Rd. 3 recap: Herbert leads Garcia by 3; Ballester shoots 60 as team leaderboard tightens

STERLING, Va. — Sunday’s final round of Maaden LIV Golf Virginia 2026 appears to be a showdown between tournament leader Lucas Herbert and primary chaser Sergio Garcia, who have separated themselves from the pack.

But as big-hitting youngster Josele Ballester showed Saturday, the rest of the field can still make up ground quickly with a super-low score.

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Herbert maintained his lead at Trump National Washington D.C. with a solid 4-under 68 in Saturday’s third round, leaving him at 21 under and three shots ahead of Garcia, who shot a 65 to move to 18 under. The next closest pursuers are eight shots behind, but Herbert wasn’t ready to declare it a two-man race for the title.

“I don’t want to rule anyone out, and I don’t want it to turn into a match-play situation when it’s still a stroke-play event,” said the Ripper GC member. “The reality is it’s very much in mine and Sergio’s hands. If we play great, the other guys are going to struggle to catch us. If we don’t play great, we open the door for them.”

Ballester certainly broke through the door Saturday with a bogey-free 12-under 60 that ties a league record for lowest round relative to par. The 22-year-old, a member of Garcia’s Fireballs GC team, started the day tied for 33rd but is now tied for third at 13 under entering the final round. It’s the biggest one-round jump in leaderboard position in league history.

“I know that this round doesn’t happen very often,” said Ballester, who saw his birdie putt from 29 feet on his final hole fade to the right in his bid for 59. “Hopefully I can start feeling and entering the flow zone a little more often.”

Ballester is tied with Crushers GC Captain Bryson DeChambeau, Southern Guards GC’s Dean Burmester and HyFlyers GC’s Scott Vincent. DeChambeau shot a bogey-free 64 to give him an outside shot at his third individual win this season.

“Look, there’s always an opportunity,” DeChambeau said. “You’ve got to hopefully have [Herbert] mess up and make a couple of bogeys and us get off to a hot start and narrow that gap.”

Herbert, however, has been mostly unflappable for the first three rounds. He saw Garcia birdie five of the first six holes and saw DeChambeau and Jon Rahm each play their first three holes in 5 under, yet he didn’t buckle under the pressure.

The 30-year-old Australian was 3 under in his first six holes Saturday before suffering his lone bogey of the day at the par-4 seventh. After that, he played the final 11 holes in a bogey-free 2 under.

“I didn’t feel like I did a lot wrong,” said Herbert, who is aiming for his first LIV Golf individual title. “Proud of the way that Sergio was giving me a good run there, and I didn’t take a step back. It felt good, to be honest. Felt like I was getting primetime Sergio there coming up against me. Pretty fun having that battle.”

The 46-year-old Garcia, who has won a LIV Golf tournament in each of the past two seasons, made 10 birdies but suffered three bogeys that kept him from sharing the lead. He finished the round with back-to-back birdies but still has plenty of work left to chase down Herbert.

“You can’t just think, oh, it’s just Lucas and I,” Garcia said. “Obviously if we play well, it will be him and I, but we still have to go out there and play well. There’s still 18 holes to go and anything can happen.”

The team competition is just as compelling. Fueled by Ballester’s 60, the Fireballs shot a cumulative 28 under, the second-lowest team score for a single round in LIV Golf history. The all-Spanish team moved to 35 under and in a tie with Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII for first place, with Herbert’s Ripper GC two shots back.

TOP OF THE LEADERBOARDS

Individual Top 10

1 (-21) – Lucas Herbert, Ripper GC (64-63-68)

2 (-18) – Sergio Garcia, Fireballs GC (66-67-65)

T3 (-13) – Josele Ballester, Fireballs GC (73-70-60); Scott Vincent, HyFlyers GC (72-69-62); Bryson DeChambeau, Crushers GC (69-70-64); Dean Burmester, Southern Guards GC (68-70-65)

7 (-12) – Jon Rahm, Legion XIII (69-70-65)

T8 (-11) – Thomas Detry, 4Aces GC (70-69-66); Graeme McDowell, OKGC (67-72-66)

T10 (-10) – Charles Howell III, Crushers GC (70-68-68); Victor Perez, Cleeks GC (68-72-66); Tyrrell Hatton, Legion XIII (66-74-66); Ian Poulter, Majesticks GC (71-70-65)

Team Top 3

T1 (-35) – Fireballs GC (Ballester 73-70-60, Garcia 66-67-65, Masaveu 77-74-67, Puig 70-72-69; Rd. 3 total: -28)

T1 (-35) – Legion XIII (Hatton 66-74-66, McKibbin 70-73-69, Rahm 69-70-65, Surratt 72-70-65; Rd. 3 total: -23)

3 (-33) – Ripper GC (Herbert 64-63-68, Leishman 66-73-68, Smith 72-69-69, Smylie 71-77-71; Rd. 3 total: -12)

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ROUND 3 NOTES

TOP 3 IN SAME GROUP: The top three players in the 2026 season-long Individual Championship standings – No. 1 Jon Rahm, No. 2 Bryson DeChambeau and No. 3 Thomas Detry – played in the same group Saturday.

