm was just a little more gritty around the greens to avoid what would’ve been a pride-denting loss to his mentor and frequent YouTube money-game combatant.

“Neither one of us particularly had our best,” Rahm told reporters after matching Mickelson’s birdie on 17 to close the match, 2 and 1. “We both made some mistakes, but … from 11 on I played fairly consistent and gave myself a good chance pretty much on every hole.

“It was just nice to make that putt on 17 and just not give him a chance to possibly extend the match to 18. That felt really good.”

As for DeChambeau, he got involved in the drama early, as his choice to face Smash GC’s Talor Gooch instead of frenemy Brooks Koepka raised eyebrows. On the surface it made sense, since Gooch finished sixth in the standings and Koepka was well back at 31st.

But, no doubt a Bryson-Brooks collision would’ve done better at the box office than seeing India’s Anirban Lahiri get the call for the Crushers. Turns out, DeChambeau essentially admitted part of the reason for the pairings was that the ponderous Lahiri might frustrate the fast-playing Koepka, who won anyway, 1 up.

“Sorry, Brooks,” DeChambeau said with a chuckle after nipping Gooch, 1 up, with a birdie at the last. “They were definitely farther behind (us). It’s just fun. We’re trying to have a good time. We’re trying to win, right? We want to beat them, and I felt like that gave us the best opportunity.”

While those tactics didn’t work out for Lahiri, the rest went according to plan for Bryson’s boys.

Charles Howell III and Paul Casey took down Jason Kokrak and Graeme McDowell, 2 up, to put Crushers on the verge. DeChambeau then delivered the decisive point with a brilliant 3 on the 522-yard par-4 fourth, countering Gooch’s tying chip-in on the previous hole.

Overall, this might’ve been the match of the day, with DeChambeau shooting 7-under 63 to top Gooch’s 64.

“I played well today, but Talor, hat’s off to him,” DeChambeau said. “It’s not easy to beat someone when they shoot 6-under. He started off strong, 2-under for the first three. I had to kick it into gear.”

Now that these three teams have survived the dice roll that is match play, who has the edge going into Sunday’s stroke play? Legion XIII finished first in the standings and Crushers was second, but Stinger is playing its best, with a pair of podium finishes in the past month.

In the end, it likely will come down to firepower. The Cardinal is a short course by pro-golf standards, with four par-4 greens that guys like DeChambeau can take a shot at with driver, highlighting receptive conditions overall.

“We’ve got to focus on going as low as possible,” DeChambeau said. “It’s gettable, barring a few holes. It’s in really great shape. Pretty easy golf course, but I sometimes like it that way, especially for match play. It’s fun to get after it and try to drive greens and whatnot.

“For stroke play tomorrow, we’ve all got to play good golf and make a lot of birdies.”

Rahm said there was a chance to take a breather after eking out two match-play victories in two days, with play finishing around 2 p.m. Saturday. Sunday will bring 18 holes for everyone, with the best total team score claiming the final trophy of 2025.

“Definitely have a little extra time to mentally get ready and relax,” Rahm said. “Match play, as much as it is fun, it’s stressful. Inevitably you look at the board and see what’s going on and just trying to manage your thoughts in general, right?

“It’s going to be a great day tomorrow. Looking forward to it.”

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A 15-year veteran of sports media, Matt Gajtka (GITE-kah) is the founding editor of PGN. Matt is a lifelong golfer with a passion for all aspects of the sport, from technique to courses to competition. His experience ranges from reporting on Pittsburgh's major-league beats, to broadcasting a variety of sports, to public relations, multimedia production and social media.