PHOTOS: LIV Golf’s first expansion team Legion XIII debuts
Legion XIII, LIV Golf’s first expansion team, made its debut on Friday in the 2024 season-opening event at El Camaleón Golf Course in Mayakoba, Mexico.
Jon Rahm (captain), Tyrrell Hatton, Caleb Surratt and Kieran Vincent are teammates on Legion XIII.
Surratt appeared in 15 tournaments at Tennessee from 2022-23. He earned 2023 SEC Freshman of the Year honors and was the 2023 SEC individual champion.
LIV Golf consists of 12 teams, 48 players, 14 events, zero cuts and with shotgun starts.
Each stroke counts for the individual event. A winner is the player with the lowest total amount of shots after 54 holes.
The team event consists of scores for each team’s top three players, for the round count, toward the team’s total score. The team with a cumulative low score following three rounds is the team champion for the event.
During the first two days of each event, only the top three players’ scores count towards their team’s round. On the third day of an event, all four players’ scores count. The top eight teams earn points in team standings.
Below are photos of Legion XIII making its debut in LIV Golf.
“It was nice to get off the jump, just get going and play good golf,” Rahm said of his 5-under debut.
PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico —Teeing it up on Mayakoba’s El Camaleón Golf Course may seem like nothing new for Jon Rahm given his three previous appearances on the Riviera Maya on the PGA Tour from 2014-2016, but the Spaniard felt the nerves on Friday as he made his LIV Golf debut.
“Yeah, I could feel the pressure, but it’s a good thing, right?” said Rahm, who fired a 5-under 66 to sit T-4 one shot behind Sergio Garcia, two shots behind Patrick Reed and a whopping seven shots behind Joaquin Niemann after his historic 12-under 59. “It’s weird; you do get to pick a song for the first tee, and I thought maybe it was going to help. If anything, it gave it a little bit more — the heartbeat went a little bit up just from hearing a song you like.”
“I’m like, I feel confident, but the added pressure that it’s one of my favorite songs,” Rahm said of Bad Bunny’s hit track, Monaco, “but it helped because I hit a great tee shot to start the day. I felt it, but after the tee shot and the second shot and making that putt, it felt like I settled in pretty nicely.”
That’s putting it lightly. Starting on the first hole alongside Cam Smith (Ripper GC) and Talor Gooch (Smash GC) Rahm birdied five of his first seven holes to storm out the gate, which normally would put him at the top of the leaderboard if it weren’t for Niemann.
“I didn’t see him early on, and then when I was 5 under and I was tied for fourth, I was like, ‘Somebody is — I was 5 under through 7, and I was third, so I was like, ‘Okay, clearly everybody is going off.’”
After the turn, Rahm added to his tally with a pair of birdies on Nos. 13 and 15 and was cruising through the back nine until he leaked a bit of oil coming in with two bad bogeys on the 17th and 18th holes.
“I feel like one of those bogeys, 17, was avoidable. 18 was just unfortunate,” he explained. “But it doesn’t take away from how good I played those first 16 holes. It was nice to get off the jump, just get going and play good golf. So far I would say it was a very successful start.”
Seven shots back is quite the mountain to climb, especially with only 36 holes left compared to the 54 that Rahm is used to. Despite the deficit, Rahm is more focused on what he didn’t do to close out his round than what Niemann did to take his lead.
Captain Jon Rahm of Legion XIII warms up in the practice area during day one of the LIV Golf Invitational – Mayakoba at El Camaleon at Mayakoba on February 02, 2024 in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. (Photo by Manuel Velasquez/Getty Images)
“If anything I’m thinking more about that, my finish, than what Joaco did. Again, I think if the wind doesn’t pick up, we’re going to have to approach a 20-under, which again is doable,” he said. “The greens are in really good shape, and if you can put the ball in the fairway, you can give yourself chances.”
“I played a really good round today,” he added. “If I cleaned up my finish a little bit, could have been a fantastic way to finish.”
