Jon Rahm may not “see many ways out” of his LIV Golf contract, but on Tuesday he did not sound like someone who harbors regrets about joining the league two years ago.
The Spanish star spoke to reporters at Aronimink Golf Club ahead of this week’s PGA Championship, less than a month after news emerged that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund would end its financial backing for LIV at the end of the season.
Rahm joined later than other high-profile players, switching allegiances between the 2023 and 2024 season while the PGA Tour and LIV attempted to iron out details of a “framework agreement” to merge interests. Rahm said Tuesday he never thought his taking the LIV deal, at a reported $300 million or more, would “tip the scales” in those negotiations, which petered out.
“Now, I would also say I’ve made a lot of decisions in my life, and I’ve never gone back thinking, ‘Oh, had I known this again, I would do X and Y different,'” Rahm said. “I could do that about 15 different golf shots on the golf course every single day. If I lived my life like that as a golfer, I would be a very pessimistic person.
“So we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and all we can do is learn from things that happen in the past good and bad. Just to speculate on … what could have been different doesn’t really make much sense.”
Rahm — who said last week that he has several years on his contract and doesn’t “see many ways out” of it — went on to clarify that it’s human nature to think “what could have been,” but he tries to steer away from letting that alter his decision-making.
“If you made all the decisions — whatever decision you’ve made or choice is thought through and made for the reasons that you think are proper reasons, there’s no sense in dwelling on it. In fact, you shouldn’t really be unhappy about it. At least there’s nothing that you regret,” he said.
“If the terms change afterward, like it’s happened with LIV that things changed a little bit, it’s an afterthought, not a problem from the choice. I would say that elements have changed a little bit. That’s it.”
Those elements that have changed with LIV started small — for instance, the move this year from 54-hole to 72-hole events in order to gain limited world ranking points for members. Now the larger LIV experiment may go down unless the league can line up more lines of income. An event planned for June in New Orleans has already been postponed, possibly to be played after the official season ends.
Shortly after Rory McIlroy claimed outsiders could see PIF’s decision coming, Rahm reflected on how LIV players followed the emerging reports last month while they were in Mexico City to play.
“It is something we’ve had to deal with, obviously, the week of Mexico and last week a little bit more, but it’s just some things that are out of my control,” Rahm said. “I think I said it last week, out of the few talents I have in my life, fixing a business is not one of them. I might be the worst person for that.
“So my job is to play golf, luckily. I’m decent at it. And that’s what I can focus on, right. What I can focus on is the next shot. It’s the people in charge of LIV, whose job I do not envy for a second, not now, not when things are going good because it’s not something I think I can do. It’s their job to fix it.”
For now, Rahm is playing golf quite well, collecting two wins, three runners-up and a top-five through the first six events of the LIV calendar before tying for eighth last week in Virginia. However, he tied for 38th at the Masters.
LIV’s new deal with the Official World Golf Ranking means Rahm has climbed to 20th in the world thanks to points earned from those top-10s. The two-time major winner said he doesn’t necessarily need a ranking to tell him where his game is at, but went on to quibble with his position.
“I’m not going to get into specifics. I will just say I feel like the way I’ve played, including the last three years, I would say I feel like I’m — I should be — I feel like I’m playing better than the ranking I have right now,” he said.
“I’m not going to get into the details of what number I would be because I don’t want to insult any player who doesn’t play fantastic golf, but I feel like higher than I am right now, that would be fair.”
When asked what he’s learned from being with LIV, Rahm answered with a slight smile, “That is for me to know, and that’s about that.”
