COVERAGE: Small Margins Equal Big Wins For LIV Champion Rahm

BOLINGBROOK, Ill. — The money was big, but the margins were small Sunday in the final individual round of the 2024 LIV Golf League season.

Jon Rahm came out on the winning side of most of those precious pivot points, which meant he converted his one-shot 36-hole lead into a three-shot victory at Bolingbrook Golf Club, clinching the LIV individual championship in his first season in the league.

Rahm was the only player to reach double digits under par at 11 under, with fellow Spanish speakers Sergio Garcia and Joaquin Niemann each finishing at 8 under. The firm test at this mighty muni simply highlighted a season of trials for Rahm, whose move to LIV from the PGA Tour put a searching spotlight on his performance all year.

“It’s been, I wouldn’t say a bumpy road, but winding,” the 29-year-old Rahm said, donning the gaudy LIV championship ring in his winner’s press conference. “Making the decision to join LIV Golf and feeling I could make an impact and dealing with the good and bad that came with that.

“To keep fighting, to keep putting myself in position. … It’s a different accomplishment because it’s not just one week. It’s a different feeling. It’s something to be proud of and something to reflect on.”

Rahm admitted he woke up nervous Sunday, but the first 10 holes went as smoothly he could hope, with seven pars and three birdies, capped by a lengthy make at the par-4 10th. From there, though, it got a little spicy in Chicagoland: He missed greens from good positions on 11, 12 and 13, requiring testy putts for par on each to maintain a comfortable lead.

Rahm said those holes were the primary turning point for him, because he thought he hit solid approaches to all three but couldn’t figure out a freshening wind. That he scrambled successfully three times in a row with Niemann, his only viable challenger for the individual season title, hanging in a group ahead spoke to Rahm’s mettle.

“Once it got windy, it got more difficult,” Rahm said. “I can say that my short game won the tournament for me. My ball-striking can overshadow that at times. On 11, 12, 13 was where things could have gone wrong. I maintained and they didn’t make birdies.”

But even after surviving the early part of the back nine unblemished, a three-putt at the par-5 14th resulted in a disappointing par, which presented an interesting dilemma on the short par-4 15th.

Should he bang driver as close to the green as possible, bringing the left water into play? Or hit something less to try to set up a longer, but safer fairway approach?

Rahm and caddie Adam Hayes settled on driver, and Rahm delivered a bullet up the left side that didn’t fade and finished just a few yards from the penalty area. From hearing Rahm tell it, the decision was made at least partially because of how confident he’s felt about his driver since swapping out shafts at Callaway headquarters in midsummer.

“The driver’s my best club in the bag and I’ve been hitting it great all week,” Rahm said. “With the wind off the left, there’s no chance in hell I don’t hit driver there. You can use the extra adrenaline to get close. I don’t even have to hit it good. If I over-release it, it goes straight at the pin, which is what happened.

“If I hit a 3-wood and left myself a downhill lie in the fairway, it’s not the easiest pitch shot into a firm green, so I thought the closer, the better.”

The clincher came on the watery 173-yard 17th, when Rahm threw a 8-iron about 10 feet below the hole and drilled the birdie, punctuating the moment with an emphatic downward fist pump. With the trouble-less 18th the last obstacle, the tournament and the season was his.

“What felt best was hitting the best putt of the entire week on that hole,” Rahm said. “If somebody told you where to place it on that green, I think everybody would go exactly where my ball ended up, left-edge putt up the hill. To feel that good a stroke under pressure and see that ball go in that center of the hole was about as satisfying as golf can get.

“If I were to give myself any critique for the day, it was missing that birdie putt on 14, but then I made one on 17.”

While Rahm was mostly on the plus side of the razor’s edge, his two closest competitors — both for the tournament and the season-long title — couldn’t say the same.

“It was definitely a stressful day, but that pressure was a privilege that only two of us had today,” Rahm said of him and Niemann.

Both Niemann and Garcia hung around admirably, with Niemann matching Rahm’s Sunday 66 while Garcia fired a 68. Niemann, 25, who led the individual standings for most of the season, finished second in the points race; Garcia, 44, capped an impressive second-half push to snag third from Tyrrell Hatton at the wire, getting down from the fringe on the last to edge Hatton by a single standings point.

But Garcia might wonder what could’ve been had his eagle chip on 14 dropped in instead of rattling the flagstick, narrowly keeping him two strokes behind. Especially playing in Rahm’s final group, who knows how that could’ve affected the semi-wobbling leader.

“It was a pairing that motivated me a lot to have my best,” Rahm said. “It was very enjoyable. It could’ve been a very different day had a couple of putts from Sergio fallen.”

Niemann could justly feel robbed by two of his pinpoint approach shots ramming off the flag and caroming far away, scuttling what might’ve been easy birdies, if not eagles. When he lipped out a birdie try on 16, the wind officially left his sails.

“I think it’s just the way it goes,” said a magnanimous Niemann in the aftermath. “I tried my best at that time, and it wasn’t good enough. But I feel like the difference is almost nothing.”

In the final 2024 accounting, Rahm largely delivered on the hype that surrounded his surprising signing last winter — at least in the context of LIV results.

Certainly he hoped for better in the majors, where he only contended at the British Open, and his final-round collapse at the Olympics was painful to watch, but he placed in the top 10 in all 12 LIV tourneys he finished. (He withdrew in Houston with a foot injury.)

“As the weeks go on, it puts pressure on to keep it going,” Rahm said. “Top-10 percentage matters to me. Every shot matters the most to me and I battle until the end.”

His last three events were particularly spectacular: A breakthrough win in the UK, a second place to Brooks Koepka in a playoff at the Greenbrier and a win in Chicago to clinch the individual crown. That adds up to over $35 million earned, as well, with $18 million of that arriving Sunday.

“I wasn’t clutch at the Greenbrier,” Rahm said with a small smile, “and I wasn’t clutch a lot of other times this year, but I was able to get it done today. I accomplished the goal. I wouldn’t say (the season) exceeded my expectations because I had a few other chances to win, but it met what I expected. I would say it exceeded if we get the win next Sunday.”

Ah, yes, next Sunday. The LIV individual competition is over for the year, but the team championship starts Friday in greater Dallas.

Powered by Rahm and fast-closing Hatton — who had the second-best round of the day at 5-under 65 — Legion XIII nearly rallied to tie Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers GC, but came up a stroke short. DeChambeau and Anirban Lahiri, who memorably dueled in Chicago last year, each shot 5 under for the week to finish tied for sixth, while Paul Casey was close behind at 3 under.

Crushers will be the top seed in Dallas, but even for all of DeChambeau’s emergent star power, the day (and the year) belonged to his fellow two-major winner.

“It was quite fun to see Jon Rahm play as well as he did this year,” DeChambeau said. “That’s something … that’s a year. Every week it seemed like he was up near the top of the leaderboard. It shows how impressive it is to do something like that.”

Leave the last word for Rahm’s compatriot, who’s watched the man 15 years his junior take his spot as continental Europe’s best player.

“I mean, he’s that good,” Garcia said. “You knew that he was going to be there, and as soon as he felt a little bit comfortable, you knew that he was capable of doing things like that.

“It didn’t surprise me. He’s just that good of a player.”