Rahm explained his first impressions of LIV as a different vibe compared to what he’s used to on Tour, but noted the music throughout the round wasn’t too different from how he plays at home – if anything the speakers on carts back in Arizona are more powerful than LIV’s, he joked. As the captain of the league’s first expansion team, Legion XIII, Rahm said earlier in the week that it was unusual to be thinking about managing his team seeing as golf is an individual sport. He then found himself watching the leaderboard on Friday to keep tabs on his teammates Tyrrell Hatton, Caleb Surratt and Kieran Vincent.
“It’s funny, the first few times I was more interested in how the team was doing than myself, which was definitely something new, and I think Cam caught me looking, he said that; it’s crazy how you might care more about the team than your individual,” Rahm explained. “Yeah, I obviously kept up. There’s three players that I want to see how they’re doing. Not their best start, but still two more days for them to show what they’re made of. Even though it’s still early; we’ve got a barely, barely turned professional player and Kieran who’s now full-time here. It could be expected to have a little bit of a difficult start.”
“But I feel like those two guys and Tyrrell at some point are going to surprise a lot of people,” he added. “Maybe not Tyrrell because he’s done it so many times, but those two guys might play a level of golf that I know they can play but that a lot of people haven’t seen.”
Legion XIII is 4 under as a team and currently sits T-7 alongside Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs GC entering Saturday’s second round.
Jon Rahm’s debut was set to be the talk of the first round of LIV Golf’s 2024 season opener.
PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico — Jon Rahm and his Legion XIII’s debut was set to be the talk of the first round of LIV Golf’s 2024 season opener, but the big man from the Basque region of Spain took a backseat to Joaquin Niemann on Friday.
Niemann fired the second LIV Golf round of sub-60 in the last seven months on Friday, a blistering and bogey-free 12-under 59 that featured 10 birdies and a hole-out for eagle. It’s the second lowest round in LIV’s young history following Bryson DeChambeau’s 12-under 58 in the final round to win LIV Golf Greenbrier last August.
“I could see 8-, 9-under, but I would confidently say that I would have bet a lot of money against a 59 here this week just because of how narrow the fairways are,” said Rahm of Niemann’s round.
“He owes me money then. How much was it?” Niemann joked in response. “Yeah, I wouldn’t think the same, either. I think the fairways are playing a lot tighter than they used to be. The rough is a lot trickier, too. It’s a little longer, and you’ve got a lot of different lies, which is tricky.”
“But man, I played amazing golf,” he continued. “Whenever I was hitting the ball, sometimes I was getting good lies, good bounces into the fairways, good numbers, so everything came out pretty good during the whole day.”
With the shotgun start, Niemann began his round on No. 2 at Mayakoba’s El Camaleon Golf Course and made par before he rattled off seven birdies over his next eight holes. From the fairway on the par-4 11th, the Torque GC captain one-hopped his ball on the green and into the cup for eagle to move to 9 under through 10 holes and put his round on 59 watch.
“I think I hit a great shot on No. 10. It’s always a tricky hole, No. 10, especially with that pin on the left. You don’t want to miss it left,” Niemann explained. “But then on the right, you’ve got the water, and I was able to have a good number. Hit a great 7-iron to like three, four feet, and I think that was the best shot of the day for me.”
Birdies at Nos. 13 and 15 moved Niemann to 11 under with four holes to play on the par-71 track. His birdie putt on No. 16 came up less than a foot short of falling, leading to a disappointing par. From the first cut rough on the 17th, Niemann stuffed his approach inside five feet to set up a clutch birdie to move to 12-under with two holes to play. On No. 18, his second-to-last hole, Niemann pulled his birdie putt left so he had to take par.
“Yeah, I knew I was close. I knew that the course could have been 71, could have been 72. But I didn’t want to do the math and start counting how many par-5s and par-3s there is on the golf course,” said Niemann, noting he didn’t think about the 59 until his penultimate hole. “But then I got to 18, and a few guys were shouting, ‘Come on, Joaco, go for the 58,’ and I was like, ‘Wow, I’m right there.'”
