Michael La Sasso, the 2025 NCAA individual champion, needed just a tap-in birdie on his final hole on Sunday to beat Jon Rahm and win the first LIV Golf event of his career, and when he did it, his teammates doused him with champagne.
It was a big victory for La Sasso in what was a very weird week for LIV Golf.
Sunday at The Club at Chatham Hills was the final round of LIV Golf Indianapolis, the final event of the season for LIV and, well, who knows what else.
The league, you probably have read by now, will not be funded by the Saudi PIF beyond this season. The league and its CEO, Scott O’Neil, is scrambling to secure its own. There’s an unnamed lead investor that was announced weeks ago — believed to be Ted Goldthorpe of BC Partners — but few specifics have been made public beyond that.
There’s also been all sorts of unsavory news: LIV late on checks to some players, missed vendor payments, canceling tournament-week concerts and the bizarre handling of its canceled team event in Michigan (the team event was instead folded into Indy).
Now questions remain regarding what’s next. LIV 2.0 is what the league is calling it, although LIV veteran Ian Poulter said just last week, “I think time might run out.”
Sunday’s final-round TV broadcast included several end-of-the-season sendoffs and farewells, but that’s also true with any season-ending broadcast in any sport. It’s that lingering uncertainty — about players, funding, the league itself — that made it feel different.
“Whatever the future holds,” Arlo White said as Rahm finished up on Sunday, “Jon Rahm has been colossal in the LIV Golf league.”
Or when reporter Henni Zuel signed off after interviewing Rahm and his winning Legion XIII team: “For myself, it’s a goodbye for now of this last iteration of what LIV was.”
Bryson DeChambeau, who along with Rahm, is the league’s greatest asset, was asked post-round if he had any thoughts as LIV transitions from chapter one to chapter two.
“I think there’s a lot of potential moving forward,” he said. “It’s been an interesting ride, that’s for sure. You know just as much as I have everything that we’ve gone through and the tough moments that we’ve had. But it’s made us stronger. As much as we’re transitioning from LIV 1.0 to 2.0, I have great thoughts about what could happen next year. I wish I could be more up front about it. But ultimately I’m proud of the fact of what we’ve done, the good and some of the bad that we’ve unfortunately had, things that have occurred. I’m going to be real with it — not everything was perfect. But for the most part we’ve done a solid job. If there’s one thing that I could say, it’s we did something different in the game of golf, and I’m proud of that.”
Rahm was asked post-round to identify the main things he’s looking for as he decides what his future will hold.
“I’m looking forward to going home and helping my very pregnant wife with the kids because it’s a 3-v-1 right now; it’s probably a 4-v-1 with the one that’s due in October,” he said. “Happy to be dad for a few days before I get back for the Irish Open, but mainly looking forward to a haircut tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. because I need one badly.”
Rahm had no interest in actually answering the question. Right now there are lots left unanswered.
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