LIV Golf Hong Kong Round 3: Rahm, Detry and Varner Tied as Smash GC Clings to the Team Lead

Moving day at Fanling did not produce a separation. It produced a traffic jam. Jon Rahm, Thomas Detry and Harold Varner III will share the lead at 17 under going into Sunday at LIV Golf Hong Kong, and the two men tied at the top on Friday night spent Saturday watching it slip away by inches.

Carlos Ortiz, Dean Burmester and Thomas Pieters are tied for fourth at 15 under, two shots back. Lucas Herbert is seventh at 14 under and Sergio Garcia eighth at 13 under. The team race is just as tight: Smash GC leads at 44 under, two clear of 4Aces GC and three ahead of Legion XIII.

Varner's Clean Card

Varner played the cleanest golf of the leaders. The Smash GC veteran posted a bogey-free 7-under 63, hitting 16 of 18 greens and leaning on a sharp iron game that ranks second in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach for the week. He hit 6-iron into the 17th and 6-iron into the 18th, the kind of long-iron precision that wins on a tight course.

According to LIV Golf, it is the first time Varner will lead heading into a final round, and he was loose about it. Asked about his par-3 play, where he ranks first in the field off the tee, Varner had a simple explanation.

"Par 3s, you get to start from the fairway, so it's great," he said.

He also has an internal rivalry to settle. "I hate losing to Talor," Varner said of his captain, Talor Gooch, whose 69 kept Smash on top of the team board.

Rahm and Detry, Bound Together

The Rahm and Detry story keeps getting better. Rahm helped arrange the private charter that got Detry and several other LIV players out of the Middle East after conflict closed the airport in Dubai. Now the two will play the final round tied for the lead.

"Well, if it wasn't for him, I don't think I'd be here," Detry said.

Detry shot 66 and leads the field in greens in regulation through 54 holes, hitting 46 of 54. Rahm shot 65 and extended a run of 20 straight under-par rounds on LIV Golf, one short of his league record. Rahm has finished runner-up in both of his previous 2026 starts, including a one-shot loss at LIV Golf Riyadh, and he has turned only one of six LIV Golf final-group appearances into a win, at Chicago in 2024. He sounded like a player content to keep knocking on the door.

"You have to keep putting yourself in contention and giving yourself chances," Rahm said.

Ortiz and Burmester Leave It on the Greens

For the 36-hole co-leaders, Saturday was a lesson in how thin the margins are. Ortiz bogeyed the eighth and ninth to make the turn at even par, then caught fire again with four birdies in the first five holes of his back nine to briefly reach 17 under. He could not hold it. Short par putts slipped by at the 16th and 18th, and a 69 left him two back. He still leads the field with 22 birdies for the week.

Burmester's 69 was even more frustrating. He did not make a bogey, but he made only one birdie, from five feet at the eighth, and he needed par saves from six feet at the 11th and 18 feet at the 17th to keep the card clean. He said he did not do much wrong and simply did not make putts.

"I'm gutted," Burmester said.

Pieters Posts the Day's Best

The round of the day belonged to Pieters. The 4Aces GC player went bogey-free for a 9-under 61 and jumped into the tie for fourth, a reminder that a player still chasing a first LIV Golf win, now 45 starts in, can go very low here. Pieters said he loves windy conditions because he likes to flight the ball.

Fanling bit back elsewhere. The course played 1.70 shots under par on Saturday, yet the field made 17 double bogeys, the most in a single LIV round at Hong Kong Golf Club.

A Five-Team Fight

Smash GC held on to the team lead but managed only 9 under on the day, with Varner's 63 joined by 69s from Gooch and Jason Kokrak and a 70 from Graeme McDowell. That opened the door, and 4Aces walked through it. Pieters' 61, Detry's 66, Anthony Kim's 66 and Dustin Johnson's 68 added up to 19 under and moved 4Aces into second at 42 under.

Legion XIII is third at 41 under after Rahm's 65, Caleb Surratt's 65, Tom McKibbin's 66 and Tyrrell Hatton's 69. Just four shots separate the top five teams, tying the closest top five entering a final round in LIV history, and six teams are within six shots.

One Round, Three Leaders

Sunday sets up as a true shootout. Three co-leaders, three more players two back and a team race with five live contenders, on a course that has handed out low numbers all week but punished anyone who got sloppy on Saturday. With every score counting in the team competition, one loose round from a single player could swing two titles at once.

Catch up on Round 1 and Round 2, and find full details in the LIV Golf Round 3 recap (opens in a new tab).

Sources: LIV Golf (Round 3 recap), FOX Sports, Arab News, Irish Golf Desk, The Golf News Net. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: LIV Golf.