LIV Golf: Jon Rahm claims win in Bolingbrook, LIV Golf season title

BOLINGBROOK – Jon Rahm woke up Sunday feeling nervous.

Wouldn’t you be if $22 million was on the line?

He was giddy at day’s end, winner of that jackpot by capturing both the LIV Golf Chicago tournament at Bolingbrook Golf Club and the LIV season title with a final round 4-under-par 66 to beat Joaquin Niemann and Sergio Garcia by three strokes at 11-under 199. The former earned him $4 million, the latter $18 million and a gaudy gold and diamond ring.

“It was definitely a stressful day, but that pressure [for the season title] was a privilege only two of us had. That’s why I focused on winning the tournament. If I did that, everything would take care of itself.”

Niemann, second in the season race, had to console himself with $10 million, along with $1.875 million for the week, while Garcia took $4 million for taking third in the season scrap ahead of Tyrrell Hatton and, like Niemann, $1.875 million for three days’ toil.

Rahm, the overnight leader, went bogey-free across Bolingbrook’s windswept acreage, clinching the victory by sinking a 15-foot left-to-right birdie putt on the par-3 17th for a three-stroke lead, punctuating it with a pair of fist pumps. Niemann, Garcia and Brooks Koepka could only watch as he pulled away.

Niemann briefly charged with birdies on two of the first three holes, then went dormant for the rest of the front nine. About the only moment of drama for the gallery of some 12,000 spectators came on the par-3 sixth hole, when Garcia sank an 18-foot birdie putt to get to 7 under, a stroke back, only to see Rahm run down a 16-footer a minute later to move to 9 under and all but close the door on his rivals. None of the top three made a final-round bogey on a windblown course with hard greens and gnarly rough, a testament to their skill.

“When the wind came up [on the back nine], it played to my advantage,” Rahm said.

After jumping from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf for a reported $300 million in December 2023, Rahm had been disappointed in his early results, and also did little in the major championships until tying for seventh in the British Open. At the Paris Olympics, he fell out of medal contention in the final holes, tying for fifth. He built on those two placings in the second half of the LIV season, finally winning in the United Kingdom and making it two of the last three by capturing the Bolingbrook derby, with a second place at The Greenbrier in between.

“It’s been, I wouldn’t say a bumpy road, but winding,” said Rahm, who ran his LIV earnings to $34,754,821 aside from the signing bonus. “I joined LIV to make an impact. At [the opener at] Mayakoba, I absolutely ruined the finish. That was the start. But from Nashville on, my level of golf was way better. I thought a win was almost inevitable.”

The Crushers, led by Bryson DeChambeau, took the lead in the team championship going into next week’s team finale in Dallas by winning the week’s team competition with a total of 14-under 196. DeChambeau, Anirban Lahiri, Paul Casey and Charles Howell III split up $3 million and are in prime position to defend their 2023 team title next week.

“It was not an easy golf course,” said DeChambeau, who first saw Bolingbrook as a junior golfer in 2007. “We’ve been steady all year. It was fun, being able to eke out a victory here.”