On the par-4 1st hole, Niemann found the fairway off the tee and just missed the green from 110 yards out. Putting from off the green for this third shot he rolled his ball within a few feet of the cup and then tapped in for a historic round 59 that set the course record.
Sergio Garcia had one word for Niemann’s round: amazing.
“Not bad for people that can’t play golf anymore. We have one 58 and a 59. It’s unbelievable,” he quipped. “Like I was out there today, and I obviously started really well. I was 6-under through 8, I think, and I looked and I was like two or three shots back. I was like, ‘What’s going on?'”
“If Joaco goes out there and shoots 3- or 4-under and 3- or 4-under on the weekend, there’s nothing really to do,” he admitted. “It’s not that easy to shoot 8-, 9- or 10-under par on this course.”
Here’s a look at some of the best photos from 2024 LIV Golf Mayakoba.
The first 36 holes of LIV Golf’s season-opener LIV Golf Mayakoba are in the books and Joaquin Niemann leads at 11 under (in large part to his opening 59 Friday).
Niemann made four birdies and three bogeys around El Camaleon Mayakoba Golf Course Saturday and was originally leading Dean Burmester and Jon Rahm, who is making his LIV debut this week, by four shots but he was assessed with a two-shot penalty after his round so he will start the final round at 11 under, two in front.
Sergio Garcia is alone in fourth at 7 under, six back, while Charles Howell III, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed are tied for fifth at 5 under.
On the team side, Torque GC leads the way at 15 under, with Legion XIII five back at 10 under.
The total purse is $20 million with the individual winner taking home $4 million and the winning team splitting $3 million.
Here’s a look at some of the best photos from 2024 LIV Golf Mayakoba.
Just seven months ago the Tour announced a framework agreement with the DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to create what we now know today as PGA Tour Enterprises. The Tour confirmed in a release on Wednesday that progress has been made in ongoing negotiations with the PIF on a potential future investment. That same release also stated that PGA Tour Enterprises allows for a co-investment from the PIF in the future, “subject to all necessary regulatory approvals.” In the original framework agreement, the PIF would’ve had the right of first refusal to any outside money if a deal was passed by the original deadline on Dec. 31, 2023 deadline.
A lot can change in seven months.
Given the PIF’s role as the financiers of LIV Golf, players were asked ahead of the 2024 season opener at Mayakoba’s El Camaleon Golf Course in Mexico about the new deal and their confidence level that the PIF would eventually join the PGA Tour Enterprises party, but even the always outspoken Bryson DeChambeau didn’t have much of any real substance to say.
“Look, I don’t know exactly how it’s all going to shake out, when it’s all said and done. I don’t know what it really means for the PIF’s position in it,” he said of the SSG investment. “What I can say is that any investment into the game of golf is gigantic, especially on their side.”
“You’re just going to see both entities continue to grow, and I hope at some point we’ll come back together. It needs to happen,” DeChambeau added. “I hope people can just put down their weapons and come to the table and figure it out because that’s what’s good for the game of golf and for fans in general. But like I said, any additional capital going into the game of golf is always positive. I’ve always said that.
“It may not be exactly what we all think it should be,” he continued, “but as time goes on, I think things will settle down in a positive way for both.”
“Yeah, that was really in the back of my mind, like really far back in my mind,” said LIV’s newest member Jon Rahm, who joked he was more worried about filling his roster for the 2024 season opener this week. “There’s a lot bigger people that are a lot smarter than me that are going to be worrying about that that actually have a say in it, and they should be thinking about it. I think we’re here to play golf, perform, and whatever comes, comes.”
“I appreciate the sentiment that he is providing out to the public now. I think his words are from a much more neutral position as the likes of us over here at LIV have been since day one,” said DeChambeau, who was the last player to remove his name from the initial lawsuit against the PGA Tour. “I think it’s positive, what he’s saying now, and I appreciate that.”
“I’ve spoken to Rory a bit in the past week and back in December. That’s kind of along the lines of what he said to me. It’s not a surprise to hear him say that in the media,” added Tyrrell Hatton, who joined Rahm’s Legion XIII team. “Ultimately, I would like to still be able to play events on the other two tours. But we’ll see how all that works out.”
