Bryson DeChambeau downs Jon Rahm in a playoff to win his second straight LIV Golf start.
COURTESY LIV GOLF
Bryson DeChambeau’s playoff victory over Jon Rahm Sunday in the LIV Golf South Africa tournament may have happened half a world away but it reverberated all the way to Augusta.
Winning for the second consecutive week and taking down Rahm in the process, DeChambeau put himself near center stage as the countdown to the Masters gathers momentum.
Unlike a week earlier in Singapore, where DeChambeau’s playoff victory was sealed when Richard Lee missed a 2-foot putt on the first extra hole, DeChambeau locked down his fifth career LIV title by ripping a 295-yard 3-wood shot from a muddy lie into the 18th green, setting up a two-putt birdie.
Playing in front of large galleries at the Club at Steyn City near Johannesburg, DeChambeau battled his emotions through the final round, admitting he was fighting back tears at times.
“Just a lot of emotion. Numerous things. Stuff I can’t talk about, stuff I’m not going to talk about and then stuff that I can talk about, which is obviously my dad,” DeChambeau said, referencing his father, Jon, who passed away in 2022.
“It’s been a few years now, and I think it’s time for people to see that I’m not just a scientific robot guy. I care a lot. I have a lot of passion. I care about the game. I care about people watching. I care about entertaining. I care about my team. I care about pretty much everything in life.
“When you have moments in life that aren’t easy, it’s really nice to have had a father that can give you that perseverance and that wisdom to say, don’t quit. Don’t ever quit. You’ve just got to keep going.”
DeChambeau, who closed with a 66, had to save par on the 18th hole in regulation to force the playoff with Rahm, who shot 63 on Sunday and has one victory and six runner-up finishes in his last nine LIV starts. Both players finished at 26-under-par 258.
It was timely turnaround for DeChambeau, who had just one top-15 finish in his first three LIV events this year.
DeChambeau’s second shot in the playoff settled 12 feet away. Rahm failed to get up and down from a greenside bunker to potentially extend the playoff.
“I’ve practiced that shot quite a bit in a lot of my ‘Break 50s’ (YouTube videos), just teeing off from the reds and having 3-woods from 300 yards. So I felt like I was pretty comfortable in that situation,” DeChambeau said.
“I knew just get it there, get it close up next to the hole, and I striped it. It came out just a little lower than I wanted but had not that much spin on it. It landed on the fringe and bounced all the way up there. I striped it, and [it was] one of the best shots of my life.”
DeChambeau’s Crushers team also captured the team title, edging the Southern Guards, a squad featuring four South African players.
With announced galleries exceeding 100,000 for the week, LIV Golf will return to South Africa in late April next year.
Ron Green Jr.
