{"id":76901,"date":"2025-08-18T07:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T07:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/76901\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T07:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T07:42:08","slug":"rahm-defends-liv-points-title-but-loses-in-playoff-to-munoz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/76901\/","title":{"rendered":"Rahm defends LIV points title but loses in playoff to Munoz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WESTFIELD, Ind. &#8212; <a data-player-guid=\"f7192f24-1537-e91b-de6f-3548d5989626\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/9780\/jon-rahm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jon Rahm<\/a> successfully defended his LIV Golf season points title Sunday without winning an event all year, closing with an 11-under 60 before losing a playoff to <a data-player-guid=\"d921abae-9250-f837-6ca8-d7b516e04709\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/10404\/sebastian-munoz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sebasti\u00e1n Mu\u00f1oz<\/a> on the first extra hole in the Indianapolis event.<\/p>\n<p>Munoz won two days after becoming the first player to shoot 59 with a double-bogey. The Colombian player &#8212; with Rahm hitting balls on driving range &#8212; birdied the final two holes in regulation for a 65 to match Rahm at 22 under at The Club at Chatham Hills.<\/p>\n<p>Rahm also lost on the first extra hole last week outside Chicago, falling to <a data-player-guid=\"26cef753-9707-551f-2b27-d6252b4e52f9\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/5830\/dean-burmester\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dean Burmester<\/a> in a three-way playoff that included <a data-player-guid=\"4335d8b7-5d77-338c-9070-0926d6a81599\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/515220\/josele-ballester\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Josele Ballester<\/a>. On Sunday, Munoz beat the Spanish star won the playoff with a 6-foot birdie putt on the par-4 18th.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a great moment, but it just doesn&#8217;t feel great to finish the year losing two playoffs,&#8221; Rahm said. &#8220;I&#8217;m sure over time I&#8217;ll get over that, and I&#8217;ll really appreciate what I&#8217;ve done this year. To be able to win the season without actually winning a tournament, I know I&#8217;ll be proud of that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rahm took the season points title from <a data-player-guid=\"09533166-488d-e59f-7527-371673203ffc\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/11099\/joaquin-niemann\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Joaqu\u00edn Niemann<\/a>, a five-time winner this season. Niemann shot a 66 to tie for fourth at 17 under, his first top-10 finish of the year that he didn&#8217;t win.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s kind of hard to swallow,&#8221; Niemann said. &#8220;But at the end of the day, I think it is what it is. I feel like it&#8217;s going to put something inside me to kind of work harder and try to be in this situation again next year and make it different.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Munoz and Niemann led Torque GC to the team event championship with a record 64-under total. The team broke the LIV mark of 53 under.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I got a little lucky that he didn&#8217;t hit as close to me, and I finished it quick,&#8221; Munoz said. &#8220;First time I&#8217;ve ever beaten him, so really proud of that and happy that I got to go home with the trophy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a data-player-guid=\"202b1b0f-ebc7-db53-c368-9d5cb7a03af1\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/619\/ian-poulter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ian Poulter<\/a> birdied four of his last five holes for a 67 to tie for 17th and avoid relegation from the tour. Majesticks teammate <a data-player-guid=\"cdb79a4a-3679-25c4-6f65-80471bd579d7\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/576\/henrik-stenson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Henrik Stenson<\/a> was relegated, missing a 20-foot birdie putt on the final hole that would have keep him on the tour and left Poulter out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WESTFIELD, Ind. &#8212; Jon Rahm successfully defended his LIV Golf season points title Sunday without winning an event&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-76901","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\/76901","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=76901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}