\n\tMEXICO CITY: Jon Rahm will have a familiar face alongside him in Sunday\u2019s final group at LIV Golf Mexico City \u2014 and a familiar position atop the leaderboard.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Legion XIII captain carded his second consecutive 4-under 67 on Saturday at Club de Golf Chapultepec to reach 14 under, giving him a two-shot lead entering the final round. It will be the fifth time in his LIV Golf career that he has started the final round with the lead.<\/p>\n
\n\tWaiting just behind is teammate Tyrrell Hatton, who fired a 5-under 66 to move into solo second at 12 under, setting up a compelling final-group pairing between two teammates who have already proven to be a formidable duo on the biggest stage. It is the first time since joining LIV Golf prior to the 2024 season that Rahm and Hatton are in the final group in the final round.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t see the dynamic changing a lot, but I can imagine we\u2019re going to be speaking a little bit less than we do normally just because of the situation we\u2019re going to be in,\u201d Rahm said. \u201cDown the stretch, no matter who we\u2019re playing with, the conversations are very limited.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHatton knows the challenge that awaits as he tries to chase down Rahm, the league\u2019s current points leader and reigning two-time Individual Champion.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI\u2019ll be trying to make as many birdies as I can to overtake Jon, but that\u2019s going to be a difficult task,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s proved many times how to win golf tournaments. He\u2019s been incredibly consistent this season so far on LIV. It\u2019s going to be a tough day, but hopefully I can play well and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tRahm and Hatton have gone 4-0-1 together in Ryder Cup play \u2014 and while this will be the first time they have been paired in the final round of a LIV Golf event, their history suggests a compelling showdown Sunday.<\/p>\n
\n\tLurking just behind them is another Legion XIII teammate, Tom McKibbin, who is tied for third with Southern Guards GC\u2019s Branden Grace at 11 under, just three shots off the lead and firmly within striking distance. McKibbin acknowledged the dynamic of competing against his teammates while also contributing to the team effort.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cTomorrow we\u2019ll all be going out there just to shoot the best score possible, and we\u2019ll see where that stands after four days,\u201d McKibbin said. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of a weird position. We\u2019re all playing against each other but then playing with each other \u2026 it\u2019ll be an interesting day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tA group of five players sit at 10 under \u2014 Smash GC\u2019s Harold Varner III, Fireballs GC\u2019s Josele Ballester and David Puig, HyFlyers GC\u2019s Scott Vincent and RangeGoats GC\u2019s Matthew Wolff.<\/p>\n
\n\tPuig delivered the standout performances of the week, firing a 9-under 62, just one shot shy of the course record. The Spaniard even had a historic number briefly on his mind late in the round.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cA little bit, yeah,\u201d Puig said when asked if 59 crossed his mind. \u201cI was actually 2-under teeing off on hole 16 on the course, and I played the next six holes 7-under, which is pretty unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tRahm extended his consecutive rounds in the 60s to eight; of his 23 rounds played this season, he has broken 70 a remarkable 21 times as he continues to showcase impressive consistency. But the chasing pack will be dangerous on a course that offers up plenty of opportunities for birdies as well as risks of big numbers on the scorecard.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile the individual battle remains tight, Legion XIII continued to separate itself in the team competition. After building the largest team lead after any round in LIV Golf history through 36 holes (19 shots), Legion XIII will enter the final round with a 15-shot advantage over Fireballs GC.<\/p>\n
\n\tEven more intriguing, with three players inside the top three of the individual leaderboard, Legion XIII has a chance to do something that has not been done since LIV Golf\u2019s inaugural tournament in London in 2022 \u2014 sweep the individual podium. Southern Guards GC (then called Stinger GC) took all three individual podium spots that week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEXICO CITY: Jon Rahm will have a familiar face alongside him in Sunday\u2019s final group at LIV Golf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-616824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616824","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=616824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}