Joaquin Niemann will enter Sunday’s final round of LIV Golf Jeddah with a two-stroke lead over Charl Schwartzel.
Schwartzel carded 66 to end the day on 11 under, with fellow South African Louis Oosthuizen (66) tied for third with Jason Kokrak, who had the low score on Saturday with a 62.
Chilean Niemann is seeking his third win in his last six worldwide starts. He won the 2024 LIV Golf League season-opener in a playoff against Sergio Garcia and also won the Australian Open last December. During that stretch, he also shot a 59 and secured spots in two Majors (The Masters and the Open).
Niemann hopes to continue riding the momentum.
“I know there’s a lot of golf to play tomorrow,” Niemann said. “There’s a lot of shots that I’ve got to hit tomorrow, and I’ve got to be confident doing those.”
The South African Stinger GC team, meanwhile, suffered a rare misstep in the previous LIV Golf tournament at chilly Las Vegas, finishing in 12th place at five over, 38 shots behind the winning Smash GC.
Oosthuizen said his team quickly put the result behind them.
“I don’t think we four guys perform well when it’s that cold,” he said of the Vegas temperatures, which hovered in the low 10 degrees during the week. “We were talking about it. It’s quite a different feeling making a golf swing with everything on in my golf bag. I think we sort of forgot about Vegas pretty quickly.”
Perhaps the coldest member of the lineup was Schwartzel, who shot a final-round 80, his highest score in any LIV tournament. He’s bounced back with rounds of 63-66 this week. Like the rest of the team, he appreciates Saudi Arabia’s warmer climate along the Red Sea.
“I’ve got a memory like a goldfish. What happened in Vegas?” laughed Schwartzel, who’s leading the field in putting average through the first two rounds. “Vegas is one to forget for me. The weather was too cold for us. We’re in much better spirits now.”
Kokrak was in the best spirits Sunday after a sizzling 62 moved him into contention. A nine-hole stretch that included seven birdies left him with an outside chance of 59 going into the final two holes.
The first two LIV Golf Jeddah tournaments have been won by his captain, Brooks Koepka.
Kokrak would love to follow with his first individual win and see Smash reel in the Stingers for their second consecutive victory.
“Obviously to get my first victory with LIV would be amazing,” Kokrak said. “But another team victory to move forward would be awesome. Brooks brought this team together to win a lot of team events, and I think you’ll see the four of us at the top of the leaderboard quite a bit.”
Photo: Chris Trotman/LIV Golf
