Oliver Bekker moved into a share of second place at Black Diamond Ranch in Florida heading into Sunday\u2019s final round of the LIV Golf Promotions shootout.<\/p>\n
The South African carded a bogey-free four-under-par 66 on Saturday to sit two shots behind Canadian leader Richard T Lee, with just 18 holes remaining to decide the three wildcard places for the 2026 LIV Golf League season.<\/p>\n
Lee continued his standout week with another flawless round, signing for a six-under 64 to extend his advantage at the top of the leaderboard. But Bekker remains firmly in contention alongside Thailand\u2019s Jazz Janewattananond and American Anthony Kim, who also posted 66s to stay in the chase.<\/p>\n
The stakes could hardly be higher, with the top three finishers earning guaranteed LIV Golf status for 2026, while the top 10 and ties will secure exemptions into the Asian Tour\u2019s International Series.<\/p>\n
Bekker, who featured in LIV Golf\u2019s inaugural event in London in 2022, is bidding to return to the league full-time and has put himself in an excellent position after three composed rounds.<\/p>\n
For Bekker, the opportunity carries personal significance. The 40-year-old has drawn encouragement from familiar South African faces during the week, including Stinger GC captain Louis Oosthuizen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to get a bit of good vibes,\u201d Bekker said. \u201cLooking forward to hopefully playing against them next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bekker, who has been based in George and remains close with several members of LIV Golf\u2019s all-South African Stingers team, admits the chance to return to the league has prompted reflection.<\/p>\n
\u201cThinking back on it now, I had the opportunity to play a few more events, and maybe I should have played them,\u201d he said. \u201cI played it a bit safe at the time, but luckily I\u2019ve been given another opportunity this week \u2013 and hopefully I can take it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leaderboard
The top three players after Sunday\u2019s final round of the 36-hole weekend shootout at Black Diamond Ranch will claim the three available LIV Golf wild card spots for 2026. The top 10 players and ties earn exemption into The International Series on the Asian Tour. The leaderboard after Saturday\u2019s first 18 holes:<\/p>\n
Richard T Lee, Canada \u2013 64
Oliver Bekker, South Africa \u2013 66
Jazz Janewattananond, Thailand \u2013 66
Anthony Kim, USA \u2013 66
Lucas Bjerregaard, Denmark \u2013 67
Max Kennedy, Ireland \u2013 69
Takanori Konishi, Japan \u2013 69
Joe Pagdin, England \u2013 69
Sarit Suwannarut, Thailand \u2013 69
Jeunghun Wang, South Korea \u2013 69
Bjorn Hellegren, Sweden \u2013 70
Matt Jones, Australia \u2013 70
Julian Perico, Peru \u2013 70
Kieran Vincent, Zimbabwe \u2013 70
Rattanon Wannasrichan, Thailand \u2013 70
Cory Crawford, Australia \u2013 71
Travis Smyth, Australia \u2013 71
Christopher Wood, Australia \u2013 71
Jose Islas, Mexico \u2013 72
Miguel Tabuena, Philippines \u2013 72
Sadom Kaewkanjana, Thailand \u2013 73
Danthai Boonma, Thailand \u2013 76<\/p>\n
Photo: Luke Walker\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oliver Bekker moved into a share of second place at Black Diamond Ranch in Florida heading into Sunday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-405977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}