Soon enough, Jon Rahm will likely be back where he was, playing and winning on the PGA Tour.
Between 2024 and 2026, he played in a once-resurgent league called LIV Golf and was paid a nine-figure sum before hitting a ball.
Now, Rahm appears to be heading for the exit, a much richer man with a larger family, his major championship and Ryder Cup prospects intact and a route back to golf’s established circuit opening up.
Who has won and lost? Rahm certainly won’t feel defeated. Legacy is a subjective complex beyond tangible major trophies, and he has plenty of time to add to his cabinet.
Despite the hypocrisy of his decision to join LIV, after saying he didn’t like the format and didn’t play golf for money, the fiery Spaniard showed one thing: he didn’t care what people thought.
Some fans might dislike Rahm because of all this. But those same fans might be tuning into DP World Tour (DPWT) events more often in 2027, where the 31-year-old could bide his time before a full PGA Tour return. Then, we’re back where we were, back on the tour on which he’s won 11 times.
European fans will also be cheering him on at next year’s Ryder Cup in Ireland, just as they did when he contributed vital points to Europe’s victory at Bethpage Black in 2025.
Rahm has been at the majors, the Ryder Cup, and squeezed in enough DPWT events along the way to keep membership, earning around $107 million in on-course earnings at LIV events.
He has had the best of all worlds. And when the new year arrives, he could have one less thing on his plate, after his lawyer told a bankruptcy court hearing that the terms of LIV’s plans for 2027 were ‘unacceptable’, with a separation agreement now the next step.
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Jon Rahm: LIV Golf move hasn’t changed his status as a generational talent
There has been some bitterness along the way. The compromise over fines with the DPWT for playing in conflicting LIV events left a stench of entitlement, but this was only after the DPWT was happy to let Rahm kick the can down the road with an appeal to the fines, long enough to keep him eligible to play for Team Europe at last year’s Ryder Cup.
Disputes between European golf’s biggest names and its governing bodies can happen, though – we know this. Seve Ballesteros missed the 1981 Ryder Cup as a result of appearance fee quarrels.
At present, is there a more loved figure in European golf? Things can be forgotten.
Rahm did choose to join LIV at a point where the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund, LIV’s bankrollers, were negotiating peace. His move jeopardised this relationship, and the PGA Tour explored another route with SSG.
He gave oxygen to a league that was losing steam in attracting top players. But Rahm signed up to what can now be seen as sport’s greatest get-rich-quick scheme, accepted an almighty fee, hoovered up prize money and is pushing for an early exit from his LIV contract amid the league’s bankruptcy proceedings.
Fellow scribes might also claim he could’ve won more majors in the time he was playing in no-cut, small-field tournaments with limited quality. There is no way of knowing, I’m afraid.
No player has a divine right to win majors, nor is there a guarantee regardless of talent or form. Rory McIlroy didn’t win one for 10 years.
In the three seasons before Rahm joined the Saudi-funded LIV league that is no longer Saudi-funded, he won the US Open and the Masters, and made five other top-10 finishes.
In the three years since joining LIV, he made four major top-10s. Tommy Fleetwood, for example, has two major top-10s in the last three seasons, and I don’t remember him donning a LIV letterman jacket on the news.
I was disappointed to see Rahm choose Saudi riches over the more meritocratic PGA Tour, and shocked, too. LIV didn’t draw in TV viewers, so we saw less of him for a few years.
But we haven’t lost him. He is still electric, still in his early 30s and still has countless opportunities to win majors and several Ryder Cups ahead. If he isn’t allowed back to the PGA Tour straight away, it will mean a year on the European circuit, then a fresh start in the PGA Tour’s new Championship/Challenger Series guise.
Rahm’s demise, if there ever was one, has been greatly exaggerated.
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