PGA Championship: Jon Rahm trying to focus on his game, not his uncertain future with LIV Golf

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has announced that it is pulling funding from LIV Golf after the 2026 campaign. The status of the startup golf league, which threw the sport into turmoil for a while at its inception back in 2022, is now very much up in the air.

Rahm was undoubtedly one of the biggest names to make the jump from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf when he did so at the end of the 2023 season. He reportedly received $300 million over multiple years to do so, too. But that choice to move came months after the Tour and the PIF agreed to a framework agreement for their merger of sorts.

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But getting the game back together, he said Tuesday, wasn’t a factor in his move. He didn’t think he was “going to be any sort of weight that would tip the scales” in any way.

Rahm revealed last week that he has multiple years left on his contract with LIV Golf, and he doesn’t “see many ways out” of it. He did settle his dispute with the DP World Tour, however, which would allow him to be eligible for Europe’s Ryder Cup team.

The merger between the Tour and LIV Golf never panned out, and now Rahm’s future with LIV Golf is foggy. But dwelling on his choice now years later isn’t something Rahm likes to do.

“We all go back. We all think what could have been and what couldn’t have been,” Rahm said. “It’s inevitable. But if whatever decision you’ve made or choice is thought through and made for the reasons that you think are proper reasons, there’s no sense in dwelling on it. In fact, you shouldn’t really be unhappy about it … If the terms change afterward, like it’s happened with LIV that things changed a little bit, that’s an afterthought, not a problem from the choice.”

Rahm won 11 times on the PGA Tour before leaving for LIV Golf, including at both the Masters and the U.S. Open. He finished T8 at the PGA Championship last year, and has two LIV Golf wins under his belt already this season. Rahm is the highest-rated LIV Golf member in the field at the major championship this week at No. 20 in the Official World Golf Rankings, too. Rahm will tee off with Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth in the first two rounds.

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What comes next for Rahm after this LIV Golf season is still anybody’s guess. But for now, he’s very confident in where his game is entering the week outside of Philadelphia, and that is what he wants to focus on.

“Out of the few talents I have in my life, fixing a business is not one of them. I might be the worst person at that,” Rahm said. “My job is to play golf, luckily. I’m decent at it, and that’s what I can focus on … When it comes to compartmentalizing, when you see it from that point of view, there’s really not much to it. I have faith in the work that they’re doing. I have faith that they’re going to come up with a good plan.