Connect with us

News

COVERAGE: Hatton, Kids Lift Rahm’s Legion XIII at LIV Team Championship

Published

5 months ago

on

Tyrrell Hatton of Legion XIII smiles in reaction to his putt on the 18th green during the final round of LIV Golf Team Championship Michigan at The Cardinal at Saint John’s on Sunday, August 24, 2025 in Plymouth, MIchigan. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/LIV Golf)

PLYMOUTH, Mich. — From its start 3 1/2 years ago, LIV has been mostly about the stars.

How do you make noise as a new venture? LIV had to pull in enough Q-rating power from the beginning to break through in the modern attention economy.

Funny, then, that the league’s most important tournament of the year ends with a cumulative stroke-play format that levels the playing field. When every shot from every player on your team counts, depth is the most important attribute to have, not the biggest singular force.

For most of a whiplash-inducing Sunday afternoon in the LIV Team Championship, that tenet proved accurate.

While Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau certainly did their part in boosting their Legion XIII and Crushers GC teams in a final-round showdown, lesser-known names like Legion’s Caleb Surratt (6-under 64) and Tom McKibbin (65), and Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri (65) and Paul Casey (65) delivered under every-shot-counts pressure at Saint John’s Resort.

To cap off the supporting-cast theme, Tyrrell Hatton curled in back-to-back birdies to cap a 66 of his own, pulling Legion even in the team totals after a pair of multi-shot rallies.

And yet … with dusk approaching, it still boiled down to DeChambeau and Rahm each delivering textbook birdies on the last two holes of regulation, leaving their two sides tied at a blistering 20 under par. DeChambeau especially rose to the occasion, shooting the best score of the day at 8-under 62 and birdieing the first playoff hole, the 370-yard 18th.

And yet … the combustible Hatton grabbed the spotlight last, stuffing wedge shots twice during sudden-death as Legion XIII won its first LIV title on the second playoff hole, again on 18.

“Yeah, up to that point (on 17 and 18) it had been a pretty frustrating day for me,” a champagne-soaked Hatton said. “Like, I played really well, I just couldn’t hole a putt. So I just tried my best to have a good finish. It was nice to hole the one on 17. It was definitely the longest putt of the day. Then, yeah, pressure putts on 18, on the 18th and then on the first playoff hole. So it was good to see those go in and keep our hopes alive.”

“I hit two really nice tee shots in the playoff, and then the wedges were great. It’s nice when you can just tap those in.”

Hatton also spoiled what would’ve been another winning moment for DeChambeau, who jammed in a 15-foot birdie on the first sudden-death hole force the 33-year-old Englishman to make from inside 10 feet. He did, just barely inside the low lip, grinning and pumping his fist at the pro-Crushers crowd.

His smile was even bigger when he followed Rahm into the cup on the second playoff hole, at which time his captain picked him up off the green in a bear hug. DeChambeau and playoff partner Casey had both disappointed with their approaches, making the ending fundamental.

“The playoff was good fun,” Hatton said. “Sure, I felt nervous, and as I’ve said before, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It shows that you care. Sometimes in those moments it allows you to be, I guess, even more focused.”

Said Rahm, who brought in Hatton and Surratt last year as part of the formation of LIV’s first expansion team: “I think (I have) a little sense of pride having been able to pick who’s on the team. It’s special. … I wouldn’t want to share this moment with anybody else.”

Fitting that the season ended up being decided on a knife’s edge, since the two finalists were so close all year. Legion earned the top seed rather comfortably, but judging by pure stroke-by-stroke performance, the two sides were as tight as can be.

The best example of this: The average of the four Legion XIII’s Strokes Gained ranks was 13th, while Crushers’ was 14th. Essentially, this finals matchup should have been a dead heat, and it was. (Apologies to Louis Oosthuizen’s Stinger GC, which ran a distant third in the championship flight at 12 under.)

And now, LIV has four different champions in four seasons, each anchored by a prominent signing. Previous to Rahm’s proud-papa moment, Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces prevailed in 2022, DeChambeau’s Crushers won in ’23 and Cam Smith’s all-Aussie Ripper took the trophy last summer.

This win feels different, though, in that you had two fresh-faced pros carrying half the load in the 22-year-old Northern Ireland native McKibbin and the 21-year-old North Carolinian Surratt. LIV’s three previous champs have all been powered by star captains with veteran backup, but this has whiff of actual roster construction with an eye on the future.

Hey, LIV is supposed to be a team sport, right?

This weekend in particular, Legion’s kids came through. McKibbin and Surratt won their alternate-shot matches on Friday and Saturday, preceding their Sunday stroke-play heroics.

“It’s been a wild ride,” Surratt said. “I’m thankful to Jon trusting me enough to have me on his team last year, and I’m very proud of the player I’ve started to become. Today was — I’ve had a few nice Sundays recently, so I was trying to have that same kind of vibe going into today.