A three-time teammate of both McIlroy and Hatton in the Ryder Cup, Rahm echoed what Hatton had to say.
“I haven’t spoken to him a lot recently. But he might have had a change in thought process, as in maybe with some of the things he said in the past,” Rahm said. “I think he might be seeing that the landscape of golf is changing and at some point you need to evolve. So I think he might be seeing that, and everybody is entitled to their opinion, but it’s nice to have the support from a player the caliber of Rory, especially those Ryder Cup remarks he made early on. I think that’s an important statement for change to be said.”
While both sides of the professional golf aisle believe the game will be better when it’s united, they don’t seem to agree or even know how to get there. The SSG investment was a step forward for the Tour, and only time will tell if the PIF can get on equal footing.
Tennessee’s Caleb Surratt joins Jon Rahm’s LIV Golf team.
Tennessee sophomore Caleb Surratt signed a professional contract to join Jon Rahm’s LIV Golf team, Legion XIII.
“I am so proud to see Caleb’s determined work pay off for him and take the next step into the professional ranks,” Tennessee head coach Brennan Webb said. “Our biggest role as a program is to prepare our players for the next step in their careers on and off the course and Caleb is ready to take advantage of this incredible opportunity he has earned. His immediate impact on our program will be felt for many years to come and I am grateful for the opportunity to coach such a special player and special young man during his time on Rocky Top. Like everyone at Tennessee Golf, I am proud that Caleb is a VFL and look forward to watching his career progress at the highest levels.”
Surratt leaves Tennessee as the only Vol to earn first-team All-America honors.
He joins Rahm (captain), Tyrrell Hatton and Kieran Vincent on Legion XIII.
One of the top amateurs in the world is joining LIV Golf.
One of the top amateurs in the world is joining LIV Golf.
Caleb Surratt, a sophomore at Tennessee, is turning professional and will join Jon Rahm’s LIV team ahead of LIV Golf’s season opener at Mayakoba in Mexico, which begins Friday. LIV Golf announced the long-rumored news Tuesday when it announced Rahm’s team Legion XIII.
Joining Rahm’s Legion XIII with Surratt will be Tyrrell Hatton, ranked 16th in the world, and Kieran Vincent, who was one of three players to qualify for the league via the LIV Golf Promotions event.
Surratt, ranked 10th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, was a member of the 2023 Walker Cup team and won the individual SEC Championship as a freshman last spring. He was named a Golfweek first-team All-America selection, the first in Tennessee history, and was tabbed SEC Freshman of the Year.
In four events with the Volunteers in the fall, Surratt had a 69.00 stroke average in 10 rounds and a second-place finish at the Fighting Irish Classic.
Hatton finished T-14 at The Sentry and T-13 at The American Express, his two starts on the PGA Tour this month. It was reported recently Hatton was making the switch to join his Ryder Cup teammate.
Surratt is the second member of the 2023 Walker Cup team to turn pro, joining Nick Dunlap, who will also make his debut this week at the PGA Tour’s 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Dunlap became the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour since Phil Mickelson in 1991 at The American Express in La Quinta, California.
Surratt is not the first high-ranking amateur to join LIV Golf. During the league’s inaugural season, former Arizona State golfer David Puig joined the league when he was ranked ninth in WAGR. Puig is now on Sergio Garcia’s team.
Then, Eugenio Chacarra left Oklahoma State while ranked second in the world, and he won in his fifth start at 2022 LIV Golf Thailand. Chacarra is also on Garcia’s team.
LIV squandered an opportunity to take a much-needed step forward.
LIV Golf peppered its social media accounts for days throughout December with self-congratulatory posts after it secured the signature of Jon Rahm. And for good reason.
The big man from Spain is the world No. 3, reigning Masters champion, 11-time winner on the PGA Tour and a blossoming international star. At the time, Rahm’s move amid the PGA Tour’s negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, LIV’s financial backers, was viewed as a momentous occasion for the league. Another jewel had been plucked from the Tour’s crown.
