Ben Coley on Jon Rahm's decision to join LIV Golf in 2024
After weeks of speculation, Jon Rahm has completed his move to LIV Golf. The money involved is cartoonish to write down: £300,000,000 for a three-year deal, with a reported share in the financial success of the operation going forward. If you're wondering why tournament prize money isn't included in this calculation, it's because his future on-course earnings are no longer relevant. Rahm would have to win every tournament for a number of years to eclipse his appearance fee.
Of course, it's so much more than that. LIV Golf has bought, on behalf of Saudi Arabia, one of golf's best players. It has bought a student of the game who values majors first, but winning events like the Open de Espana next. Or so we were led to believe. What Rahm said and what he's now chosen to do no longer align. That is not presented as criticism, but as fact: a desire to play against the best in the world in historic tournaments does not square with joining LIV Golf. On this matter alone, Rahm's values proved malleable.
Still, LIV Golf won't worry about such trivialities. It has struck a massive blow, pulling out one of the vital organs of the rival it hopes to destroy. It is not necessarily what Rahm brings to their operation that defines this deal, but what it symbolises. Dustin Johnson was older when he signed, never driven by a desire to be considered great. Brooks Koepka believed his career to be in jeopardy and had to deal with having a brother used as kompromat. Cam Smith might have felt that things were unlikely to get better, so why not cash in and join his Australian idol while the figure was at its highest.
Rahm is different. He is halfway to a career grand slam and with the best perhaps still to come. He is popular, he is thoroughly likeable, and whether quite as invested in history as he claimed to be, certainly loves the sport of golf more than most. Unless injury plays a part, his outstanding game of power and artistry is future-proof. He will be around for as long as he wants to be and win many more titles, even if most of them will lack any form of identity. LIV Wherever, LIV Whatever, LIV However. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it matter that Jon Rahm won another of those LIV events we're told took place?
But if a player like Rahm is willing to sacrifice playing on the PGA Tour, even if it did take hundreds of millions of dollars to change his mind, then what does it say about the future of what for the time being remains, tenuously, golf's premiere destination? If before it relied on history and meaning to compete with the money, and these things meant more to Rahm than most, then what is there left? Who now will follow, safely hidden by Rahm's shadow?
There is though some risk on Rahm's part. When people use phrases like ‘win-win’, when they reasonably put forward the argument that the PGA Tour encouraged this kind of decision by attempting to strike a deal with Saudi Arabia, they fail to recognise that Rahm’s tried and tested formula is being interfered with. Perhaps 54-hole events on a lighter schedule will suit him just fine, as they have Koepka. Nevertheless, he will have thought hard about the potential negative ramifications not just in terms of his reputation but his game, and so should we. What if his edge is blunted?
As for the PGA Tour, everything now rests on Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods and, according to Sports Illustrated, Patrick Cantlay. If the last name jars in that sentence then so it should. Cantlay, central to the Ryder Cup's Saturday hatgate drama and a player whom McIlroy has made clear he has little time for, is out to get richer. No wonder he's found his way into the middle of this.
McIlroy, who sacrificed time, energy, possibly tournaments to stand up to LIV Golf on behalf of Jay Monahan and co, ought to feel betrayed. Whether that leads to accepting an astronomical offer from LIV Golf will depend on how flexible his own values are, how much of a pounding from others they can withstand. Based on his comments on Thursday, which were generous towards Rahm, he's not going anywhere.
If it needs to be said, there is of course a vast difference between shaking the hand of Saudi Arabia and being left with no choice but to share a room with them. Perhaps McIlroy, who already has all the money he could ever need, will prove capable of understanding that distinction, and securing his legacy not just as a modern great of the game, but as someone who walked the walk. Rahm will face this question if he hasn't already. Is there anyone whose money you wouldn't accept?
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Woods might not have all those PGA Tour trophies on show in his house, a fact once revealed by McIlroy, but he knows exactly what each of them represents. If there isn't a campaign to have him installed as Monahan's replacement – and Monahan absolutely must be replaced – then perhaps there's a good reason. As everyman PGA Tour players rebel, led by Nate Lashley and a departing Chris Stroud, uniting the ones who really matter behind Woods feels like an avenue worth exploring. The PGA Tour is under serious threat. It can ill afford to turn away allies.
Speculation like this is the name of the game now, the future of men's golf less certain than it has ever been. Who knows what it looks like in five years, where it is being played, by whom; who finances it, and who really helps it to flourish. What we can say is that no open market would make LIV's investment in Rahm a financially astute one, but that never was what this is all about. Perhaps it's unreasonable to ask that today's professionals worry about tomorrow's, about what happens when the well runs dry or the whim runs elsewhere, but somebody has to.
Many will believe that Rahm did the right thing. Apparently he is to do as all good parents should and safeguard the future of his family, but he'd done that already. The idea he ought to think four or five generations from now is childish, incapable of withstanding any form of scrutiny, as is the dictum that 'everything has a price'. This sorry mess proves nothing of the sort: it simply proves that as far as where and for whom he plays his golf, Rahm was indeed for sale. No more, no less.
And so that is what he will do. What this means for the Ryder Cup, the Open de Espana, European golf in general, only time will tell. What it means for the golf fan is that Rahm will not take part in The PLAYERS Championship or defend his title in the LA Open. He will not win the Match Play, and he will not return to the top of the world rankings for the foreseeable future, if he ever does. He will play against the very best players in the world just four times annually, once a month from April to July. He will not grow the audience of this sport, not like this.
For eight months of the year, he will be irrelevant to the many who do not wish to watch LIV Golf. Call those people whatever you like, but they exist. DP World Tour professional Eddie Pepperell, an admirer of Rahm, says he will not follow his progress. That is a sentiment shared by tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands. The kind of numbers LIV might be quite pleased with.
On the day Rahm's move was confirmed came a timely reminder of why it is that LIV Golf, for all its millions, has failed to win over a significant audience; a reminder of the sparsely-attended circus Rahm has agreed to perform in.
Two teams – Smash and RangeGoats – exchanged players, with the league's number one, Talor Gooch, swapping sides with Matt Wolff, who ranked 27th. All players in all teams answer to the same person and as a consequence the details, where sport's meaning is often found, simply do not matter here. There are no Smash fans. RangeGoats did not spot something Wolff was doing and covet him.
This is no serious competition. It's a front, with one advantage over the rest. And it's the one thing in life that could never have troubled Jon Rahm anyway. Golf grows weaker by the dollar.