Jon Rahm sat at the dais and seemed to have all the answers to the questions facing him and pro golf’s fractured world.
“There’s only one problem in life that doesn’t have a solution, and that’s death. That’s it. Everything else has a solution,” Rahm said.
That was at the 2022 BMW PGA Championship when he was asked if LIV Golf members should be Ryder Cup eligible. He followed with a caveat. “If European Tour really want them to play and as a team we want them to play, I think a solution can be reached. If every party is not happy about it, I don’t know.”
That last part is where we now find Rahm, two Ryder Cup wins and a LIV Golf u-turn later, fighting a battle against the DP World Tour that has his Ryder Cup future hanging in the balance.
On Tuesday in Hong Kong, Rahm took the mic, clad in his Legion XIII gear and faced questions about why he did not accept the DP World Tour’s olive branch when others, including Tyrrell Hatton, did. The DP World Tour reached an agreement (independent of LIV Golf) with eight of its members to grant them conditional releases to compete in LIV events without accumulating further sanctions. To play LIV’s 14-event schedule and be a DP World Tour member in good standing, players agreed to pay all outstanding fines, participate in additional stipulated DP World Tour tournaments and withdraw all pending appeals.
Rahm, who has said his fines total more than $3 million, did not agree to the deal. As he said four years ago, when every party isn’t happy, it’s hard to find common ground.
“I don’t like what they’re doing currently with the contract they’re having us sign,” Rahm said on Tuesday. “I don’t like the conditions. They’re asking me to play a minimum of six events, and they dictate where two of those have to be, amongst other things that I don’t agree with.
“I don’t know what game they’re trying to play right now, but it just seems like in a way they’re using our impact in tournaments and fining us and trying to benefit both ways from what we have to offer, and it’s just — in a way they’re extorting players like myself and young players that have nothing to do with the politics of the game. So I don’t like the situation and I’m not going to agree to that.”
Rahm went on to say that he has told the DP World Tour that if they lower the requirements to four tournaments, as is stipulated in the membership guidelines, he’ll sign the agreement. The DP World Tour wants LIV players to sign up for more to help bolster the Tour they left in a lurch when they bolted for the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund’s money.
Naturally, back when he had pledged his “fealty” to both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, Rahm understood that the European circuit needed players that had left for LIV to continue to compete on its tour. It was a vital part of the league’s survival.
“I think the PGA Tour will and can honestly survive without some big players going,” Rahm said at Wentworth in 2022, when asked if the DP World Tour should allow LIV players to compete if they remain members. “But the European Tour, there are many key players that have been key for European Tour golf and the Ryder Cup that have a lot of collective years on the European Tour; that them coming [to events], I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing.”
This has been the story of Jon Rahm. A generational player and a student of the game, who has found himself trying to carve a very narrow path toward what he wants: to play on LIV Golf while also being a DP World Tour member and Ryder Cup eligible but only by playing the minimum number of tournaments required and not having to pay an extra penance for his decision to jump to the rebel league.
Zooming out and taking the last four years as our sample, Rahm is the ultimate dichotomy, and his most recent decisions are following suit.
There’s the Rahm on Tuesday saying he doesn’t want to be told what tournaments to play without acknowledging that he signed up for a league that dictates the majority of his schedule. He did that voluntarily.
“I’ve always committed to play the minimum requirement, and I think I’ve played four events, including the Spanish Open, every year except one as a pro, and I commit to do that,” Rahm said. “That’s not going to change. I still fully intend to do that. Now, with the LIV and the major schedule I don’t think I’m going to be able to do so until our playoffs or our last events are done.”
But when he joined LIV at the end of 2023, there was the Rahm who said that he hoped his new league’s truncated schedule would allow him to tee it up more on other circuits.
“I can say that I do want to maintain my PGA Tour and DP World status. I will not give that up and hopefully with the freedom that LIV Golf gives me I can play in both of those tours as well,” Rahm said in 2023.
Back in 2022, when several LIV players sued the PGA Tour for access into the FedEx St. Jude, Rahm was adamant that actions have repercussions and everyone should be prepared to lie in the bed they make.
“They chose to leave the PGA Tour, they chose to go join another tour knowing the consequences; and then try to come back — and get courts and justice in the way — wouldn’t have, I would say, sit extremely well with me,” Rahm said then.
On Tuesday, Rahm sang a different tune as he tries to walk a tightrope to his preferred destination: whatever doesn’t make him do extra to make good with the DPWT.
“I’ve been a dual-member my whole career, PGA Tour and DP World Tour,” Rahm said. “Now with LIV Golf being accepted in the world rankings as part of the ecosystem, you could almost say a three-tour member, even though I’m suspended from the PGA Tour. But I’ve always been a dual member. Never once have I been asked for a release to play either one of those tours. We’ve never submitted a release. So why is it now that we need to be offering this and there’s all these penalties? I understand why they’re doing it. What’s the problem?”
With LIV Golf officially getting World Golf Ranking points, it’s clear that Rahm’s hope is that he can win his pending appeal with the UK’s Sports Resolutions arbitration panel — the same one that already ruled in favor of the DP World Tour in 2023 — based on a technicality. In Rahm’s mind, if LIV Golf is now a recognized part of the ecosystem, then the DP World Tour would be restricting trade by levying sanctions against him.
Ex-Ryder Cup captain on Jon Rahm dilemma: ‘Was that the last option?’
By:
Josh Schrock
That has been the Jon Rahm story for the past few years. One who claims to understand why things are the way they are, but also is trying to create a path for them to be different, and for that to mesh with who he is and what is remembered for.
He’s the man who said he wanted to play for “legacy” and that “$400 million” wouldn’t “change” his life. Then, he left for LIV and admitted the money was enough to make him him decide to try and “create” his own legacy. He’s a two-time major winner and titan of the game who believes he is unfairly judged off four tournaments a year, but won’t acknowledge that’s what he signed up for when he bolted for a breakaway league with a field strength equal to the Bahrain Championship. He’s a European legend who lives for the Ryder Cup, even though he knew joining LIV Golf meant potentially sacrificing that dream. He has become a Ryder Cup hero by checking his ego at the door, and yet it might be his unwillingness to do so here that jeopardizes it going forward.
Rosters for the 2027 Ryder Cup get finalized in just 18 months, which begs two questions: How far is Rahm willing to trudge down this narrow path? And how many European fans want to follow him down it, too? His unwillingness to budge means those questions are now inextricably linked.
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