On a day of familiar winners but high drama, Torque GC Captain Joaquin Niemann and Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII exerted their dominance Sunday at LIV Golf UK by JCB, continuing the winning form that keeps them atop the season-long standings.
Niemann won for a record fifth time this season, shooting a 3-under 68 to finish at 17 under and hold off a spectacular back-nine challenge from RangeGoats GC Captain Bubba Watson. Legion XIII won its second consecutive and fourth team title of the year, this time led by its youngest player, 21-year-old Caleb Surratt, who earned the first podium finish of his LIV Golf career.
With the three-shot victory, Niemann extended his lead in the individual points race to 37.64 points over Rahm and now can clinch the Individual Championship at next month’s LIV Golf Chicago on Aug. 8-10. Niemann becomes the first player to win five times in a season; the 26-year-old from Chile now has seven LIV Golf wins, most of any individual player.
All right, let’s welcome the winning team of Live Golf UK by JCB Legion 13. Well played today, guys. Well played this week. Um Caleb, if I can start with you. A great round today. Six underpass 65 to finish 13 under for the week. You’re at third place, your first individual podium. Can you just describe your round today and what this week means to you overall? Yeah, it’s um it means a lot. It shows me a lot. Um, you know, it’s very hard to be at the top of the leaderboard out here. Um, especially for the first time. I, um, you know, I’ve kind of been in kind of the moment here and there in a lot of tournaments, but haven’t been able to capitalize on a great event. And, um, you know, to be able to do it and do it on a day that where I knew it was going to be really, really hard is um, you know, it means a lot to myself. And once again, hopefully it’s just a good step forward in the right direction. John, a great round for you as well today. Six under par 65. Um, just as captain of this team, you’ve been able to defend your UK title. Can you just describe what it means to you and how proud of these guys you are? I’m say I’m proud of everybody on the team, no matter how we perform. Uh, but it’s been a really good week. Obviously, being led by Caleb getting his first top 10 and finishing third is it’s a big deal. It’s a big week and hoping this can be the boost uh the boost he needed to get to a level that we all know he can get to. Uh not that he isn’t already there. It’s just a matter of proving it to himself, right? He’s definitely good enough. Tom doing things, just steady, just even like you don’t even know he’s there and all of a sudden boom, there’s Tom. Just just a great player in general. for somebody that ti didn’t have a great week, but one thing you can never ever doubt is is his fight and knowing that he’s always going to try to give it all to the end. Uh no matter how things are going, right? So proud proud of a team obviously and um looking forward to hopefully keep playing this good for the last few weeks, right? Uh give it a real good go at the end of the year. Tom, another comeback win this week here in the UK. Um following your win last time in in in Ander Lucia um what’s the team’s confidence heading into the final three events of the season now? Um yeah, I’d say I’d say the team’s team’s looking good. You know, two wins in a row now and um I think we’re all sort of starting to play some nice golf and all very sort of consist consistent together. Um which I think makes for a very good sort of score come the end of the week. So, I think um if we can all keep building on that for the for the last two um I think we’ll we’ll be looking good. Terrell, just a word to the fan support out there, the British fans here at JCB. Um can you just describe the atmosphere out there this week? Yeah, it was um certainly a fun atmosphere to play in front of. Um it feels like there was more people this year than than last year. So, that’s that’s obviously great that it’s growing. Um yeah, UK fans definitely create a unique atmosphere and um it kind of felt a bit more like a football crowd to be honest. Um and yeah, there was uh some interesting shouts throughout the week, but ultimately it was it was good to have home support and um obviously from my side I wish I was able to play a bit better, but um yeah, I tried my best and it obviously wasn’t my week individually. All right, hand it over to media. Go ahead, Mike. John and Terrell, this is your eighth win in 25 starts as a team. Obviously, when you came in, you guys probably figured you’d be competitive with the one-two punch that you guys have, but can you put it into perspective just stacking all these wins together? You switched out with Tom this year, you keep winning. How do you process that from a team winning standpoint? I would say out of the two years, if there’s a year where it was going to be a little less expected, it might have been our first season together, right? I mean, barely got the team together before my uh right, the only relationship that was pre-existing there was was me and Tero. Uh we didn’t really know Caleb. We I did no caring at all, right? And win that first week and and combine three more uh was definitely a really good year. Um coming into this one losing Kieran, but then we get lucky enough to be able to add Tom who’s who’s already a world class player. Um and the rule change of all four scores counting I thought was always going to be very beneficial for us. And I thought our average level is as high as the next team. So kind of following on the steps where I thought we could do this year, right? And