Three LIV players share Hong Kong Open lead on eve of league's deadline

Four players share the lead of the Link Hong Kong Open at −14 after three rounds at Hong Kong Golf Club. Three of them are LIV players, and the league has asked its players to say by Sunday, the day of the final round, whether they will sign for its relaunch. LIV, which filed for Chapter 11 protection in New Jersey on 8 September, has told the court it expects to know by the end of October whether it will play in 2027.

Thomas Pieters and John Catlin shot 65 on Saturday, Anirban Lahiri 66 and Caleb Surratt 67. Catlin, the 2024 Asian Tour Order of Merit winner and the only one of the four not on LIV, saved par at the 18th after his third shot finished against the back lip of the front greenside bunker.

The winner earns a place in the 155th Open at St Andrews next July and an invitation to the 2027 Masters, according to the Asian Tour.

Pieters said on 15 October that he would not join LIV 2.0, and he has no DP World Tour card for 2027. The second stage of that tour’s qualifying school starts at four Spanish courses on 29 October. A win on Sunday would get him into two majors without a card.

Surratt, 22, is the last member of Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII who has not announced his plans; Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and Tom McKibbin are all leaving LIV. He has not won as a professional. His closest finish was a play-off defeat by Joaquin Niemann at the 2024 PIF Saudi International.

“Where I play is going to be based on the best interest of my family and myself,” Lahiri said of LIV 2.0 on 13 October. He has seven Asian Tour titles, the last of them at the 2015 Hero Indian Open, but no LIV win in four years in the league. He has not said whether he will sign.

McKibbin won here last year by seven shots at −27 but pulled out of his defence with a stomach illness, Irish Golfer reported.

Matthew Cheung, trying to become the first Hong Kong golfer to win the event in its 65 editions, shot 71 and is two behind at −12. So is Kalle Samooja of Finland, whose 63 was the lowest round of the day.

Sources

• Asian Tour: Catlin, Lahiri, Pieters, Surratt set up final day thriller in Hong Kong
• Asian Tour: Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand and Korea enjoy OQS status
• ThePrint: Lahiri shares lead in Hong Kong, eyes first worldwide win since 2015
• Field Level Media: Anirban Lahiri urges people to ‘chill out’ amid ‘dynamic’ LIV 2.0 situation
• Golf Digest: All the players who have left LIV Golf (so far)
• Golf Digest: LIV Golf paid executives $15.6 million as vendors went unpaid, new bankruptcy filings show
• Golf Channel: LIV’s Tom McKibbin wins Hong Kong Open in rout
• Irish Golfer: Stomach issues rule McKibbin out of Hong Kong defence
• Wikipedia: Caleb Surratt
• Wikipedia: Anirban Lahiri
• ESPN: LIV Golf’s Scott O’Neil given $6.3M before bankruptcy protection filing