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Last year he was the defending champ. This year … well, this year golf doesn’t quite know what to do with Jon Rahm.
When Rahm defected to LIV Golf in December 2023, he stood at golf’s pinnacle. His four-win season featured a second major championship and first Masters victory, alongside a dominant Ryder Cup performance—achievements that fulfilled his immense promise and cemented his status as one of his generation’s alphas. His departure to the Saudi-backed circuit seemingly marked an inflection point in professional golf’s civil war. Because, while “narrative” seems insufficient, the reality was clear: LIV Golf’s roster was associated with controversial figures and funded by a regime with documented human rights concerns. Rahm’s arrival offered the league a universally respected figure and one of golf’s most principled voices. Moreover, by adding one of the sport’s premier talents—directly countering criticism that they merely attracted fading stars and unfulfilled prospects—they acquired something far more valuable: competitive legitimacy.
That was the belief. In truth, Rahm’s defection has failed to transform LIV’s identity. This past week should have been LIV’s vocal rebuttal to its detractors; the Miami event featured household names atop the leaderboard, secured its inaugural Fox broadcast, faced virtually no competing programming, even hosted the President of the United States in attendance—yet catastrophically failed to attract even half a million viewers. Beyond Rahm’s high-profile move, not a single marquee player has left for LIV in the past three years. For all its proclamations and limitless financial resources, LIV Golf remains nothing more than the most extravagantly expensive member-guest exhibition ever staged—a soft-power exercise disguised as a sports league.
What has changed is how Rahm is perceived. His sterling reputation has been tarnished. There will be some that find it impossible to reconcile his “good guy” image with his partnership with a regime known for human rights abuses. Equally damaging was his repeated insistence he would never leave the PGA Tour only to do the opposite. What also remains uncertain is Rahm’s standing as a competitor. On the surface, he appears to be the same methodical player with his comprehensive, measured approach—producing rounds that might seem deliberate but display masterful control. He remains that exceptional talent who inevitably draws comparisons not to contemporaries but to the past, forever measured against his countryman Seve Ballesteros, a hard shadow to escape. Statistically, he maintains his form—claiming two LIV victories and the season-long individual championship last year.
Yet these achievements come against a field with legitimate competitive questions against it, making their significance impossible to gauge. We’re left with only a handful of weeks of undisputed competition to assess his true standing. And in those critical major championships—where Rahm once dominated—his silence speaks volumes. He finished T-45 in his Masters defense last year, missed the cut at the PGA Championship and withdrew from the U.S. Open due to a foot injury. He was just outside the mix at the Open, registering a T-7 finish, and contended at the Olympics. Alas, Rahm fell apart down the final stretch, which—thanks to a surge by Scottie Scheffler—saw the Spainard leave Paris without a medal.
Among the golf cognoscenti, Rahm remains in that conversation as one of the game’s best, there with Scheffler, McIlroy and Schauffele. As Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau have proved, LIVers can still be formidable in the rare times this split golf world comes together. Still, given what he used to do, to what he did last year, it’s fair to wonder if competitive atrophy—if being placated by hundreds of millions—have done anything to Rahm’s bite.
That is admittedly an unfair barometer—four weeks being weighed against an entire year—yet that is the Faustian bargain Rahm has agreed to … and frankly, one other stars also face. (See: McIlroy, Rory.) But at least with McIlroy and Scheffler, we have some understanding of what their results mean. With Rahm, who has finished inside the top 10 of every LIV event this year, we have a generational talent toiling in obscurity. The subject was broached on Tuesday, with a media member asking what we should make of Rahm’s 2025 thus far.
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“I don’t know how to say anything else,” Rahm said. “Consistency is something that I’ve always prided myself on. I think last year the state of my game was being unfairly judged based on how I played here and at the PGA compared to how I really played throughout the whole year.
“While I understand why, I don’t think it was the most fair state of my game. It’s something—top 10 statistics is something I’ve always prided myself on. Right before joining LIV, I think I was still close to 50 percent worldwide in all my starts finishing top 10, which is something I pride myself on, and to keep it going that way is not easy. Now, I would say I would definitely trade a few of those—take a few of them away and hopefully add a couple more W’s. That would be nice because not in all of them I had a chance to win, and at the end of the day, that’s a goal.”
Perhaps that’s what Rahm believes to be true, but it’s hard to convince a golf populace that what you’re doing matters when it’s in a league people think doesn’t. Given that PGA Tour’s discussions with PIF have seemed to cool, it doesn’t look like Rahm’s predicament is ending anytime soon.
This week presents Rahm a chance to reclaim his story and prove he remains the competitor we once revered. Yet should he capture Masters title, the subsequent return to LIV’s inferior competition will only rekindle golf purists’ heartache—a different anguish than that inspired by Koepka or DeChambeau’s defections. Koepka never disguised his indifference toward non-major events, while DeChambeau’s pursuit of personal celebrity eclipses his commitment to golf’s greater good.
Rahm represented something bigger—an intellectual force whose veneration for golf’s traditions complemented his talent. In a professional landscape too often characterised by privilege and detachment, he had distinguished himself through his thoughtfulness and perspective. Therein lies the paradox of what Rahm decided to do: he possessed the wisdom to comprehend the ramifications of his choice—both for himself and the game he professed to cherish, yet proceeded anyway. That’s why it’s hard to square who Rahm is; we thought we knew, and we thought he did, too.
Main Image: Richard Heathcote
