Jon Rahm and Tony Finau will go out in the same group in the final round as they battle it out for the title in the debut appearance at the Hero World Challenge.

They are both at 13-under, the same as Henrik Stenson.

While there is a three-way lead, Gary Woodland (67, 11-under), defending champion Rickie Fowler (67, 10-under) and Xander Schauffele (66, 9-under) and Dustin Johnson (72, 9-under) are not out of it, for this course can yield low scores anytime.

Last year, Fowler came from seven shots behind to shoot 61 and win the Trophy.

Rahm is just 24 and he turned pro after spending 60 weeks as World Amateur No 1. His last event as an amateur was the US Open, at the start of which he was 551st in the world.

Phenomenal rise

He finished T-23 and turned pro the following week at Quicken Loans and finished T-third. Since then, the trajectory has been just up and up. The rise has been so phenomenal and he reached No 4. Though he is currently at the eighth position, he has already attained superstar status and he is just 32 months into pro golf.

While Rahm’s rise is much talked about, soon after the third day, another story surfaced. This one about him getting his T-shirt signed by Stenson, when he was 10 or 11 in 2007 at the Volvo Masters in Valderrama.

Amazing story

Rahm played the third round with Stenson and then someone brought up how he met the Swede for the first time back in 2007. Rahm smiled and said, “ Possibly, 10 or 11 years ago, when I was in Valderrama as a kid Henrik was signing my shirt.

That was the first time I met Henrik. Obviously, you get along with him, right, because he’s a really funny guy, great to be around, but I didn’t really know him much up until we played together in Philly.”

Asked if he told Stenson about the shirt, Rahm laughed and said, “He knows, he knows. That went around a little bit. He said he would sign my shirt again if I wanted to. My parents still have that signed one. Nick Dougherty signed that shirt, Paul Casey’s signature was on that and Jimenez signed that, too.”

Twenty-nine-year-old Finau has an even more amazing story. A pro since the age of 17 who forsake both golf and basketball scholarships, Finau first chose money to draw his closely-knit family out of difficulties and then endured them on the golf course for years before finding the passage to stardom in the last two years.

The part Tongan and part Samoan, Finau has been a pro since 2007. He had offers for scholarship to both golf and basketball programmes, but he chose golf when someone backed him and his even more talented elder brother Gipper for $50,000 to play the ‘Made for TV’ ‘Ultimate Golf’ tournament, which carried a prize of $2 million.

Tough times

Tony and his brother didn’t know what that meant — it meant giving up amateur status and not playing college golf.

The younger Finau reached the 12-man final, good enough to pay back his sponsors and still make $100,000, a fortune for the family of modest means.

Finau had to face tough times at home, too. His mother, Ravena, was killed in an accident. It devastated him, but he re-doubled his efforts and went on.

After a long journey, Finau finally reached the Web.Com Tour in 2013; won his first pro event in 2014; and went on to earn his PGA Tour card for 2014-15. In March 2016, Finau won the Puerto Rico Open and opened many doors. In 2017, he had a series of Top-10s that saw finishes beginning with T-9 at the Tournament of Champions. He had Top-5s at Farmers; Valspar; and Texas Open. Finau made it all the way to Tour Championships where he was T-7.

Two weeks later, as the 2018 season started, he was T2 at Safeway. The year 2018 turned out even better: three runner-up finishes — Genesis Open, Northern Trust and WGC-HSBC, which falls in 2019 season — besides being picked for Ryder Cup. He was also in Top-10 at three of the four Majors and three of the four FedExCup Play-off events. The icing on the cake — he is ranked 14th , which is the best in his career.

Course unfamiliar

In the third round, Finau shot 67 after 64 a day earlier and is now 13-under. He has knocked down Par-5s and is nine under for them. He said: “I played nicely. I took care of the par 5s, and on this golf course, we have five of them. I think that’s what you have to do to play well, so I was able to do that today.”

He added, “You know, I always hope and expect to play well no matter what golf course we play. This is a golf course I’m not very familiar with, I played it once before we played. When I’m playing well, I feel like I can score on any golf course, especially a course that has five par 5s.”

So, who will it be? Rahm or Finau or someone else?

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