“I know that I wouldn’t be the player I am today if I didn’t make the decision to come out here and play with Jon and Tyrrell over the last few years. I’m very thankful for that and looking forward to many years to come.”

As for McKibbin, who joined at the start of this season: “Very, very thankful to be a part of this team and to learn from two guys that are phenomenal players, even just watching the playoff there, seeing the shots that are coming in and how clutch those guys are in those sort of situations. I know for me this year I’ve learned a lot off both of them, and I definitely became a better player because of it.”

Team Champions Captain Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Caleb Surratt and Tom McKibbin of Legion XIII pose with the trophy following the final round of LIV Golf Team Championship Michigan at The Cardinal at Saint John’s on Sunday, August 24, 2025 in Plymouth, MIchigan. (Photo by Jon Ferrey/LIV Golf)

Crushers and Legion both surged out of the gate, as each team played the approachable first three holes in a combined 8 under. DeChambeau birdied the first two, Rahm got two of the first three; Legion youngsters McKibbin and Surratt conquered all three, as did Crushers’ Howell III.

But as the front nine wore on, Stinger caught up. All four of the South Africans birdied the short par-5 fifth, and Grace birdied four in a row from 4 through 7. Suddenly, Crushers and Stinger were level at 10 under less than two hours into the action, with Legion one back.

“It’s a great venue, and I think it fits the format really well,” Rahm said of the new Cardinal course at Saint John’s. “It’s great for match play because you’re going to see a ton of birdies, you’re going to see mistakes, you know things can happen, it’s a volatile golf course.

“And on a day like today with a shootout, you have to expect something around 20-under like we did today. Three teams with four of the best players on each team, you’re going to need to shoot low.”

The Crushers’ vets caught fire before the turn, with Casey, Howell III and Lahiri each contributing a birdie to grow the lead to three shots, the largest of the day for any team. Meanwhile, Hatton couldn’t get it out of the garage, parring the first seven to drop Legion into third. McKibbin tossed in a couple of bogeys to close the back nine as well.

Stinger remained bogey-free deep into the round, and when Burmester tapped in for bird on 8, the boys in green were one back of Crushers’ lead. Howell’s errant tee shot on the par-3 ninth led to bogey, and we were tied at the midpoint.

The short par-4 10th got the back nine off to a volatile start. Lahiri birdied and Grace bogeyed to open up a two-shot lead for Crushers. The advantage grew to three when DeChambeau, quiet for a few holes, nailed a curling 30-footer on the eighth after coming up short with his approach.

The lead grew as large as five early on the back nine, only to quickly reverse in a matter of minutes. While Stinger stagnated, Legion jumped right back into the proceedings with a pair of birdies each by Hatton and Surratt. Bogeys for Howell (11th hole) and Casey (12th) meant that the score was even at 16 under with but a few holes to play.

However, the Crushers proved resilient. Lahiri put a 2 on the board on the 15th, the 140-yard party hole, followed by Casey’s near-perfect approach to a couple of inches.

Nearly simultaneously, DeChambeau hit a majestic second shot into the par-5 14th, leading to a two-putt birdie and another team lead.

“It was an incredible round (DeChambeau) played,” Rahm said. “He didn’t miss one shot, and he had that driver on a rope. So he could have shot lower today. He definitely could have. He had two short misses that are uncharacteristic of him when he’s playing this good.”

Bryson followed that up with an approach on the party hole that fed down the slope some 30 feet, leaving a short birdie try that he pushed wide. Rahm missed his attempt for 2 from farther out, leaving the Crushers ahead by one.

Lahiri then came up clutch at the 18th, converting a delicate 80-yard wedge out of the rough for a closing birdie and a 65 — the same score he posted in 2023 when Crushers won in Miami. That also pushed the margin to three strokes when Hatton got in tree trouble on the lengthy par-4 16th.

“The thought I kept having is in three holes with four players playing, you have 12 scoreable chances,” Rahm said. “So even when we had three holes left, I knew that a lot of things still could happen. It was very nice to just hole by hole see us getting a little bit closer and a little bit closer and a little bit closer.”

A dodgy driver down the stretch finally hurt Howell at the 18th, when he couldn’t get up and down out of the left rough. That bogey proved doubly costly when Hatton converted birdie out of the rough on 17.

The spotlight then went to the final group on 17, where DeChambeau rolled in a 15-foot birdie, only to watch Rahm break a streak of 12 straight pars with a 3 of his own. The lead remained one for Bryson’s squad.

That is, it did until Hatton banged in a 10-footer on 18 to pull Legion level once more, this time at 19 under. It would come down to the captains at the last.

“They say never stop fighting till the end,” Rahm said, “and I was just very glad that I could match Bryson, and Tyrrell with those birdies at the end to give us a chance.

“Extremely proud of everyone up here and truly happy that we’re the ones standing here.”

Related Topics:

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.