They showed why they’re the top three point-earners this season.

DeChambeau, the Crushers GC captain, shot an 8-under 64. Rahm, the Legion XIII captain, shot a 65. And Detry, the first-year 4Aces GC player, shot a 66.

That’s a collective 21 under – the second lowest score by a single group in LIV Golf history.

“Everybody played great,” DeChambeau said. “We fed off of each other. It was a fun day of golf. Every once in a while, there are days in golf where you're like, man, this is fun. Especially as professionals, you know hard it is, you know how difficult it can be out there. Today was fun. We gave the crowd a show today.”

GARCIA’S MIRACLE PAR: After a wayward drive left his ball half-submerged in the muddy water on the par-4 13th, Sergio Garcia took his socks and shoes off and waded in. It’s been a few years that the Fireballs GC captain faced such a predicament, but the opportunity to save a stroke was too good to pass up.

“Needless to say, I need to take a nice shower and make sure that I wash my feet nicely,” Garcia said. “It was very muddy. Yeah, I obviously hit a terrible drive, but I got very, very fortunate for the ball to kind of just trickle into the water. So it was in the water, but it was probably three-quarters of the ball, maybe half of the ball was out.”

Garcia made solid contact on the ball and advanced it 155 yards to the rough just short of the green. “It was a risky shot because there was a big bank,” he said. “If I didn’t catch it clean, it was going to be difficult to carry all the way to the left bunker. So, I was hoping to catch it clean and maybe fade it a little bit and hit it somewhere towards the right side of the green.”

With his third shot from just under 40 yards, his chip rolled to within 16 feet, and he made the putt to save par. “A great, great par,” Garcia said. “One of the best pars I’ve made in my career.”

HERBERT’S POTENTIAL WIN: If Lucas Herbert completes his wire-to-wire victory Sunday, he would become the fourth different Ripper GC player to win a LIV Golf individual title, joining current teammates Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman and newcomer Elvis Smylie, the latter having won in his LIV Golf debut earlier this year in Riyadh.

The only current team with a roster full of LIV Golf winners is Torque GC with Joaquin Niemann, Carlos Ortiz, Sebastian Munoz and Abraham Ancer – although Ancer won while representing Fireballs GC before joining Torque prior to this season.

“I've won on every other tour that I've played on, I think,” Herbert said. “It's something that I'd like to tick off. I've watched my three teammates win over the past four years, and I want to join that list as well.

“So, yeah, caught myself sneaking a look at the trophy earlier, and I was like that would be cool. Then had to quickly rein that one back in. There's still a lot of golf to go.”

It was just a year ago that Herbert posted his most recent win at the Asian Tour’s International Series Japan. His best LIV Golf finish also came a year ago when he tied for second at Mexico City.

“I'm really proud to play out here on LIV, and I want to have one of those LIV Golf trophies in my cabinet because this tour's meant so much,” he said. “It's felt like a big family out here. We've been in this together through all the highs and all the lows. I want to feel like my name's on that winners’ list at some point, and this is a really good opportunity to do that.”

U.S. OPEN EXEMPTION: Herbert enters the final round at Maaden LIV Golf Virginia in position to claim the league’s exemption into the U.S. Open, but he’ll have a few challengers hoping to steal it away.

The exemption for next month’s major goes to the top-3 player in LIV Golf’s season-long Individual race who is not otherwise exempt after Sunday. Herbert is projected to overtake Thomas Detry for third place behind No. 1 Jon Rahm and No. 2 Bryson DeChambeau.

Herbert must win and hope that Detry does not finish solo fourth or better. Detry enters the final round tied for 8th at 11 under but is just two shots behind the group of players tied for third.

In addition, Josele Ballester and Dean Burmester – among the four players tied for third – also have outside chances to earn the exemption with a win.

BALLESTER A YEAR LATER: It was less than a year ago that Ballester made his LIV Golf debut in Virginia, albeit at a different course than the one he’s playing this week at Trump National Washington D.C.

Still, his fortunes have definitely improved. He finished tied for 50th a year ago. On Saturday, he shot a bogey-free 12-under 60 and is now tied for third entering the final round.

