Jon Rahm can only hope peaceful times are ahead, except it\u2019s not that simple.<\/p>\n
He lives in Arizona and for now is planning a schedule of tournaments that are between seven and 11 time zones away from home. Rahm said Tuesday he is willing to pay the same penalties as Brooks Koepka when he returned to the PGA Tour from LIV, only he doesn\u2019t know if he\u2019ll get that offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really don\u2019t know what 2027 is going to look like for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard has resurfaced this week in the United Arab Emirates for the two-week conclusion to the European tour season. This is his first tournament in nearly two months, following two significant moments that had been weighing on him.<\/p>\n
At home, he filled out his own foursome when his wife gave birth to their second daughter. Their fourth child, who they thought might arrive early, instead came later than expected.<\/p>\n
At work, Rahm filed for legal separation from LIV Golf, which still requires formal approval from a bankruptcy judge later this week.<\/p>\n
Rahm is giving up millions that was owed him from signing with the Saudi-funded rival league at the end of a 2023 season filled with celebration and controversy. He twice reached No. 1 in the world. He won the Masters. He was unbeaten in another Ryder Cup victory for Team Europe.<\/p>\n
But that image of Rahm in a Masters green jacket in April was overshadowed by him posing in a black letterman\u2019s LIV jacket in December. It\u2019s hard to believe that was three years ago.<\/p>\n
Rahm has not won a major or anything else except for four LIV Golf titles since defecting at a time when he was a serious threat to Scottie Scheffler. No one, except for Rory McIlroy briefly, has been particularly close to No. 1 since then.<\/p>\n
And now it\u2019s time for Rahm to move forward, to put the pieces of his career back together, all the while the road ahead is not entirely clear.<\/p>\n
The PGA Tour has banned LIV players for one year since their last appearance, which for Rahm was Aug. 23 when he finished second at LIV Golf Indianapolis. Then again, the tour has been known to change its rules (see Koepka). For all of Bryson DeChambeau\u2019s self-promoting, Rahm is the top LIV player the tour should want back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have yet to have a discussion with the PGA Tour to see if there\u2019s any path back for next year,\u201d Rahm said in Abu Dhabi. \u201cSo I don\u2019t know, as of right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until he gets any clarity, his plan is spend the entire year on the commercially known DP World Tour. And he said he is looking forward to it.<\/p>\n
Never mind that Rahm, who earned a PGA Tour card in just four tournaments after he turned pro in 2016, has never played more than six regular European tour events in a year. That was in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently 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,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I haven\u2019t really gone too deeply into it just because there\u2019s still a question mark.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koepka still had a year left on his LIV contract when he negotiated his way out of it at end of 2025, and PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp quickly found a reentry for the five-time major champion. It came with a cost, of course. Koepka has no access to equity for five years. He had to pay $5 million to charity. And he had to earn his way into signature events in order to play them (he didn\u2019t).<\/p>\n
PGA Tour math put the penalty value at $50 million or more. Is that a price Rahm is willing to pay?<\/p>\n
\u201cMost likely, yeah. Why not?\u201d Rahm said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a big if. I seriously doubt I get offered the same deal that Brooks did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rolapp made that clear in January when Koepka returned. He offered the same deal to major champions from 2022 \u2014 Rahm, DeChambeau and Cameron Smith. Saudi cash was still filling LIV\u2019s coffers, with no indication that was going to stop, and no one took the bait.<\/p>\n
Rolapp has been guided by what makes the PGA Tour better. Having Rahm on the roster would do that. He also has to answer to players still \u201cbutt-hurt\u201d \u2014 McIlroy\u2019s words \u2014 over defectors who took the absurd amounts of money they turned down to stay loyal.<\/p>\n
Rolapp never said the January offer to Rahm and others would be off the table, rather \u201cthere is no promise that this path will be available again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously Brooks was able to go back through certain circumstances. I don\u2019t know if the possibility of that would be open for me or not,\u201d Rahm said. \u201cBut if I have to fulfill a one-year suspension, I think it\u2019s a pretty good position to be that a worst-case scenario I get to play on a wonderful tour for a whole year.\u201d<\/p>\n
That would mean playing more than six regular tournaments to go along with the four majors.<\/p>\n
The European tour starts in the Middle East for a month, Africa the next month, Asia in the spring wrapped around the Masters and then continental Europe from May through September.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the road more traveled. But based on what he saw from LIV 2.0, it beats the alternative.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full golf coverage here <\/p>\n
Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Rahm can only hope peaceful times are ahead, except it\u2019s not that simple. He lives in Arizona…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-957080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}