Jon Rahm at the 2023 DP World Tour Championship. | Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Rahm, one of the best players on the planet, and a PGA Tour stalwart, will join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf in 2024.
Jon Rahm is headed to LIV Golf.
The move alters the professional golfing landscape forever, as the Saudi-backed circuit will now employ the third-ranked player in the world, the defending Masters champion, and a generational talent in Rahm, “assuming talks don’t fall apart,” per The Wall Street Journal.
It will also give the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)—LIV’s beneficiary—bargaining power in its ongoing negotiations with the PGA Tour. The two sides have until Dec. 31, 2023, to strike a formal agreement to unite golf’s power brokers and end the schism that has vociferously divided the sport for the past couple of years.
The PIF, which has over $700 billion in assets, will give Rahm close to $550 million to join the league. He will also own his own LIV Golf team, per The Telegraph.
Since LIV’s launch, Rahm has vehemently supported the PGA Tour and has said on multiple occasions that his loyalty lies there.
“I laugh when people rumor me with LIV Golf,” Rahm said in August on Golf Sin Etiquetas, a Spanish golf podcast.
“I’ve never liked the format. And I always have a good time with Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia in the practice rounds of majors… Phil respects my decision, and I respect his [choice]. Mickelson has told me that I have no reason to go play for LIV, and he has told me that multiple times.”
Photo by Stuart Kerr/R&A via Getty Images
Jon Rahm and Phil Mickelson chat during a practice round ahead of the 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool.
Consider what he said at the 2022 U.S. Open at the Country Club at Brookline, where he arrived as the defending champion:
“I’ve never really played the game of golf for monetary reasons,” Rahm said in Massachusetts.
“I have always been interested in history and legacy, and right now the PGA Tour has that. There’s a meaning when you win the Memorial Championship. There’s a meaning when you win Arnold Palmer’s event at Bay Hill. There’s a meaning when you win [Los Angeles], Torrey [Pines], some of these historic venues. That to me matters a lot.”
But something has changed over the past few months, as numerous signs have pointed in this direction.
He first pulled out of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TGL league, and then, most recently, was not listed within the field of next month’s The American Express, a tournament he won on the PGA Tour in January 2023. The PGA Tour insists on defending champions playing in the event the following year unless an injury—or a defection to LIV—occurs.
Rahm also has a strong relationship with Mickelson and Garcia, which he alluded to in August. These two players have been with LIV Golf from the onset. Perhaps their mentorship of Rahm influenced his decision even more.
Regardless, Rahm will now tee it up with LIV Golf, an instance that must make PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan feel queasy, as the tour has lost one of its greatest assets and one of its best players.
Ultimately, this move is one of the most monumental moments within the sport, perhaps shifting the bargaining power towards the PIF and away from the PGA Tour. How the agreement shapes out from here remains to be seen, but it will be an interesting few weeks, to say the least.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko for more golf coverage. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough too.