“I struggled when I joined,” he said. “The first few events were pretty bad. I look where I was one year ago, and I'm pretty happy with all the progress and how much better I've gotten.”

ROUND 3 NUGGETS

• Saturday’s Rd. 3 scoring average of 67.93 was 3.67 shots easier than Rd. 2, making it the sixth lowest scoring average of the 2026 season despite being a par 72
• The field total of 232 under is the third lowest single-round score in LIV Golf history, behind Rd. 3 of LIV Golf South Africa and Rd. 4 of LIV Golf Riyadh earlier this year
• There were 17 eagles in Rd. 3, the second most eagles in a single round in LIV Golf history, behind Rd. 2 of LIV Golf London 2023 (19)
• Fireballs GC's team score of 28-under in Rd. 3 is the second lowest team score in a single round in LIV Golf history; their 33 holes under par is the best result in a round in league history, as is their 32 birdies
• Bryson DeChambeau's 8-under 64 was his fourth bogey-free round of the 2026 season; he will enter the final round inside the top three for the 11th time in his LIV Golf career, the second-most behind Talor Gooch’s 12 times

STATS LEADERS

Round 3

Driving Distance: Caleb Surratt, 327.1-yard avg.

Longest Drive: Caleb Surratt, 349.6 yards (2nd hole). Official measured drives taken only on holes 2 & 12.

Driving Accuracy: Bjorn Hellgren, Yosuke Asaji, 85.71% (12 of 14)

Greens in Regulation: Josele Ballester, Bjorn Hellgren, Sam Horsfield, 94.44% (17 of 18)

Scrambling: 10 players at 100%, led by Harold Varner III (7 of 7)

Fewest Putts: Scott Vincent, 22

Bogey-free rounds: Josele Ballester (60), Bryson DeChambeau (64), Caleb Surratt (65), Branden Grace (66), Joaquin Niemann (67), Byeong Hun An (68), Younghan Song (70),

Cumulative

Driving Distance: Matthew Wolff, 308.9-yard avg.

Driving Accuracy: Graeme McDowell, 78.57% (33 of 42)

Greens in Regulation: Paul Casey, 88.89% (48 of 54)

Scrambling: Lucas Herbert, 87.50% (7 of 8)

Fewest Putts: Dustin Johnson, 70

SATURDAY SIGHTS & SOUNDS

Photos from today are available here

Round 3 at Maaden LIV Golf Virginia delivered pivotal movement on the course as players positioned themselves for Sunday’s final push. Off the course, the energy remained high with appearances from Washington Commanders safety Nick Cross and Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson, adding to the event’s dynamic atmosphere. That energy extended across the Fan Village, where a strong family-friendly environment continues to make LIV Golf a welcoming, all-ages experience.

Saturday at Maaden LIV Golf Virginia extended beyond the competition with a headline After Play concert from multi-platinum country star Bailey Zimmerman, taking the stage following Round 3. One of the genre’s fastest-rising artists, Zimmerman brings chart-topping hits and high-energy performance to cap the day, reinforcing LIV Golf’s signature blend of world-class sport and live entertainment.

WHAT’S TEED UP TOMORROW (SUNDAY, MAY 10)

The final round of Maaden LIV Golf Virginia tees off Sunday with a 12:05 p.m. shotgun start, as players battle to secure both individual and team titles. With public gates opening at 10:00 a.m., the stage is set for a decisive finish and high-stakes competition across the course. Off the course, HyFlyers GC will bring LIV Golf’s community impact to life through its partnership with Bunkers in Baghdad, hosting active-duty service members while inviting fans to write messages of appreciation and showcasing custom team golf bags to raise awareness for the cause. The day concludes with the crowning of champions and a post-round press conference, marking the culmination of the week in Virginia.

Featured Tee Times (Hole 1 Starters) Full Tee Times & Groupings

Hole 1 — Group #1 (12:05 PM start)

• Scott Vincent (HyFlyers GC)
• Josele Ballester (Fireballs GC)
• Dean Burmester (Stinger GC)

Hole 1 — Group #2 (12:16 PM)

• Bryson DeChambeau (Crushers GC)
• Sergio Garcia (Fireballs GC)
• Lucas Herbert (Ripper GC)

Limited tickets for Maaden LIV Golf Virginia’s final round on Sunday are still available. More information is available at LIVGolf.com, with all tickets including same-day access to all on-site fan experiences, including speciality Mother’s Day activations. Children aged 12 and under (one per paying adult) and all military members receive complimentary Grounds Pass admission, with group tickets, hospitality and premium experiences also available. For full event details, live scoring and tickets, please visit LIVGolf.com.