LIV Golf South Africa Round 3: DeChambeau Holds Off Grace on a Record Day as Southern Guards Retake the Team Lead

Saturday at Steyn City produced the lowest scoring day LIV Golf has ever seen, and somehow the most important number on the board was still a two. That is the gap between Bryson DeChambeau and Branden Grace with 18 holes to play at LIV Golf South Africa, and it is also the margin Southern Guards GC carries into Sunday in the team race.

DeChambeau shot a bogey-free 7-under 64 to reach 21 under, two clear of Grace, who matched that 64 in front of a sold-out home crowd. Jon Rahm and Abraham Ancer are three back at 18 under, with Dean Burmester, Thomas Detry and David Puig at 17 under. In the team competition, the all-South African Southern Guards posted 26 under to climb to 60 under, two ahead of Fireballs GC and Torque GC.

Two Eagles, Lots of Pars

DeChambeau's round had a very specific shape. Birdies at the first and fourth got things moving, and then the Crushers GC captain holed out from 45 feet for eagle at the par-4 fifth. A second eagle followed at the par-5 10th. In between and after, it was pars, a long run of them from the sixth through the 17th, before one more birdie at the 18th.

On a day when everyone else seemed to be making birdies in bunches, that kind of patience could have cost ground. Instead it held DeChambeau in front. Through 54 holes DeChambeau has taken the fewest putts in the field, 76, and has played the par 4s in 13 under. It is the seventh time DeChambeau has led a LIV event with a round to play, and per LIV Golf, only one of the previous six, Korea in 2025, ended in a win.

DeChambeau kept the message short heading into Sunday: "Tomorrow is going to be a great day."

Grace Keeps Pace

Grace had the busier card: an eagle at the par-5 fourth, six birdies and a lone bogey, and then birdies on the final two holes to close the gap back to two. The 19-under total is Grace's lowest through 54 holes in LIV, and Grace has now hit the green in regulation on 40 straight par 5s, the eighth-longest streak in league history.

Grace's only individual LIV title came in Portland in 2022, and the South African knows what Sunday will require. "I think I have to be a little bit of a rhino tomorrow," Grace said.

Record Day at Steyn City

Soft conditions and altitude turned the third round into a birdie fest. The field averaged 66.42, the lowest scoring average for a round in LIV history, and 17 players went bogey-free, shattering the previous single-day record of 11. Nobody made a bogey on the par-4 13th or the par-5 18th.

Rahm birdied seven of the first 10 holes before a bogey at the 15th ended a run of 53 straight holes at par or better, and the 64 left Rahm three back. Ancer also went bogey-free for a 64. Detry shot 63, the lowest round of the Belgian's LIV career, to jump into a tie for fifth. Anirban Lahiri and Michael La Sasso matched that 63, and Phil Mickelson added a bogey-free 64.

Rahm summed up why the scores are this low: "With the golf course being soft and at altitude, it still plays quite short."

The Home Team Takes Charge

The team race turned on one simple fact: every Southern Guards player went low. Grace and captain Louis Oosthuizen each shot 64, and Burmester and Charl Schwartzel each added 65, for a 26-under day. That pushed the team to 60 under and back in front after Torque held the 36-hole lead.

"We're feeding off the energy at the moment," Oosthuizen said.

The Fireballs had their own landmark day. Sergio Garcia and Luis Masaveu each shot 64, Josele Ballester hit all 18 greens on the way to 65, and Puig added 66 for a 25-under round, the lowest in the team's history. Torque could not quite keep up after leading through two rounds, posting 22 under behind Ancer's 64 and a 65 from Carlos Ortiz, while Joaquin Niemann managed only 67.

Burmester, who has spent the week wearing the crowd's energy on both sleeves, said the team is hungry to finish the job.

Sunday Shapes Up

The final round starts with a shotgun at 9:35 a.m. local time, and there are two titles on the line. DeChambeau has the individual lead and the hottest putter in the field, but a field that just averaged 66.42 means a two-shot cushion offers very little protection. Grace has the gallery, the momentum from those closing birdies and a home team trying to win in front of its own fans.

In the team race, Southern Guards leads two teams by two with all four scores counting. One loose nine from anybody could flip it.

Catch up on Round 1 and Round 2, and see LIV Golf's Round 3 recap (opens in a new tab) for every number.

Sources: LIV Golf (Round 3 recap), FOX Sports, Field Level Media, Arab News. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Jon Ferrey/LIV Golf.