The swagger was there from the start. The gold chain around his neck, visible and prominent thanks to his always-unbuttoned polo. The high-crowned cap that seemed a half-size larger than everybody else\u2019s. The cocky demeanor balanced by the megawatt smile and funny charm of a 22-year-old determined to enjoy the moment at hand.<\/p>\n
And, of course, those huge quadriceps, apparent even when wearing long pants and certainly intimidating whenever he wore shorts, the thin fabric unable to contain the ripples on display with every tee shot. At first glance, he looked less like a golfer and more like one of those rugby props doing battle on the front line of a scrum.<\/p>\n
For most of his first season since turning pro to join LIV Golf, however, Michael La Sasso\u2019s results didn\u2019t match his look. The 2025 NCAA Division 1 champion from Ole Miss leapt at the chance to join HyFlyers GC and become Phil Mickelson\u2019s latest prot\u00e9g\u00e9 to train. Unfortunately, the six-time major winner and Hall of Famer only made one start this season due to family personal matters, altering the landscape that La Sasso had anticipated and forcing the youngster to carve out a different \u2013 and more challenging \u2013\u00a0path.<\/p>\n
He finished 55th (out of the league\u2019s 57-player field) in two of his first four starts before flashing in South Africa with a tie for 12th. But another 55th place immediately followed in Mexico City, and he never found himself in contention. Just last month, he finished a season-worse 56th at LIV Golf United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
And then \u2013 inexplicably or perhaps inevitable, depending on your perspective \u2013 La Sasso became a star before our very eyes. In the final three rounds at LIV Golf Indianapolis, he turned a middling season into a highlight reel. After an opening 1-over 71 left him tied for 47th, La Sasso produced the best round of his young career, a 10-under 60 that tied for lowest round by any LIV Golf player this season. Entering the weekend in a seven-way tie for 5th, he then grabbed the 54-hole lead with a 4-under 66 before claiming the individual title with a bogey-free 65.<\/p>\n
Even more impressive for the youngster, he never flinched despite having three-time season-long Individual Champion Jon Rahm hot on his heels all day.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as I saw Rahm sneaking up early, I was like, OK, he\u2019s going to have to earn this one \u2013 and he sure did,\u201d said his HyFlyers teammate Brendan Steele, who has provided the team\u2019s veteran onsite leadership in Mickelson\u2019s absence. \u201cThat was really incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a season full of drama (admittedly off the course as well as inside the ropes), it\u2019s fitting that the final tournament came down to the final hole. Rahm owned a one-shot lead as he stepped onto the tee at the par-4 first, his final hole of the day via the shotgun start. La Sasso, who had started his round 22 minutes later in the final group off the first tee, was finishing up a two-putt for par from 40 feet on 17.<\/p>\n
After a solid drive at 1, Rahm found trouble with his approach shot, his ball finishing in the first cut. He couldn\u2019t get up-and-down, missing an 11-foot par putt, dropping him back into a tie for La Sasso, who now could win the tournament with a birdie at the par-5 18th. His second shot finished left of the green in a collection area near the leaderboard, leaving him with a chip 20 yards from the pin. It wasn\u2019t impossible, but under the pressure, it was challenging, especially since a par would drop him into a playoff with Rahm.<\/p>\n
As he had done all day, La Sasso delivered, his chip finishing a foot from the pin for the winning tap-in birdie, followed by the kind of exuberance you would expect from a golfer winning his first tournament in just his 13th professional start.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew as soon as I saw this last hole, I was like, \u2018This is my time to strike.\u2019 It all worked out,\u201d said La Sasso, the youngest-ever winner of a LIV Golf tournament. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really get much better than this, especially the last event of the year to kind of cap it off with a bang. This what you dream of right here. Fortunate enough, it came true today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Rahm, who watched the outcome on the range while staying warm for a potential playoff: \u201cWith my mistake opening the door, Michael made a great up-and-down on 18 to win. He earned it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He earned it through his composure as well as his play. In fact, that might\u2019ve been the most impressive element of his victory. Perhaps at age 22, he\u2019s not young enough to know he\u2019s supposed to be nervous. One of the other golfers in the final group, Englishman Laurie Canter of Majesticks GC, couldn\u2019t stop gushing about how unfazed La Sasso had remained throughout the round.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s so relaxed,\u201d Canter said. \u201cHe\u2019s got loads of things he can improve in his game, but I like his head space. \u2026 He\u2019s a killer, isn\u2019t he? He\u2019s going to be great for golf.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canter mentioned that La Sasso was \u201cjoking and messing about\u201d while the group was playing the par-4 13th. Then as they stood on the tee box at the 17th hole, La Sasso asked a question that surprised Canter, given where each stood on the leaderboard.\u201cHe asked ME if I was nervous,\u201d Canter said. \u201cI said, yeah, I\u2019m a bit nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n
For those who have watched him up-close this season, this was no surprise. La Sasso is cool and calm; he just never got the chance to show it off until Indy. Asked what the build-up to the final round was like in the HyFlyers\u2019 team environment, Tringale replied: \u201cHe seemed unfazed to me. It was just like any other day. Honestly, he didn\u2019t really seem any different to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Steele: \u201cSome guys are winners, and they\u2019re good at that. They\u2019re good at closing the door, and I think he\u2019s one of those guys that you give him a chance and he can pull it off. It\u2019s a really special quality and something that I think gets overlooked in the game a lot of the time. There are a lot of players, but there\u2019s few guys that can actually close the door when they get the chance \u2013 and I think he can do that. The sky\u2019s the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n
La Sasso, now doused with champagne thanks to his teammates\u2019 post-round efforts, explained that he was intent on treating the final round as \u201cjust another normal day. At least that\u2019s what I tried to make it seem. I think I tricked myself into kind of believing that throughout the day. Even when I saw them start to chase me down a little bit, I wanted to stay in my own lane and do my best.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next day, La Sasso flew back to his home base in Jupiter, Florida, keeping the tournament trophy with him at all times. No way it was going in a checked bag. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty heavy,\u201d he said at one point, but he wasn\u2019t complaining. Meanwhile, a steady stream of his fellow passengers kept offering congratulations and asking for autographs.<\/p>\n
As La Sasso walked off the plane to catch his connecting flight, one older passenger who doesn\u2019t follow sports wondered aloud why so many people were making a fuss about the fresh-faced blossoming star sitting a few rows ahead of her. \u201cHe\u2019s a golfer,\u201d she was told. \u201cJust won for the first time as a pro.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d she replied with a smile. \u201cThat\u2019s exciting. Good for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Good for La Sasso indeed. But bad for his fellow pros, especially the ones who\u2019ll have to compete against him for the next couple of decades. Golf\u2019s next star has just completed his opening chapter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The swagger was there from the start. The gold chain around his neck, visible and prominent thanks to…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_display_header_overlay":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_volume":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[122],"class_list":["post-5136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-liv-golf","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@fogolf\/117331318194112482","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}