LIV Golf Riyadh is roaring into the weekend with enough suspense to keep the galleries glued to every drive.
At the heart of it all, Jon Rahm and his Legion XIII teammates are primed for Saturday’s final round with an outside shot at the individual title—but they’re also surging toward a jaw-dropping team victory.
Legion XIII hammered home a commanding team lead on Friday night at Riyadh Golf Club, stretching the gap to 11 strokes over Torque GC.
After posting the field’s best team score for the second consecutive night, they now sit at 42 under overall.
“Extremely proud,” Rahm said of his team’s blistering start. “I don’t know what else to add to that.
Obviously yesterday was a fantastic start and it didn’t take very long today, either, for the whole team to get going.”
All four Legion XIII members are stacked near the top. Tyrrell Hatton and Caleb Surratt each carded 5-under 67s to share fourth at 11 under, while Rahm and Tom McKibbin posted a pair of fine rounds themselves—67 for Rahm and 69 for McKibbin—to settle at 10 under in a tie for sixth. If you’re looking for a squad brimming with confidence heading into the final day of LIV Golf Riyadh, this is it.
Meanwhile, Cleeks GC’s Adrian Meronk wasn’t about to relinquish the spotlight. After his sizzling 10-under 62 on Thursday, he backed it up with a 6-under 66 on Friday to claim a two-shot lead over Torque GC’s Sebastián Muñoz.
Ripper GC’s Lucas Herbert is breathing down their necks in third at 12 under after firing the low round of the day, a sparkling 64.
Catching Meronk won’t be for the faint of heart. The Polish star might not have been perfect on Friday (missing just one green in his opening round), but that putter was white-hot—he needed only 26 putts.
“I played quite solid,” Meronk said. “I had a couple of bad swings, but overall, I’m very happy with the result and excited for tomorrow.”
Muñoz kept things tight with his own 66 and used his magic wand on the greens, totaling just 51 putts across two rounds.
“I’m just going to try to shoot as low as possible, make as many birdies as possible like I’ve been doing the last two days and see what happens on the 18th green,” Muñoz said. “There’s no other strategy than that.”
While Meronk and Muñoz both have team trophies to their name, neither has snagged an individual title at LIV Golf.
If one of them manages to fend off the Legion XIII onslaught, it would mark their first big solo triumph.
“It would be special for sure, especially the first of the year,” Meronk admitted. “But I don’t want to focus on that. My only focus tomorrow will be just one shot at a time and playing my best golf as possible, and we’ll see what happens.”
For now, though, the towering storyline belongs to Rahm and his team’s pursuit of double glory.
“I think if we all focus on trying to win individually and give it the best shot we can to do that, I think we can put a strong enough performance where we’d be hard to catch,” Rahm said of Legion XIII’s advantage.
“But we still have to go out there tomorrow and take care of it. Nothing is guaranteed until the last putt drops.”
With that, the stage is set for a dramatic finish under the lights. If Legion XIII keeps pouring it on, they might just walk away as both the unstoppable force and the immovable object—a rare sweep for the record books.
The only certainty is that Saturday’s final round at LIV Golf Riyadh won’t be short on fireworks.
