Jon Rahm (-7) can still win LIV Golf Singapore, but he has made it a little harder for himself after the third round. He carded a 71 on Saturday at the Serapong course of the Sentosa Golf Club and is three shots behind the leading duo formed by Joaquín Niemann (-10) and Lee Westwood (-10). Rahm can still win because the gap is not insurmountable and because we already know how he performs in the final rounds. That said, he will urgently need to refill his patience reserves, which ran out early today
Haste devoured Jon today. From the first minute. He had been holding something in reserve for the Serapong greens since Friday and didn’t give them a single chance. On the 1st hole he missed a birdie putt of about five metres, one of those he missed so much during the second round. It was a good putt, but it didn’t break to the left as much as he expected. He stood looking at the hole defiantly, as if there were something personal between them. The day hadn’t started well.
What followed were two three-putts on the 2nd and 3rd holes. Two bogeys. On the first his hand slipped and he missed the return. His thirst for revenge got the better of him. On the second he came up short and missed the line. Suddenly he was out of sync. The Sentosa greens had won the psychological battle. It’s true he didn’t hole many putts on Friday, but he struck them quite well. If the little gremlin took the day off in the second round, today it was as if it were doing voodoo to him.
Jon showed signs of being burnt out, frustrated and even desperate very early on. As if the Hong Kong win had been a year and a half ago. He has always been an expressive player and he will never lose that trait, but sometimes haste consumes him. Today was one of those days. And the misreads on the greens spilled over into the rest of his game. He started missing tee shots left, more frustration, and his approaches, while not bad, didn’t have the precision of the first day. He hit almost all the greens, but he was either very far away or left with those five or six metres that yesterday and today have been a wall.
He holed two good putts on the 5th and the 7th, the first for par and the second for birdie. It seemed the momentum might change, but it didn’t. Again the critical five-metre distance on the 8th and 9th and nothing. Water. Frustration turned into resignation. On the 11th, more wood. A gesture as if to break the putter. Patience battery down to one per cent. And of course, a bogey at 12 with another three-putt… He more or less held himself together and finished with a good birdie at 18. The balance: a single one-putt green all day, a 71, and the necessity to come back on Sunday.
Rahm can still win in Singapore, but first he will need to clear the slate, forget what happened on Friday and Saturday and arrive at the final round fresh, as if just out of the shower, as if he hadn’t played golf for a week. He is the one who must now win the psychological battle.
The leaders are Niemann and Westwood. The Chilean produced his best version today. Three of the four birdies on par 4s came from him. Big drives from Joaco in action. He shot 66, the second-best round of the day after the magisterial 65 posted by Sergio García (-1) in fairly difficult windy conditions. Westwood, for his part, was also brilliant with his irons. He left them very close and even left a couple of short putts along the way that would have made him the sole leader.
The defending @aramco LIV Golf Singapore champion ties the lead 🔥
Joaco Niemann is 4-under for the day 🙌#LIVGolfSingapore | @TorqueGC_ pic.twitter.com/ihYtpEhzXZ
— LIV Golf (@livgolf_league) March 14, 2026
One shot off the leaders are Canadian Richard T. Lee (-9) and Bryson DeChambeau (-9). It must be said that it didn’t help Rahm that his two playing partners were Westwood and Lee and that they played so well, while it seemed they had it in for him. DeChambeau was the only one to reach -11 in the third round, but a short-circuit on the greens, with three bogeys on 8, 10 and 12, missing three fairly short putts (three three-putts), made him lose the good rhythm he had. He also finished with a birdie at 18 to, like Jon, see life with a little more colour
In solo fifth is Rahm with his -7, followed by Marc Leishman (-6), Dustin Johnson (-5), Tyrrell Hatton (-5), Talor Gooch (-5), Josele Ballester (-5), Brendan Steele (-5), Thomas Detry (-5) and Louis Oosthuizen (-5). It’s true he is far from the lead, five shots back, but they must be taken into account because there are many of them and one of them could produce one of those Sunday cards that catch the rest off guard.
Special mention for Josele, who shot 69 despite stumbling twice with the sand. He made two very costly double bogeys for failing to get the ball out of the bunker first time. On the other hand, he will take heart from that enormous birdie capacity (seven birdies, four of them in a row) that has put him squarely in the top 10, hunting his best result in LIV this year
Finally, besides Sergio’s big round, David Puig (-2), 68 today, has not given up on finishing in the top 10, while Luis Masaveu (+3), 71 today, has yet to shake off the initial +5 from Thursday
