Jon Rahm smiles during the Pro-Am ahead of the 2024 Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucia Masters. | Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images
LIV Golf’s Jon Rahm has big ideas for the future, which includes signing more players to his Legion XIII team.
Jon Rahm has big plans as he approaches the first anniversary of his signing with LIV Golf.
First, he must fill out his LIV Golf team, Legion XIII. South African Kieran Vincent will no longer play on Rahm’s team, as he was relegated for his poor play this past season. That leaves Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, and young American Caleb Surratt as the only three members of the team.
Therefore, Captain Rahm has had to think about how to fill out his team.
“I still don’t have a player who’s already signed, but we have six or seven in mind,” Rahm said in an interview with Golf Sin Etiquetas, which was conducted in Spanish.
“Two or three are in this tournament.”
Rahm is playing in the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters this week in his native Spain. Teeing it up alongside him during the first two rounds will be fellow Spaniard Angel Hidalgo, who defeated Rahm in a playoff three weeks ago in Madrid in the Spanish Open.
At 26 years old, Hidalgo has tremendous potential and fits the billing as a Legion XIII signee. He is also a Callaway player, which is vital for Rahm. Per his interview, the two-time major winner wants to sign Callaway players. The goal is eventually to partner the brand with his Legion XIII team.
The other crucial development for Rahm this week is that the Andalucía Masters will mark his fourth start on the DP World Tour this season. Unlike the PGA Tour, the Olympic Men’s Golf Competition, where Rahm had a late lead and stumbled down the stretch, counted as an official DP World Tour event in 2024. He then played in Madrid and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews, tying for seventh at the Home of Golf. That keeps his Ryder Cup prospects alive, as Rahm will fulfill the minimum requirement set forth by the DP World Tour to play in four events annually.
But his strong play over the past few months, which includes winning the individual season-long title on LIV, proves that Rahm is still one of the best players in the world. The Europeans will also need him at Bethpage Black next fall if they want to beat the Americans on their home soil. To do so, he must remain a DP World Tour member, which explains why Rahm is teeing it up this week in Andalucía. He did not play in this event last year, which last year’s Ryder Cup snub Adrian Meronk, who now plays on LIV, won.
Since Rahm will meet the four-event threshold on the DP World Tour this week, he announced that he would take the rest of the calendar year off to spend time with his family at home in Arizona. Rahm and his wife Kelley welcomed their third child, Alaia, at the end of September.
He also said that he will begin his 2025 season by playing in a DP World Tour event, presumably the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, before the LIV Golf season starts in early February in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
