Updated Aug. 17, 2026, 11:39 a.m. ET
Sources suggest golfer Jon Rahm may soon exit the LIV Golf league, following Brooks Koepka’s earlier departure.Returning to the PGA Tour could be difficult for Rahm, as he may face financial penalties and restricted playing privileges.Another option for Rahm is to play on the DP World Tour in Europe, though this would mean smaller purses and time away from his U.S. home.Remaining with LIV Golf is considered the least appealing choice, with reports that he is unlikely to receive the full amount of his promised contract.
In his memoir of life in the tech industry, “Chaos Monkeys,” Antonio Garcia Martinez wrote that it’s not the rats who first abandon a sinking ship but rather the crew members who know how to swim.
By that measure, Brooks Koepka made like Michael Phelps, presciently jumping overboard early from LIV Golf and stroking his way to safe harbor. Now that the Good Ship Yasir seems doomed for the sea floor — the bullshit that long acted as ballast having shifted to expose the dead weight of washed-up hangers-on — those who remained are left eyeing leaky life rafts.
Just two members of LIV’s roster matter, no matter how much its CEO, Scott O’Neil, blathered about the importance of Dean Burmester on the South African stop. They are Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm. The former because every carnival needs a barker, the latter because leagues need credible competitors. While DeChambeau remains welded to LIV, Rahm’s tone has been lukewarm and several sources in his orbit are convinced he’ll exit soon. He has alternatives, but they’re not painless and require accepting conditions that the prideful Spaniard might balk at.
Rahm’s obvious first choice for life after LIV would be returning to compete on the PGA Tour. He lives in the U.S., and it’s the most lucrative, competitively demanding and commercially relevant circuit. But no one around the Tour thinks Rahm will be offered the terms Koepka accepted, and many believe he’d be asked to pay stiffer financial penalties, accept restricted playing privileges and perhaps even apologize (for what, and to whom, is unclear). How would that sit with a man who went to war with the DP World Tour in Europe over comparatively modest fines?
Koepka chose to leave LIV with time remaining on his contract. Rahm would be leaving by necessity, knowing he won’t see all of the cash promised and that the league, if it survives, would do so only because someone wanted to leverage its losses to dodge taxes elsewhere in their investment portfolio. His former peers haven’t forgotten that he went to LIV months after the Framework Agreement was announced, willingly becoming leverage for the Saudis, and that he later said (with amusing self-regard) that he felt his leaving would be the catalyst to uniting the game. Rahm thought he could take the bag and return as a hero. No one did more to ensure there’d be no deal between the Tour and the Saudis (with the possible exception of Patrick Cantlay in the boardroom). He chose his side and the guys he left behind were determined to make him live with the decision. Plenty remain so, and are disinclined to roll out the welcome mat too quickly.
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The PGA Tour’s CEO, Brian Rolapp, surely sees business value in repatriating Rahm (or DeChambeau) but has to weigh that against spending the political capital necessary to make it happen. Rolapp would hear out Rahm (and DeChambeau) if an approach is made, but wouldn’t even waste a thought on anyone else in LIV’s ranks.
Rahm’s second option would be Europe, but that would mean working far from his family and for modest purses. Along with other LIV members, he was welcomed back to the DP World Tour after settling his outstanding fines. But the terms he agreed to expire with 2026, and the DP World Tour is indicating that it might reinstate fines for those who continue to play LIV tournaments opposite its ’27 schedule — a more onerous threat now that LIV pays less and Yasir isn’t covering penalties, and significantly reducing the appeal of a hybrid schedule between LIV and Europe. The DP World Tour wants to force players to choose a lane, daring them to go with the dead end that is LIV.
Sending LIV’s relevant players — Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Joaquin Niemann — to plow the lonely furrow in Europe could also serve a purpose for Rolapp since bolstering that business can eventually reduce the subsidy he’s sending that way, which is well into eight figures. And if the number of PGA Tour cards available annually to Europe’s top performers is reduced from the current 10 — or if Wentworth limits eligibility for those cards by LIV guys for a year or two — they might be trapped on that side of the Atlantic for some time before earning a path back.
The least appealing option facing Rahm is to remain with LIV. He’s reportedly owed a significant amount of money that he’s unlikely to ever see. Settling instead for equity in LIV 2.0 would be akin to accepting part ownership of a house that’s on fire, uninsured and built on a toxic dump.
Making the smart decision — and accepting whatever sanctions accompany it — requires that he not listen only to the voices who ushered him into this career cul-de-sac almost three years ago. He needs at least one person in his circle who won’t just tell him what he wants to hear. To that end, it’s encouraging that spies saw Rahm playing golf a few days ago on Long Island with his longtime friend, Jimmy Dunne, the former PGA Tour board member who isn’t at all timid about delivering unvarnished counsel. If he’s asked.
