Jon Rahm: Ryder Cup 2027 appearance looking less likely by the day<\/p>\n
The man rewarded with a reported sum of $450 million to leave the PGA Tour and join LIV has now dropped his appeal to the fines<\/a>, but still won\u2019t pay them and also doesn\u2019t want to meet the event quota asked of him, even after he chose to join LIV Golf to play in conflicting events as a DPWT member.<\/p>\n What is anything, let alone golf, without rules and punishment for continually breaking them? <\/p>\n They can\u2019t just be ignored, so it is simple. Rahm is on track to leave the DPWT and end his association with the Ryder Cup, for now at least. <\/p>\n Of course, if the event does arrive and Rahm isn\u2019t allowed to play, a situation that still feels unfathomable despite the current stand-off, Europe\u2019s chances of retaining the Ryder Cup and staying unbeaten on home soil since the 1993 edition are severely under threat.<\/p>\n He has played in the last four Ryder Cups and won nine of his 17 matches, losing five and halving three.<\/p>\n \u201cHe signed a contract for LIV, and he plays 14 events and the whole thing, I get all that. But the DP World Tour is well within its rights to protect itself as a member\u2019s organisation and as a business,\u201d Rory McIlroy said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd if you asked any DP World Tour member about the deal that they have cut with the LIV guys \u2013 I think they would all say that it was pretty generous.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a reason that eight of the nine took it, because they probably think the same thing, and one guy thinks a little differently, and that\u2019s a shame.\u201d<\/p>\n His own Ryder Cup partner Tyrrell Hatton, with whom Rahm has won four out of five pairs matches against America, accepted the conditional release from the DPWT. The Englishman has as strong a case to be Europe\u2019s talisman next year as any player, be it Rahm or even McIlroy in front of his adoring Irish crowd in Co. Limerick.<\/p>\n The deal was good enough for him, but not for his Legion XIII teammate \u2013 the team they both play for in the LIV league, named after a story in Rahm\u2019s favourite childhood comic books.<\/p>\n Rahm could follow in the footsteps of another Spanish giant, Seve Ballesteros. Not by winning five majors, albeit that could be in Rahm\u2019s future, but by missing a Ryder Cup in a row with the tour.<\/p>\n ALSO: Luke Donald is on his way to becoming a Ryder Cup god, and it is all thanks to LIV Golf<\/a><\/p>\n In 1981, Ballesteros missed the matches against America over an appearance fee dispute with the European Tournament Players\u2019 Division. He left the tour and didn\u2019t play in events that wouldn\u2019t pay him what he felt he was entitled to, with part of his stance being that top US players would pocket fees to compete, but not him.<\/p>\n The squabble continued so long that selectors John Jacobs, Neil Coles, and Bernhard Langer chose Mark James and Peter Oosterhuis to play instead. Europe was hammered at Walton Heath that time.<\/p>\n Rahm\u2019s reasons for Ryder Cup exile won\u2019t be the same, but what will be the same is the Ryder Cup. The show will go on without him, just like it did without Ballesteros. <\/p>\n What many won\u2019t have predicted at that point, when he was left at home by the selectors, is that Ballesteros became the inspiration of the European dressing room. He formed an iconic partnership with Jose Maria Olazabal, captained a winning team at Valderrama in 1997, and even after his death in 2011, his spiritual presence has provided no end of motivation for the Europeans who\u2019ve followed in his footsteps.<\/p>\n When Rahm left the PGA Tour to join LIV ahead of the 2024 season, he felt this decision might help to tighten the relationship and hasten the framework agreement between the tour and the Public Investment Fund, which bankrolls LIV.<\/p>\n It had the opposite effect. <\/p>\n What we learned is that while Rahm is a needle-mover and a generational talent, his actions don\u2019t stop time, and that won\u2019t change if he isn\u2019t part of Luke Donald\u2019s team in 2027.<\/p>\n NOW READ: Why we could be watching the beginning of the end for LIV Golf<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Jon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/RC.09.24.25.MM_.0B5A1736-1024x683.jpg\")
Jon Rahm of Team Europe during the Opening Ceremony of the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage State Park | Source: Maddie Meyer\/PGA of America<\/p>\n