PIF could still honour this shortfall, or a portion of it in an agreement between the parties, or Rahm could receive the debt as equity in LIV 2.0. But sources insist that Rahm is not enamoured by the prospect of the new LIV iteration, which is touted to feature just 10 events, with greatly reduced purses.<\/p>\n
What has made this even less appealing is the DP World Tour\u2019s assertion that it is \u201chighly unlikely\u201d to grant \u201cconditional releases\u201d like this year. Rahm struck a deal with Wentworth HQ to be spared any more fines or bans in 2026 for appearing in LIV events, so long as he paid off his backlog of sanctions \u2013 which amounted to more than $2m (\u00a31.48m) \u2013 and committed to play five events this campaign.<\/p>\n
If the two-time major winner had not agreed, he would have lost his Tour membership and been ineligible for next year\u2019s Ryder Cup. And with the Tour\u2019s hardline stance, this scenario has reared its ugly head again and not just for Rahm.<\/p>\n
Tyrrell Hatton, his LIV team-mate and Ryder Cup partner, signed a similar deal with the Tour, but if he stays with LIV, faces fines and tournament bans for the next campaign and the same applies to others such as Northern Irishman Tom McKibbin and Poland\u2019s Adrian Meronk.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, veterans such as Sergio Garc\u00eda and Lee Westwood have paid up their fines and have been considering rejoining. The LIV 2.0 schedule \u2013 supplemented by starts on the DP World Tour \u2013 is an attractive proposition, but this now seems to have been closed off.<\/p>\n
For Rahm, the continued noise can only be a distraction. He has compiled more than $90m in on-course earnings and bonuses in his three seasons on LIV, but now he apparently wants a route back to his former standing.<\/p>\n
The PGA Tour might extend the same offer for him to return as it did to Brooks Koepka at the start of the year, but it might also make him serve the same one-year suspension as Patrick Reed, and play his way back on to the US circuit via the DP World Tour rankings.<\/p>\n
The Rahm saga is indicative of the rampant uncertainty at LIV that has developed since the Saudis suddenly decided to turn off the taps.<\/p>\n
Bubba Watson summed up the ambiguity and indecision in the LIV locker room. \u201cI can pick and choose if I have a job next year,\u201d Watson said at the Danish Championship on Wednesday. \u201cAnd then you don\u2019t know. You can\u2019t say you\u2019re in or you\u2019re out until you find out what\u2019s really going on and what options you have and what that looks like. So we\u2019ve been talking about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PIF could still honour this shortfall, or a portion of it in an agreement between the parties, or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[127,44,528,16209,692,6336,9717,9720],"class_list":["post-50162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jon-rahm","tag-dp-world-tour","tag-golf","tag-jon-rahm","tag-liv-golf-invitational-series","tag-sport","tag-standard","tag-top-story","tag-us-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}