uh that is that is with possibly Tero and myself playing at a lower level than we did last year. Still producing the same results obviously due to the fact that we have Tom and Caleb is playing better as well. So uh hoping we can all keep going up uh towards the end of the year as well. Darl, can you just put into words what the team success you guys have had these last two years? Well, obviously that that side of it has been been great. Um I think certainly this year um we have a a very strong team and obviously it’s nice that you know Caleb’s been playing better this season and obviously the result this week is is great for him to to grow and his confidence and to prove to himself that he’s good enough and he just needs to trust himself more. Um, and yeah, having Tom on the team, he’s uh he’s a fantastic player and certainly adds a lot of strength to our team. And do you remember when you were able to switch to real champagne on the podium? Cuz you didn’t have it. You didn’t have it last year, did you? He wasn’t old enough, right? We had real champagne. He just had he didn’t have it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I I don’t think the league could, you know, really thought about that one. Plus, most of the places we went and played, he was legal to have alcohol, so it was more of a choice. But he’s he still won’t he still won’t hold the champagne, so which is more reason for him to get absolutely hosed when we’re up there. He’s asking for it. He’s got nothing to come back with. That that may be a thing coming forward, to be honest. That was that was fun for everybody. All right. Thanks, Lyn. Um, hi John. Um, obviously, sorry. Hi. The big announcement uh this weekend was that Liv is going to South Africa. Uh, have you played there? I don’t think you’ve played there. Um, what are you expecting and how excited are you to go to Africa and actually play there for the first time? I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve never been. I’ve been told where where we’re going. It’s a it’s a I don’t know if it’s a resort, a city. I don’t know. I think it’s fairly new and I’ve heard it’s a really really good spot. Um, it’s too too bad. It’s a little too far for the family to possibly to join me cuz I would have maybe liked to stay after and go on a safari and and really explore Africa. But uh it’s the only continent I haven’t been to and um from what I hear the crowd is already really looking forward to it and it could be quite a special week. So uh it’s just too bad that it’s so far away but I’m looking forward to it. Evan, uh, question over here for John and Tier. Just, um, Wen, five wins in a season. How do you put that into words? What makes Wen so good? is unbelievable. I mean, to to even win one is is hard enough. So, it just shows the the level and the consistency that he’s able to keep uh producing. Um but yeah, I mean, he doesn’t really have a have a weakness in his game. He hits the ball a long way. His wedges is are great and short game’s unbelievable. Um and yeah, clearly he’s holding far too many putts for for my liking anyway. But um no, he’s he’s playing amazing and um it’s very impressive. John, don’t have much to add to that. He um in my mind, I think nowadays in golf due to various circumstances, I think Hain is severely underrated. He’s he’s one of the best players in the world and he keeps proving it. Uh when it comes to his game, he’s good at everything, right? and obviously has loads of confidence right now and and is taking advantage of that. It’s never easy to win and to do it multiple times, let alone five times in a season is is quite impressive. You you mentioned the fact he’s underrated. He’s currently 19th on data golf, which seems to be sort of the most accurate reflection of the world’s best players at the moment. Where does that sit well with you? 19. Does he does he feel even better than that? Where would you put him? I I’ve seen all those strokes gained rankings. I still don’t understand. He’s won five times here. How is he behind so many of us? I don’t know the numbers. I I don’t know. Uh my guess is obviously his majors in events outside of Liv that may be pushing him back. But in my opinion, it’s not a true reflection of where he is. Hake is undoubtedly a top 10 player in the world right now. I’m saying that I’m saying that conservatively. Sorry, did you say top 10? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I just didn’t hear. That’s all. Yeah. No, I agree. Just uh right next to you, Evan. Sorry. Thanks. Um just for Terrell, um hundreds if not thousands of youngsters following you and other home English players this week. Um, how much do you hope this event will have inspired that next generation of golfers? Yeah, I mean it was great to see there there was so many so many kids out there um the last three days and sure if that if that was the their first time coming to a golf event then you hope that they’ve they’ve had the best best day of their life so far and it inspires them to go learn how to play golf, get better at golf and um aspire to to be playing here one day. Um, obviously time will tell, but my hope is that they just enjoyed the experience of coming here and and certainly from my side, it was nice to see so many young kids out there. Yeah. And um, Stafisher, did you get much chance to explore the county or anywhere else here? It’s a lovely half an hour drive to St. George’s Park. So, uh, yeah, that’s all I saw. Brilliant. Thank you. Great. Any more questions on the floor? All right, guys. I think we’re good to go. Well played this week and see you in Chicago. [Applause]
