An unstoppable Joaquín Niemann (-17) has claimed victory at the LIV Golf in Singapore, the fourth tournament of the season on the Saudi tour. The Chilean golfer, who started the day sharing the lead with Dustin Johnson (-9), left no chance for his rivals by delivering a true display of skill at the Sentosa Golf Club, a course he knows well, having finished eighth and seventh in his previous visits with the circuit.
With five birdies in his first nine holes of the day, playing textbook golf and not missing a single shot, Joaco opened up a significant lead on the leaderboard, at times as much as eight strokes, turning the final stretch of his round into a triumphant walk. One more birdie on the 12th and a good recovery on the 16th helped him close a bogey-free round of six under par, the best of the day, securing his second win of the season on the tour, following his victory in Adelaide, and the fourth in the last 13 months. The Chilean is undoubtedly the player to beat this season in LIV Golf.
Brooks Koepka (-12), who was defending the title he won a year ago at this same venue, achieved his week’s goal of sharpening his game for the Major calendar, which begins in a few weeks with the Masters. The West Palm Beach native was fantastic in almost all aspects of the game, especially on the greens, with a putter ‘on fire’ that allowed him to score eight birdies on the day to finish second, five strokes behind the new champion in Singapore.
The best Spaniard in the tournament was David Puig (-10), who fought until the end for a second place that slipped away in the final stretch of his round, with a bogey on the 15th and a birdie putt on the 16th, his last hole of the day, that refused to drop. A bittersweet feeling for the La Garriga native, who between holes 7 and 13 completed an impressive series of six birdies in seven holes, five consecutively, but couldn’t finish the job to grab a good handful of points in the overall standings, where he finished fourth behind Ben Campbell (-11).
In any case, David is becoming one of the best Sunday players this season. In Ras Al Khaimah and Bahrain, on the DP World Tour, he started the year with rounds of 65 and 64, respectively, and in the LIV tournaments in Riyadh, Adelaide, Hong Kong, and today in Singapore, he has shot 65, 67, 67, and 66. He just needs to be better positioned going into the final 18 holes, something he will attempt next week at the International Series in Macao on the Asian Tour, where three spots for the Open Championship are up for grabs.
Jon Rahm (-9), despite starting the day with a painful bogey after missing a putt from less than two metres and not yet having refined his wedge play, managed to set a new record for consecutive rounds under par in LIV Golf, with 21, surpassing Bryson DeChambeau (-7)‘s 20, and to add another top 10 finish in the tournament. Whenever he has finished a tournament on the Saudi tour, he has been among the top 10 in the standings. Simply impressive.
Today, he responded to his initial mistake with a birdie on the par-five 4th, another by holing out from off the green on the 5th, one more on the 7th where he putted for eagle, and two more on the 10th and 11th, where his wedges worked to leave putts between two and three metres. Unfortunately, a ball in the water on the 15th, with a tee shot that didn’t close, prevented him from contending for the podium (he finished tied for fifth). In Miami, at the beginning of April, he will seek a final tune-up with Augusta, his major event of the year, in mind.
For Sergio García (PAR), the disappointment of missing out on points at the end with a four-over-par stretch in his last six holes, including a painful double bogey on the par-five of his final hole of the day, was more than compensated by the team victory of the Fireballs (-22). The Borriol native, with some health issues these days, was exhausted by the end of the tournament but contributed to the great performance of Puig, Abraham Ancer (-7), and Luis Masaveu (-5) to become the first team to win three consecutive full-schedule events in LIV Golf, ahead of Legion XIII (-19) of Jon.
