There may be no official starting point for the next chapter in Jon Rahm’s golf life but his presence this week at the Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship feels like as good as any.
It is the first of the two season-ending events in the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai, which culminates with the tour championship next week. While Rahm needs a good week just to advance to the finale, he has left LIV Golf behind, allowing him to walk a different, though familiar, path.
Rahm spent three seasons playing LIV Golf and while he reportedly didn’t receive all the money he was promised, he made millions while captaining a team that won two championships.
But with LIV’s forced restructuring, Rahm found the freedom to start over in a sense, playing primarily the DP World Tour with his eyes on an eventual return to the PGA Tour.
“I would say I can only reflect on those three years as a positive. It was a wonderful experience. Played a lot of good golf. Obviously individually and as a team, we did great,” Rahm said Tuesday in Abu Dhabi.
“And then, you [asked] why I rejected the terms? As much as I liked the project and the idea on, let’s say, LIV 1.0, I wasn’t thrilled with the changes they were doing to 2.0 and I just wasn’t willing to follow that path, right. It wasn’t anything special, anything that stood out.
“I didn’t like where they were going with 2.0.”
The new iteration of LIV Golf remains a work in progress, its certainty and its details still undetermined as the league works through bankruptcy proceedings while onboarding a new financial backer in BC Partners, which has committed up to $300 million provided enough players commit to the venture.
“It seemed like it was going away from team golf and some of the things that made LIV [what it was]. It just became more of a regular tour.” – Jon Rahm
As part of the bankruptcy, Rahm was granted a separation deal that’s pending court approval, freeing him to redirect his career. While LIV works to build a smaller, tighter operation and recently received public indication from Bryson DeChambeau that he intends to remain with the league, Rahm opted out.
“Too many unknowns at the time and there are still quite a few. It seemed like it was going away from team golf and some of the things that made LIV [what it was]. It just became more of a regular tour,” Rahm said.
“It wasn’t really ever much of a consideration to be honest.”
As for Rahm’s immediate future, he’s planning two weeks in the Middle East having just spent a month at home in Arizona with his wife, Kelley, who recently delivered their fourth child. In 2027, Rahm sees himself playing primarily on the DP World Tour with a return to the PGA Tour – at an as-yet undetermined date – down the road.
Given the tenuous situation with the war in the Middle East, players this week were issued guidelines should they receive mobile alerts or be called off the course during competition. The top 50 in points – Rahm sits 51st – will advance to the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. Eugenio Chacarra, Patrick Reed and Rory McIlroy occupy the top three spots in the season-long points race.
Rahm said he has not talked with the PGA Tour about his path back and CEO Brian Rolapp said previously that the tour would not be in contact with any players under contract to a different league.
Rolapp said in August that the tour had no plans to offer the pathway back that Brooks Koepka accepted earlier this year, making a $5 million donation to charity, sacrificing equity in the tour and having to earn his spot in signature events. Rahm turned down that offer and, similar to what Reed has done, he may have to serve a one-year suspension before returning to the PGA Tour.
“Until I get clarity on that, my plan would be to spend the year on the DP World Tour, and I’m looking forward to it. Currently looking at the schedule to see how I can organize it to play the events I want to play … maybe have a chance to have a bit of a different year to what I have in the past,” Rahm said.
“But I haven’t really gone too deeply into [a PGA Tour return] just because there’s still a question mark. Obviously Brooks was able to go back through certain circumstances. I don’t know if the possibility of that would be open for me or not, but if I have to fulfill a one-year suspension, I think it’s a pretty good position to be that a worst-case scenario I get to play on a wonderful tour for a whole year.”
Asked if he would accept the same deal Koepka did, Rahm indicated he would probably agree to it.
“Most likely, yeah. Why not? Yeah, but it’s a big if,” Rahm said.
“I seriously doubt I get offered the same deal that Brooks did. But yeah, if I got offered exactly the same penalties as him, I probably would do it, yes.”