The past 12 months had a little of everything — a career Grand Slam, Ryder Cup chaos and so much more. With 2026 on the horizon, our writers look back at the most memorable moments from 2025 and explain why they mattered.
Biggest golf moments of 2025 No. 13: LIV stars’ big wins lead to bigger questions
Twenty-twenty-five was a year of change for LIV Golf. There was change at the top and change to the format. But on the course, the breakaway league saw one of its stars dominate the 54-hole circuit.
Joaquin Niemann won. Then won again and again and again and again. The 27-year-old Chilean won five times in 2025, from Adelaide to the UK, and even had Jon Rahm making bold claims about his place in the professional golf hierarchy.
“In my mind, nowadays in golf, due to various circumstances, I think Joaquin is severely underrated,” Rahm said after Niemann’s win at LIV UK in July. “He’s one of the best players in the world, and he keeps proving it. … I don’t know the numbers. I don’t know. My guess is obviously it’s majors, events outside of LIV that may be pushing him back. It’s not a true reflection. He is undoubtedly a top-10 player in the world right now. I’m saying that conservatively.”
But each one of Niemann’s LIV wins brought the same questions about his lack of major championship success. After his second win of the season, Niemann was confident that success on the biggest stage was on the way.
“I know I’m going to win a major. I know it’s going to happen,” Niemann said after winning LIV Singapore in March.
The 2025 season did little to dispel those questions. Niemann finished T29 at Augusta National before finishing T8 at the PGA Championship, his first top 15 in a major. That T8 at Quail Hollow was buoyed by some Sunday stumbles from players ahead of him. Niemann missed the cut at the U.S. Open and Open Championship and then parted ways with both his caddie and his coach. Niemann has found success on LIV but that has yet to translate on the major championship stage. Until it does, Niemann knows that the questions about how good he can be and what his LIV wins mean will continue.
“I feel like there is nothing else to try,” Niemann said of his major struggles after winning LIV UK. “Yeah, it frustrated me a lot to not be playing good at the majors, but I know I’m going to make it happen. I know I’m going to figure it out. Obviously, this is a game that’s really frustrating, and I think we all know that. Sometimes we take it personal, like the game is doing something against us. In the position I am in, I feel like I’m always going to learn something from every mistake and every bad result. I’m patient, so I know the results are going to come. I’m just going to wait for them.”
Things were different, and yet, the same for Rahm in 2025.
The two-time major champion didn’t win on LIV until the end, when his consistency allowed him to overtake Niemann as the individual champion. Rahm said it was “bittersweet” to win the individual title without actually winning a tournament in 2025, but also said he believed it removed any “asterisk” from a season that saw him finish outside of the top 10 in just one LIV event.
But Rahm is realistic about his success on LIV. He knows it’s “easier to have top 10s with a smaller field” and that he’ll ultimately be judged on his major success, especially after his move to LIV Golf.
Rahm believes he was “unfairly judged” on his poor 2024 major performance, but he missed the cut at the Masters and was not a factor at the PGA or Open Championship. He didn’t play in the U.S. Open due to a toe injury. After a backdoor T14 at the 2025 Masters, the questions about when we’d see major killer Jon Rahm again — and if LIV’s schedule and format were holding him back — only got louder.
But then came the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, where Rahm put himself in contention and tied eventual champion Scottie Scheffler on Sunday before a disastrous finishing stretch doomed his title chances.
“God, it’s been a while since I had that much fun on a golf course,” Rahm said that Sunday in Charlotte.
“I mean, hard to express how hungry I may be for a major. About as hungry as anybody can be in this situation.”
For two of LIV Golf’s biggest stars, 2026 will be about whether or not either can satisfy their major championship hunger. Or if the questions will only get louder.
