Robert TheodorsonLIV’s youngest golfer has just won his first professional tournament, and the last LIV Golf event in league history to boot.
Michael La Sasso, the rookie out of Ole Miss, was just good enough to hold off a surging Jon Rahm, who shot a 7-under-par 63 to chase La Sasso all the way to the 18th.
It was a finale that came down to the very last shot.
With Jon Rahm chasing down La Sasso to draw even at a score of 17-under par, La Sasso approached the 18th green needing only a great pitch shot onto the green to seal the deal.
The rookie delivered and followed up with a tap-in birdie to finish what he started, including a personal-best round of 60 on Friday.
La Sasso’s 18-under par final score was one better than Jon Rahm (2nd; 17-under par) and two better than Bryson DeChambeau (3rd; 16-under par).
Notable longtime LIV member Sergio Garcia shared 3rd place with DeChambeau and finished his LIV Golf career as one of the more successful members of the league.
For the league’s two biggest stars in Rahm and DeChambeau, it’s not the end they each would have envisioned, but each gave 100% and provided one of the most exciting ends to a LIV tournament in recent memory.
For DeChambeau, his hope faded and the tournament concluded with a missed eagle opportunity on the Par 5 18th. In hindsight, the eagle wouldn’t have mattered for championship purposes when La Sasso was able to birdie that same 18th to steal the win away from his more accomplished colleagues.
Rahm, who could have forced a playoff, failed to make par on the par-4 1st hole, his final of the day. While he would have liked to finish his LIV Golf career with a win, Rahm’s second-place finish, one of many, puts him in the conversation for the league GOAT.
Whether he will go down as the best golfer in league history is a subject for debate. The only true challenger to that mantle would be nine-time champion Joaquin Niemann who has the most wins in league history, but had never won the season-long individual championship which was awarded to Dustin Johnson, Talor Gooch, and Jon Rahm three consecutive times.
Rahm’s Legion XIII, one of the best teams in the league since their inception back in 2024, coasted to victory by a margin of six strokes.
Starting championship Sunday one stroke ahead of Phil Mickelson’s HyFlyers, Legion XIII went to business and left the competition in the dust.
Strong performances by Tyrrell Hatton, Tom McKibbin, and Caleb Surratt helped bolster the team score behind Rahm’s masterclass final round.
La Sasso served as the primary catalyst for the HyFlyers’ 2nd-place finish, the squad’s 4th podium finish in league history.
