With distractions behind them, Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann have one last chance to become LIV Golf’s top dog

As LIV Golf draws the curtain on its individual season, the league’s top two players will press on with what they do best: blocking out the noise and focussing on the tournament at hand.

There is plenty happening in professional golf that could steal the attention of Jon Rahm, who tops the season-long points standings heading into this week’s LIV Golf Chicago, and Chile’s Joaquin Niemann, who trails the two-time major winner by less than three points.

For both players, those distractions stem from the complications of joining LIV Golf. Even at Bolingbrook Golf Club, site of this week’s LIV event, Rahm, 29, was asked about his discussions with the DP World Tour about fines (for remaining a tour member but playing in competing LIV Golf events), which he says he will not pay. Doing so would expedite the ability to tee up at the Spanish Open and two other European events that would add up to the four required for 2025 Ryder Cup eligibility.

“I don’t intend to pay the fines, and we keep trying to have a discussion with them about how we can make this happen,” Rahm said.

Niemann, earlier this week, sat in on a call with Australian reporters about his upcoming title defense at their national open later this fall. Niemann was asked about the Presidents Cup, an event that saw him play against Tiger Woods in a four-ball session at Royal Melbourne in 2019. Niemann, Cameron Smith, Louis Oosthuizen and other LIV players missed the 2022 matches at Quail Hollow because they are banned from the PGA Tour, which runs the Presidents Cup. Niemann said Tuesday that missing the upcoming edition at Royal Montreal “sucks” and that he would “love to be on that [International] team.”

Rahm and Niemann’s focus, though, is on the finale to LIV’s individual season. They are the only two LIV players who can take the $18 million bonus for topping the points standings after this week. Rahm, who captains the Legion XIII team, which includes his fellow Ryder Cupper, Tyrrell Hatton, has 195.17 points while Niemann, skipper of Torque GC, has 192.20. Rahm can secure the championship with a victory. Niemann needs to finish at least one spot higher on the Chicago leaderboard to overtake him.

It would be fitting for Niemann to win the title having opened the third season of LIV with a first-round 59 at the El Cameleon course at Mayakoba, a former PGA Tour venue. Niemann went on to win LIV Golf Mayakoba in a playoff against Sergio Garcia, before another victory at LIV Golf Jeddah in Saudi Arabia a month later.

“One of my goals was to win the season, and it's all come down to the last week,” Niemann said. “There’s a little extra pressure, which I feel like is nice. It's part of the sport and being competitive. It fuels me to work harder to be ready for that position.”

Added Rahm: “You would be lying to yourself if you said there's nothing extra. Being in this position and having those extra nerves is a privilege. We're the only two in the league who are feeling, so you have to embrace it and compete.”

Rahm, the 2021 U.S. Open winner, joined LIV Golf last December, eight months after winning a second major at the 2023 Masters. Since then, Rahm’s 2024 season has been impressive although not as impressive as winning four PGA Tour events and a major in 2023. He withdrew from the U.S. Open this year and one LIV event due to a foot infection, but he finished inside the top 10 in all 12 of his LIV starts. Seven of those finishes were inside the top five, including his first win at LIV Golf U.K. in July. The highlight at the majors was a T-7 at Royal Troon, while Rahm was T-45 at the Masters before missing the cut at the PGA. He also finished T-5 at the Olympics in Paris last month after he surrendered a four-shot lead to Scottie Scheffler on the back nine of the final round.

“It's been a good year,” Rahm said. “I think overall, what I felt I've played and maybe what I've read on the media of how I’ve been playing hasn’t matched what I was feeling. I think I was playing better golf than I was given credit for. In the second half of the season from the U.S. Open on, how I've played and what’d been spoken of has matched.”

After LIV Golf Chicago, the season concludes next week with its team championship. After that, Rahm will ponder his DP World Tour situation and Niemann will begin a globe-trotting travel schedule later this year. Niemann will defend his Australian Open title in Melbourne in late November, which will be among a handful of official tournaments he’ll enter to try and earn enough world ranking points to get into the four majors for 2025, for which he is currently not eligible.

For now, though, Rahm has a LIV individual championship victory in sights. And you can be certain he’ll soak it up if he gets the job done. “What I've done in the past if you accomplished something big, was to postpone it until you have time and then celebrate it,” Rahm said. “Because [some] of the best advice I ever got was from Rafa Nadal and it was after winning the Masters and it was make sure you enjoy this moment, make sure you celebrate it because you don't really know when it's going to come again.’”