Reigning champion Jon Rahm is confident of a LIV Golf player slipping on the Green Jacket at the Masters.
The Spaniard believes the Saudi-funded roster retains several players with ‘major champion’ quality who could win the first major of the year at Augusta National next week.
13 competitors from the LIV Golf League are entered in the Masters including himself, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson who occupied the top three spots on the leaderboard last year.
Rahm was still a PGA Tour loyalist when winning his second major title, but his groundbreaking move to LIV in December has strengthened the breakaway league’s hand at the showpiece event in Georgia and its shot at bragging rights over the PGA Tour.
While the PGA Tour has retained the vast majority of its talent and will be represented by the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland, Rahm will lead a strong contingent of those who left the tour for LIV Golf in the hunt for golf’s first offer of major silverware in 2024.
“That is a very hard question to answer,” Rahm said when he was asked for the odds of a LIV Golf Masters winner ahead of the rebel league’s event in Miami this week.
“But you know, there are quite a few major champions in LIV, and there are a few that are major champion quality golfers. So just pure numbers, if you go with math, wouldn’t be the highest, but I’m confident that one of us can get it done this year.
“There’s some great golf being played out here, some great golf being played on the other tours, and so it’s going to be a battle but you know, at the end of the day, that’s individual,” Bubba Watson added while speaking in the same media session at Trump National Doral.
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“So we are pulling for our friends no matter where they play but it’s going to be a battle and hopefully it is a LIV player because I’m one of those that’s up there at the top and hopefully I’m in that top five challenging on Sunday.”
Rahm will line up with the likes of Watson, Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann representing the LIV Golf League down Magnolia Lane next week. Bryson DeChambeau and past champions Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia will also harbour hopes of glory.
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Jon Rahm: Masters champion believes there is room for both LIV and the PGA Tour
Golf fans were treated to a battle between Rahm and Koepka at the 2023 Masters and a battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. At that stage, it was fairly inconceivable that arguably the tour’s biggest star could be swayed by the riches of the LIV Golf League which the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund bankrolls and join Koepka at LIV just eight months down the line.
Rahm came out on top while Koepka won the PGA Championship one month later. From its humble beginnings in June 2022, LIV now own seven of the last 15 major winners with Rahm’s acquisition being the clearest example of the league’s pulling power.
The Spaniard stood alongside Watson and Mickelson speaking to the press at Doral on Wednesday, a trio that was plucked from the PGA Tour which is still locked in negotiations with the PIF. Despite a recent meeting between the player directors of the PGA Tour and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, there is still no compromise in sight.
When a framework agreement was announced between the two entities, who were once considered rivals, in June 2023, there appeared to be light at the end of the tunnel. Rahm hopes that if and when a deal is struck, a better product will be delivered to fans across the globe.
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“Every time I get asked a question like this, I say the same thing,” he added. “I think there’s room for both. It’s as simple as that. I think we have the opportunity to end up with an even better product for the spectators and the fans of the game, a little bit more variety doesn’t really hurt anybody.
“So I think properly done, we can end up with a much better product that can take golf to the next level worldwide, and I’m hoping that’s what ends up happening.”
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