Lee holds off Scheffler to clinch maiden PGA Tour victory at Houston Open

AUGUSTA, Georgia: For now, there’s another tradition unlike any other at the Masters: the first opportunity in nine months for all the world’s best players to compete against each other.

Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau are among the biggest stars in golf that hardly anyone sees during this great divide in golf between the PGA Tour and Saudi-funded LIV Golf that doesn’t appear to have a bridge in the immediate works.

“I think we would all like to see that,” Rahm said about a potential unification. “But as far as I can tell and you guys can tell, it’s not happening anytime soon.”

Rahm still goes upstairs in the Augusta National clubhouse to the locker room set aside for Masters champions where he can find plenty of friends, six of them colleagues at LIV Golf and plenty others who can see beyond the strife.

DeChambeau still dreams of winning a Masters green jacket like he did when he was a kid. Even so, there is another identity at the first major of the year because it’s been so long since so many of the best were in the same field.

“Anytime I get an opportunity to play against everyone, the best players in the world, it’s great,” DeChambeau said. “I think that’s what we’re all hoping for at some point is for that to be figured out. That’s beyond me and beyond my scope, unfortunately. I think at some point if the players get all together, I think we could figure it out. But it’s a lot more complicated, obviously, than what we all think.”

Rahm returns to Augusta National in a far different frame of mind.

He was the defending Masters champion last year, fresh off his decision to go back on his proclaimed “fealty” to the PGA Tour and sign for LIV Golf. 

He had a major championship season to forget, never seriously contending in any of them, missing the US Open with a toe infection.

“There was a few times where there was a lot of questions that I didn’t really have an answer to ... the state of the game and what’s happening. We all want a solution and it’s hard to give one. When it comes to this week, last year for me was tough because it was the first major after joining LIV and I was also defending. There was a lot going on that week.”

There doesn’t appear to be much going on in terms of a solution.

The second White House meeting with President Donald Trump in February resulted in what amounts to a stalemate.

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund behind LIV Golf, wants a path forward for team golf. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said while the goal was bringing together golf’s best, “The only deal that we would regret is one that compromises the essence of what makes the game of golf and the PGA Tour so exceptional.”

PIF recently sent a proposal offering $1.5 billion and Al-Rumayyan a seat on the PGA Tour Enterprises, to which the tour found no need to respond because it was ground already covered with no solution what to do with two tours.

Rahm, DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and other LIV players arrived from Miami after the first domestic LIV event at Trump Doral. According to Sports Business Journal, the PGA Tour averaged 1.75 million viewers on NBC for Brian Harman winning the Valero Texas Open. LIV Golf averaged 484,000 viewers on Fox for Marc Leishman winning.

And now they are all at Augusta National, and golf feels normal again amid dogwoods and azaleas, and far less Georgia pines wiped out by Hurricane Helene last fall.

It’s a big stage for the top players on LIV Golf to perform because opportunities are limited, even as players are thinking more about winning a major than proving anything beyond that. DeChambeau wants a first green jacket as badly as Rahm wants a second, as much as Scottie Scheffler is trying to win a third.

“I don’t think you need to do anything to make the Masters any more special than it already is,” Rahm said. “Coming here, there’s no added anything to that. Majors have always been aside from every event in the world, and when you come to one of those, it doesn’t feel any different to what it was before or anything like that.”

Toward the end of Rahm’s press conference, he was asked about the world ranking — LIV Golf events do not get points — and where he felt he was among the best in the world.

“Where am I in the world rankings at this point? Am I out of the top 100 yet?” he asked Close. The two-time major champion is coming up on the two-year anniversary of when he was No. 1 in the world. He dropped five spots this week to No. 80.

“A couple weeks to go and I’ll be gone,” Rahm said with sarcasm mixed with reality. “I’m not going to say exactly a number, but I would still undoubtedly consider myself a top-10 player in the world. But it’s hard to tell nowadays.”

He wouldn’t get much of an argument. During his time on LIV, the Spaniard has never finished out of the top 10 in any 54-hole tournament he finished.

In the seven tournaments he played outside LIV last year — including the Olympics — Rahm has five top 10s, a missed cut at the PGA Championship and a tie for 45th in the Masters.

“I think last year the state of my game was being unfairly judged based on how I played here and at the PGA compared to how I really played throughout the whole year,” Rahm said. “While I understand why, I don’t think it was the most fair state of my game.”

MIAMI: The all-Australian Ripper GC team held a preseason training camp in January on the Blue Monster at Trump National Doral. The weather was cold, misty and windy. The 10th fairway was inaccessible. The conditions were brutal — but the payoff came Sunday at LIV Golf Miami.

The Rippers won the battle of survival under the harshest scoring circumstances in league history, with popular veteran Marc Leishman claiming his first LIV Golf individual title after shooting the week’s only bogey-free round. His Rippers won the team title with a cumulative 4-over total, the first time any team has won with an over-par score.

“It kicked our butts when we were here in January for the training camp, and it did the same again this week,” Leishman said. “I guess it kicked our butt less than everyone else.”

Leishman conquered the Blue Monster on Sunday by posting the only bogey-free round by any player this week, a 5-under 67 to finish at 6 under, one stroke better than Stinger GC’s Charl Schwartzel. Fireballs GC captain Sergio Garcia was another stroke back in solo third.

It’s the 14th time in LIV Golf history that a team has swept both trophies. And it’s the first win of any kind in four years for the 41-year-old Leishman, who had three runner-up finishes and five other top 10s since joining LIV Golf with his captain Cameron Smith in the middle of the inaugural 2022 season.

“It’s been a long time coming for Leish,” Smith said. “He’s knocked on so many doors, and at times has felt probably unlucky. Even for me as a mate, I’ve felt like he’s been unlucky.”

In the previous LIV Golf tournament in Singapore last month, Leishman tied for 51st, his worst result in LIV Golf. 

But on a demanding course toughened by wind gusts and firm greens, Leishman produced a masterpiece of steady, patient play.

“It was pretty disgusting how I played there,” Leishman said of Singapore. “To come back on a golf course like this where there’s trouble around every single corner, I think playing so bad in Singapore helped me today just not letting my guard down at all.”

Leishman started Sunday three shots off the lead but quickly moved up the leaderboard with birdies in two of his first four holes. 

He shared the lead with round 2 leader Bryson DeChambeau through eight holes, but the Crushers GC captain went bogey-double bogey around the turn to effectively end his chances.

Leishman’s final birdie of the day at the par-5 10th gave him a three-shot cushion and he nursed it with eight consecutive pars to end his round, never providing his challengers with an opening.

Even so, several players made a charge on the back nine.

Stingers GC’s Charl Schwartzel reeled off four straight birdies to climb into contention, while teammate Dean Burmester, the defending LIV Golf Miami champion, also made noise before a disastrous final two holes.

Garcia, seeking his second win of the season, was 3-under during a 11-hole stretch. 

His birdie at the 17th after a brilliant approach shot moved him within a shot of Leishman’s lead.

Leishman, playing in the group ahead of Garcia, found the trees with his tee shot at the 18th and had to punch out. 

His third shot left him 13 feet above the pin, but he knocked in the clutch par putt to keep the lead. 

Garcia ultimately bogeyed the 18th, hitting his tee shot into the trees, then finding the water with his approach. 

“I’ve played well in a lot of LIV events,” Leishman said. “I’ve had chances to win, haven’t won. You wonder if you’re going to win again … I doubted myself but that just made it all so much sweeter today.”