Jon Rahm, the 2023 Masters champion and No. 3 player in the world, is expected to leave the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf.
An announcement is expected Thursday barring a last-minute change. The Wall Street Journal first reported Rahm was set to join LIV on Thursday morning.
Rahm, 29, would be the PGA Tour’s first defection to LIV since the June 6 framework agreement between the PGA Tour and PIF. No formal agreement has been reached between the parties, which have been working on a Dec. 31 deadline. And he would immediately become one of LIV’s top players.
Rahm has spent 52 weeks as the No. 1 player in the world, according to the Official World Golf Ranking, and also won the 2021 U.S. Open. He was third in the PGA Tour’s PIP program, earning a $9 million bonus for his popularity in the golf world.
Rahm’s surprising move
The Spaniard has often been seen as the neutral party in the PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf verbal and legal wars, in part because of his close ties to several people who did leap to the rebel tour. Countryman Sergio Garcia is a friend, mentor, and frequent Ryder Cup playing partner, while Phil Mickelson is also a mentor of Rahm. In addition, Rahm was coached in college and initially represented post-college by Tim Mickelson, Phil’s brother and current caddy.
In August, Rahm spoke to the Spanish golf podcast Golf Sin Etiquetas and said that the PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and other tour leadership “have to earn trust again. When they say that the tour is of the players and — regardless of whether what they did is good or bad, without speaking to anyone from the Board of Directors, Rory McIlroy or whoever is there—they do that business with LIV, they have to earn that respect again.”
Rahm has however been frequently critical of LIV’s format — 54 holes with no cut and a shotgun start. While OWGR indicated earlier this year that it could find a way to award world ranking points for such an event, the closed nature of LIV Golf’s 48-man roster made OWGR deny LIV’s request.
GO DEEPER
Miller: Jon Rahm is going to LIV. Golf will be different now
What happens now?
This should have significant ramifications on the PGA Tour’s negotiations with PIF, the Saudi Arabian royal investment fund that operates LIV Golf. The fate of those negotiations has remained in doubt in the weeks and months since the hastily-announced agreement, though Monahan said Nov. 29 at the New York Times DealBook Summit that he would meet with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan this week. “The deadline of our conversations with the PIF is a firm target,” Monahan said.
At the same time, the tour has advanced discussions with other equity funds that could provide capital for a new, for-profit product. It has been believed that those funds could work either as an alternative to the PIF or in coordination with it, the latter of which would ease United States government concerns about the proposed deal.
So let’s galaxy brain for a moment: The PIF wants a deal, as it’s losing hundreds of millions of dollars in propping up a league that is light on names, has a bad TV deal and almost no revenue. The PGA Tour has options, and maybe wants to use them. So if you’re the PIF, is it worth another huge cash outlay to one of the tour’s biggest names in order to bring the tour back to the table and have the leverage to make a deal? And if you’re Rahm, can you let yourself be a pawn in this power play, picking up a giant check with assurances it ends with you and your compatriots all back together again in some way? It’s not crazy.
But what if this is not chess and actually just checkers? Then the PIF again used its riches to change professional golf.
PGA Tour pros are expected to receive equity in this new product, another step to bridge the gap between what the top tour players earn and the bonuses those that went to LIV Golf received. Rahm made $16.5 million on the course during the 2023 season and has career earnings of more than $50 million. But LIV is offering him $566 million, according to the Daily Telegraph, or $100 million more than the entire PGA Tour prize payout for 2023.
The terms of the original framework agreement suggested that the PGA Tour would control LIV, and ultimately its fate. But LIV has proceeded business as usual, announcing its 2024 schedule earlier this month.
Rahm significantly bolsters the talent roster for LIV, also giving the tour two 2023 major winners (along with Brooks Koepka) and three from the past two seasons (including Cameron Smith). Rahm has spent more weeks at No. 1 than any other golfer on the LIV tour except for Dustin Johnson. — Hugh Kellenberger, senior managing editor, golf
Required reading
(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
Daniel Miller is a sports fanatic who lives and breathes athletics. His coverage spans from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis for sports enthusiasts.
