Sergio Garcia’s putter giveth and then it taketh away. The 44-year-old Spaniard drained a 40-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole Sunday at LIV Golf’s Miami event, then three-putted the 18th—missing a par attempt from six feet—to back into a playoff with Dean Burmester, who bogeyed the 18th hole himself.
After both making par on the first playoff hole, Garcia dunked his approach into the water guarding the green, effectively giving Burmester his first LIV Golf title at Doral. Burmester shot 68-69-68 to finish at 11 under par. For Garcia (70), he continues to search for his first LIV Golf title, and is now winless in three different playoffs with the league, including earlier this year against Joaquin Niemann.
For Burmester, 34, he took home the usual $4 million for his victory from the $20 million purse. It’s his third victory in the last five months. He captured the Joburg Open back in November and followed that up with another at the South African Open.
“I mean, it’s certainly probably the best golf of my career,” Burmester said. “If I look at it that way, the amount of wins, the amount of top 10s, top fives that I’m producing is some really special stuff.”
Said Garcia: “Yeah, I mean, obviously when you’re that close, you want to win it, but unfortunately that only happens to one guy, and it wasn’t meant to be me.”
Matthew Wolff finished in third place, a shot out of the playoff. Marc Leishman, Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton tied for fourth place. Anthony Kim, in his third LIV event, shot 76-81-80 to finish at 21 over par.
Rahm and Hatton were a part of the victorious team competition as their Legion XIII topped Bubba Watson’s RangeGoats by a shot to split $3 million. Rahm, who will defend his Masters title next week at Augusta National, is captain of the Legion squad with Hatton, Caleb Surratt and Kieran Vincent. Watson’s team has Wolff, Thomas Pieters and Peter Uihlein.
This was the LIV Golf League’s fifth event of the year. They’re off for a couple weeks—with 13 players competing in the Masters next week—then will continue in Australia at the end of the month. Niemann continues to lead the individual point standings for the season and has two victories. Rahm, who remains winless, is second.
Here is the prize money breakdown for each player in South Florida.
WIN: Dean Burmester, -11, $4 million
2: Sergio Garcia, -11, $2.25 million
3: Matthew Wolff, -10, $1.5 million
T-4: Marc Leishman, -8, $833,333
T-4: Jon Rahm, -8, $833,333
T-4: Tyrrell Hatton, -8, $833,333
T-7: Bryson DeChambeau, -7, $562,500
T-7: Louis Oosthuizen, -7, $562,500
T-9: Abraham Ancer, -6, $385,500
T-9: Thomas Pieters, -6, $385,500
T-9: Joaquin Niemann, -6, $385,500
T-9: Patrick Reed, -6, $385,500
T-9: Talor Gooch, -6, $385,500
T-14: Carlos Ortiz, -5, $301,667
T-14: Paul Casey, -5, $301,667
T-14: Richard Bland, -5, $301,667
17: Adrian Meronk, -4, $270,000
T-18: Caleb Surratt, -3, $250,000
T-18: Brendan Steele, -3, $250,000
T-18: Peter Uihlein, -3, $250,000
T-21: Harold Varner III, -2, $220,000
T-21: Cameron Tringale, -2, $220,000
T-21: Scott Vincent, -2, $220,000
T-24: Kevin Na, -1, $195,000
T-24: Dustin Johnson, -1, $195,000
T-24: Kieran Vincent, -1, $195,000
T-27: Sebastian Munoz, E, $182,500
T-27: Jason Kokrak, E, $182,500
T-29: Graeme McDowell, +1, $170,000
T-29: Ian Poulter, +1, $170,000
T-29: Henrik Stenson, +1, $170,000
T-32: Matt Jones, +2, $153,125
T-32: Branden Grace, +2, $153,125
T-32: Bubba Watson, +2, $153,125
T-32: Mito Pereira, +2, $153,125
36: Anirban Lahiri, +3, $145,000
T-37: Danny Lee, +4, $141,250
T-37: Charl Schwartzel, +4, $141,250
T-39: David Puig, +5, $133,750
T-39: Martin Kaymer, +5, $133,750
T-39: Eugenio Chacarra, +5, $133,750
T-39: Kalle Samooja, +5, $133,750
T-43: Charles Howell III, +6, $127,500
T-43: Hudson Swafford, +6, $127,500
T-45: Lee Westwood, +7, $125,000
T-45: Brooks Koepka, +7, $125,000
47: Phil Mickelson, +8, $122,500
T-48: Sam Horsfield, +9, $90,000
T-48: Pat Perez, +9, $90,000
50: Andy Ogletree, +11, $60,000
T-51: Jinichiro Kozuma, +15, $55,000
T-51: Lionel Herbert, +15, $55,000
53: Anthony Kim, +21, $50,000
54: Ben Campbell, $33,333
WD: Cameron Smith, $16,667
WIN: Legion XIII (Rahm, Surratt, Hatton, Vincent), -22, $3 million
2: RangeGoats (Wolff, Pieters, Uihlein, Watson), -21, $1.5 million
3: Stinger (Burmester, Oosthuizen, Grace, Schwartzel), -15, $500,000