The Future Is Bright For LIV Golf’s Youngest Winner
The swagger was there from the start. The gold chain around his neck, visible and prominent thanks to his always-unbuttoned polo. The high-crowned cap that seemed a half-size larger than everybody else’s. The cocky demeanor balanced by the megawatt smile and funny charm of a 22-year-old determined to enjoy the moment at hand.
And, of course, those huge quadriceps, apparent even when wearing long pants and certainly intimidating whenever he wore shorts, the thin fabric unable to contain the ripples on display with every tee shot. At first glance, he looked less like a golfer and more like one of those rugby props doing battle on the front line of a scrum.
For most of his first season since turning pro to join LIV Golf, however, Michael La Sasso’s results didn’t match his look. The 2025 NCAA Division 1 champion from Ole Miss leapt at the chance to join HyFlyers GC and become Phil Mickelson’s latest protégé to train. Unfortunately, the six-time major winner and Hall of Famer only made one start this season due to family personal matters, altering the landscape that La Sasso had anticipated and forcing the youngster to carve out a different – and more challenging – path.
He finished 55th (out of the league’s 57-player field) in two of his first four starts before flashing in South Africa with a tie for 12th. But another 55th place immediately followed in Mexico City, and he never found himself in contention. Just last month, he finished a season-worse 56th at LIV Golf United Kingdom.
And then – inexplicably or perhaps inevitable, depending on your perspective – La Sasso became a star before our very eyes. In the final three rounds at LIV Golf Indianapolis, he turned a middling season into a highlight reel. After an opening 1-over 71 left him tied for 47th, La Sasso produced the best round of his young career, a 10-under 60 that tied for lowest round by any LIV Golf player this season. Entering the weekend in a seven-way tie for 5th, he then grabbed the 54-hole lead with a 4-under 66 before claiming the individual title with a bogey-free 65.
Even more impressive for the youngster, he never flinched despite having three-time season-long Individual Champion Jon Rahm hot on his heels all day.
“As soon as I saw Rahm sneaking up early, I was like, OK, he’s going to have to earn this one – and he sure did,” said his HyFlyers teammate Brendan Steele, who has provided the team’s veteran onsite leadership in Mickelson’s absence. “That was really incredible.”
In a season full of drama (admittedly off the course as well as inside the ropes), it’s fitting that the final tournament came down to the final hole. Rahm owned a one-shot lead as he stepped onto the tee at the par-4 first, his final hole of the day via the shotgun start. La Sasso, who had started his round 22 minutes later in the final group off the first tee, was finishing up a two-putt for par from 40 feet on 17.
After a solid drive at 1, Rahm found trouble with his approach shot, his ball finishing in the first cut. He couldn’t get up-and-down, missing an 11-foot par putt, dropping him back into a tie for La Sasso, who now could win the tournament with a birdie at the par-5 18th. His second shot finished left of the green in a collection area near the leaderboard, leaving him with a chip 20 yards from the pin. It wasn’t impossible, but under the pressure, it was challenging, especially since a par would drop him into a playoff with Rahm.
As he had done all day, La Sasso delivered, his chip finishing a foot from the pin for the winning tap-in birdie, followed by the kind of exuberance you would expect from a golfer winning his first tournament in just his 13th professional start.
“I knew as soon as I saw this last hole, I was like, ‘This is my time to strike.’ It all worked out,” said La Sasso, the youngest-ever winner of a LIV Golf tournament. “It doesn’t really get much better than this, especially the last event of the year to kind of cap it off with a bang. This what you dream of right here. Fortunate enough, it came true today.”
Said Rahm, who watched the outcome on the range while staying warm for a potential playoff: “With my mistake opening the door, Michael made a great up-and-down on 18 to win. He earned it.”
He earned it through his composure as well as his play. In fact, that might’ve been the most impressive element of his victory. Perhaps at age 22, he’s not young enough to know he’s supposed to be nervous. One of the other golfers in the final group, Englishman Laurie Canter of Majesticks GC, couldn’t stop gushing about how unfazed La Sasso had remained throughout the round.
“He’s so relaxed,” Canter said. “He’s got loads of things he can improve in his game, but I like his head space. … He’s a killer, isn’t he? He’s going to be great for golf.”
Canter mentioned that La Sasso was “joking and messing about” while the group was playing the par-4 13th. Then as they stood on the tee box at the 17th hole, La Sasso asked a question that surprised Canter, given where each stood on the leaderboard.“He asked ME if I was nervous,” Canter said. “I said, yeah, I’m a bit nervous.”
For those who have watched him up-close this season, this was no surprise. La Sasso is cool and calm; he just never got the chance to show it off until Indy. Asked what the build-up to the final round was like in the HyFlyers’ team environment, Tringale replied: “He seemed unfazed to me. It was just like any other day. Honestly, he didn’t really seem any different to me.”
Added Steele: “Some guys are winners, and they’re good at that. They’re good at closing the door, and I think he’s one of those guys that you give him a chance and he can pull it off. It’s a really special quality and something that I think gets overlooked in the game a lot of the time. There are a lot of players, but there’s few guys that can actually close the door when they get the chance – and I think he can do that. The sky’s the limit.”
La Sasso, now doused with champagne thanks to his teammates’ post-round efforts, explained that he was intent on treating the final round as “just another normal day. At least that’s what I tried to make it seem. I think I tricked myself into kind of believing that throughout the day. Even when I saw them start to chase me down a little bit, I wanted to stay in my own lane and do my best.”
The next day, La Sasso flew back to his home base in Jupiter, Florida, keeping the tournament trophy with him at all times. No way it was going in a checked bag. “It’s pretty heavy,” he said at one point, but he wasn’t complaining. Meanwhile, a steady stream of his fellow passengers kept offering congratulations and asking for autographs.
As La Sasso walked off the plane to catch his connecting flight, one older passenger who doesn’t follow sports wondered aloud why so many people were making a fuss about the fresh-faced blossoming star sitting a few rows ahead of her. “He’s a golfer,” she was told. “Just won for the first time as a pro.”
“Oh,” she replied with a smile. “That’s exciting. Good for him.”
Good for La Sasso indeed. But bad for his fellow pros, especially the ones who’ll have to compete against him for the next couple of decades. Golf’s next star has just completed his opening chapter.