But over the last two months, like the football player who drops the ball in premature celebration before crossing into the endzone for a touchdown, LIV Golf has fumbled the signing of its best player to date and squandered an opportunity to take a much-needed step forward.
Still acting as rivals, LIV could have dominated the headlines in the PGA Tour’s brief offseason. Despite what certain fan accounts may lead you to believe online, LIV is still struggling to build a dedicated following. For the second consecutive year, the league has pushed the release of team rosters to the 11th hour. They could have sold merch and built fan excitement for teams and events. Instead, they dragged out the release of important information – the final two events of the 2024 season are still to be announced – and stalled any momentum it may have picked up from Rahm.
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Imagine not knowing what team LeBron James would play for, or who would play alongside him, a week before the start of the NBA season. Imagine the NFL not announcing the dates for Week 17 games, or where the Super Bowl will be hosted, until the start of Week 1. You can’t build a following when fans don’t know simple aspects such as who’s playing on what team. LIV wants to be taken seriously but can’t get out of its own way.
With the PIF funding the operation, the league has long been criticized as a way for the Kingdom to sportswash its human rights record with guaranteed money and multi-million-dollar deals. Saudi Arabia has been accused of wide-ranging human rights abuses, including politically motivated killings, torture, forced disappearances and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Members of the royal family and Saudi government were accused of involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist. PIF governor and LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan is also facing a potential $74 million lawsuit in Canadian court for allegedly “having carried out instructions” of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with “malicious intent” of “harming, silencing and ultimately destroying” the family of an ex-intelligence chief.
When key details aren’t released promptly, and officials continue to miss their own pre-determined deadlines for announcements, the league looks more and more like what many outsiders perceive it to be: a calculated political maneuver.
Now more than ever LIV needs the golf to stand out. The framework agreement between the Tour, PIF and DP World Tour to create a for-profit entity, known as PGA Tour Enterprises, stated the PGA Tour would decide LIV’s future based on an “empirical data-driven evaluation” and that commissioner Jay Monahan and the board would “determine the ongoing plan and strategy. LIV officials, including Greg Norman himself, have pushed back on this notion.
Al-Rumayyan, the prospective chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises, loves the idea of team golf. Even though fans haven’t flocked to LIV just yet, the concept has proven to be successful at times, especially at the season-ending Team Championship. Expect some version of LIV or team golf to be part of the new entity if a deal is agreed on and then passed. If there’s no deal, it’s safe to assume LIV will venture on as is and continue to be a rock in the Tour’s shoe.
Like the rest of professional golf, LIV’s future is uncertain. Thanks to the extended deadline for negotiations, the league now has a few more months to prove its worth and status in the game. It’s not off to the best start.
Lefty was one of the first of many to congratulate the rising star on his victory.
What do Nick Dunlap and Phil Mickelson have in common? They’ve both won on the PGA Tour as amateurs.
Lefty accomplished the feat back in 1991 at the Northern Telecom Open in Tucson, Arizona, while at Arizona State, while Dunlap, a sophomore at Alabama, did so on Sunday at the 2024 The American Express at PGA West in La Quinta, California.
Mickelson was one of the first of many to congratulate the rising star on his victory, and his LIV Golf colleague Jon Rahm wasn’t far behind, but it was Dunlap’s Alabama teammates who had the best reaction by far. Check out how fans and players celebrated Dunlap’s incredible win.
While a new year brings new possibilities, this new year brings some of the same baggage.
A new season for the PGA Tour began on Thursday with the annual West Coast Swing, the series of seven tournaments from Hawaii to Arizona to California.
But while a new year brings new possibilities to professional golf, this new year brings some of the same baggage. The game is still trapped in a battle between the PGA Tour and the LIV Tour for players, with money seeming to rule the day and fans a forgotten part of the equation. And on the West Coast Swing in particular, one of the game’s top players who dominated the first two months of 2023 won’t be playing in the same events in 2024.
Here’s a look at five storylines from the 2024 West Coast Swing:
