{"id":53593,"date":"2026-08-20T22:06:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T22:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/53593\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T22:06:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T22:06:24","slug":"jon-rahm-has-three-choices-but-he-wont-totally-love-any-of-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/53593\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Rahm has three choices. But he won\u2019t totally love any of them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated Aug. 17, 2026, 11:39 a.m. ET<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In his memoir of life in the tech industry,\u00a0“Chaos Monkeys,” Antonio Garcia Martinez wrote that\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not the rats who first abandon a sinking ship but rather the crew members who know how to swim.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> \u2014 the bullshit that long acted as ballast having shifted to expose the dead weight of washed-up hangers-on \u2014 those who remained are left eyeing leaky life rafts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just two members of LIV\u2019s roster matter, no matter how much its CEO, Scott O\u2019Neil<\/a>, 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\u00a0remains\u00a0welded to LIV, Rahm\u2019s tone has been lukewarm and several sources in his orbit are convinced\u00a0he\u2019ll\u00a0exit soon<\/a>. He has alternatives, but\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0not painless and require accepting conditions that the prideful Spaniard might balk at.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rahm\u2019s obvious first choice for life after LIV would be returning to compete on the PGA Tour. He lives in the U.S., and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0the 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\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0be asked to pay stiffer financial penalties, accept restricted playing\u00a0privileges\u00a0and\u00a0perhaps even\u00a0apologize (for what, and to whom, is unclear). How would that sit with a man who went to war with the DP World Tour<\/a> in Europe over comparatively modest fines?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Koepka chose to leave LIV<\/a> with time\u00a0remaining\u00a0on his contract. Rahm would be\u00a0leaving by\u00a0necessity, knowing he\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0see\u00a0all of\u00a0the cash promised and that the league, if it survives, would do so only because someone wanted to\u00a0leverage\u00a0its losses to dodge taxes elsewhere in their investment portfolio. His former peers haven\u2019t 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\u00a0return\u00a0as a hero. No one did more to ensure\u00a0there\u2019d\u00a0be no deal between the Tour and the Saudis (with the possible exception of\u00a0Patrick Cantlay in the boardroom). He chose his side and the guys he left behind were determined to make him live with the decision. Plenty\u00a0remain\u00a0so, and\u00a0are disinclined to roll out the welcome mat too quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Explore how to live where you love to play Access community guides, golf real estate insights, trusted agent connections, and content built for passionate golfers.<\/a>\"Jon<\/p>\n

The PGA Tour\u2019s CEO, Brian Rolapp,<\/a> surely sees business value in repatriating Rahm (or DeChambeau) but\u00a0has to\u00a0weigh that against spending the political capital necessary to make it happen. Rolapp would\u00a0hear out\u00a0Rahm (and DeChambeau) if an approach is\u00a0made, but\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0even waste a thought on anyone else in LIV\u2019s ranks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rahm\u2019s second\u00a0option\u00a0would be Europe, but that would mean working far from his family\u00a0and for\u00a0modest purses. Along with other LIV members, he was welcomed back to the DP World Tour after settling his outstanding fines<\/a>. 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\u00a0\u201927 schedule \u2014 a more onerous threat now that LIV pays less and Yasir isn\u2019t covering\u00a0penalties, and\u00a0significantly 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sending LIV\u2019s relevant players \u2014 Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Joaquin Niemann \u2014 to plow the lonely furrow in Europe could also serve a purpose for Rolapp since bolstering that business can eventually reduce the subsidy\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0sending that way, which is well into eight figures. And if the number of PGA Tour cards available annually to Europe\u2019s top performers is reduced from the current 10 \u2014 or if Wentworth limits eligibility for those cards by LIV guys for a year or two \u2014 they might be trapped on that side of the Atlantic for some time before earning a path back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The least appealing\u00a0option\u00a0facing Rahm is to remain with LIV.\u00a0He\u2019s\u00a0reportedly owed\u00a0a significant amount of money that\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0unlikely to ever see. Settling instead for equity in LIV 2.0 would be akin to\u00a0accepting\u00a0part ownership of a house\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0on fire, uninsured and built on a toxic dump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Making the smart decision \u2014 and accepting whatever sanctions\u00a0accompany\u00a0it \u2014 requires that he not\u00a0listen\u00a0only to the voices who ushered him into this career\u00a0cul-de-sac almost three years ago. He needs at least one person in his circle who\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0just tell him what he wants to hear. To that end,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0encouraging 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\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0at all timid about delivering unvarnished counsel. If\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated Aug. 17, 2026, 11:39 a.m. ET Sources suggest golfer Jon Rahm may soon exit the LIV Golf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[58,528,59,2993,2994,1276,65,68,1773,20330,1103,67,187,62],"class_list":["post-53593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jon-rahm","tag-accessfree","tag-jon-rahm","tag-sourcegolfweek","tag-sstssportsgolfliv","tag-sstsnliv","tag-tagbryson-dechambeau","tag-taggolf","tag-taginternational-sports-competitions","tag-tagjon-rahm","tag-tagmichael-phelps","tag-tagoverall-negative","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagstory-highlights-ai-enabled","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53593","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=53593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}