Jon Rahm's Clash With the DP World Tour Could Cost Him the Ryder Cup

The LIV Golf star declined an offer to settle fines and suspensions that eight of his peers accepted, and so a stalemate continues, Bob Harig writes. Also: new wrinkles at Augusta, plus Tiger and Anthony Kim.

Jon Rahm declined an offer to settle fines and suspensions with the DP World Tour. | Francois Nel/Getty Images

Call it pride, call it principle. Pragmatic? That remains in doubt.

Jon Rahm is not budging.

The two-time major champion who jumped to LIV Golf prior to the 2024 season declined an offer to put a messy fine and suspension situation with the DP World Tour behind him over the weekend. Eight of his LIV Golf colleagues did just that.

Where that leaves Rahm in regards to the 2027 Ryder Cup is now very much up in the air.

And thus the sniping will continue.

Those on the DPWT side will tell you that this was an amicable solution, allowing LIV players—with conditions—a way to still compete as members on the Tour while no longer accruing fines, which in Rahm’s case are approaching $3 million.

Those on the LIV Golf side will tell you the fines were bogus to begin with, and that the conditions laid out were less than friendly.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, and compromise always leaves those on both sides wanting more.

But one truth is hard to escape: in April 2023, the DP World Tour prevailed before a U.K. arbitration panel which said the circuit was within its rights to impose fines and suspensions for violations of its conflicting events rules.

That meant that whenever a LIV Golf player competed in an LIV event that was up against a DPWT event, he faced consequences. Several LIV players, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter among them, resigned their memberships rather than continue to accrue fines.

Much like the PGA Tour, the DPWT requires a release to play in a conflicting event. Such releases are typically granted, with stipulations. So why not for LIV Golf events?

The PGA Tour has deemed LIV to be unauthorized events and grants no releases at all.

The DPWT isn’t prohibiting its members to play LIV events but is penalizing them for doing so, in part by not granting releases because the system does not work both ways. For a LIV player, there is no choice. He can’t skip the LIV event in order to play on the DP World Tour.

Jon Rahm knew the DP World Tour’s rules when he signed with LIV Golf

Rahm knew this when he signed with LIV Golf. He might not like the rules, but those are the rules that have—so far—been upheld in court. While Rahm appealed his fines, which allowed him to play DP World Tour events and the Ryder Cup while the process lingered—and still does—there was always going to come a time when this needed to be resolved.

To LIV’s credit, it has been working with the DPWT to try to come to some sort of resolution. In 2024, it offered a lump sum payment and scheduling consultation in order to get the fines to stop. The DPWT declined.

More recently, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil sought some agreement after it was announced that LIV Golf would no longer pay its players fines after 2025.

The result was not exactly what LIV had hoped for as the DPWT went to the players directly, and apparently made deals that were not the same for all.

In an unusual Saturday announcement that came after a deadline to accept these terms, the DPWT said that that eight members have been granted conditional releases.

Tyrrell Hatton, who plays with Rahm on the same Legion XIII team, is one of the eight who agreed to the terms. The others who have signed on are Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, David Puig and Elvis Smylie.

The deal was offered to any LIV player who is also a DPWT member. Sergio Garcia and Joaquin Niemann, for example, failed to meet membership requirements in 2025.

In return, those players have agreed to settle all previous fines, drop any appeals and add additional stipulated DP World Tour events—believed to be two or four—to their schedules, which have required a minimum of four events.

That latter stipulation is apparently one of the things Rahm is balking at, according to Today’s Golfer. While Rahm has maintained all along he would not pay the fines—they would actually have been taken care of by LIV Golf—the event requirement is apparently tied to each specific player and might require them to play tournaments stipulated by the DPWT.

Rahm met the minimum last year by playing early in the year in Dubai, then the BMW PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup and the Spanish Open. Yes, the Ryder Cup counts as one of the four. And Rahm could easily add an event in Spain. He also skipped the season-ending events in Dubai for which he was eligible.

The Ryder Cup, which Jon Rahm helped win for Europe last year, counts for the DP World Tour's minimum-event requirement. | Dennis Schneidler-Imagn Images

It’s hard to feel sorry for a guy who played a grand total of 22 worldwide events and is asked to play 24.

“The releases apply for the 2026 season only and they are not precedent-setting,” the tour said in its statement. “Requests for releases will continue to be considered on their individual merits in accordance with the Regulations that all members agree to abide by.”

That wording has raised concerns. It’s only for this year? Then what? And how is this not precedent-setting?

The DP World Tour understandably wants and needs these players. And sponsors want them. Rahm knows this, too, and thus wonders why he is penalized. Why not waive the penalties?

The answer there is easy: the DPWT, like the PGA Tour, sees LIV Golf as a threat. It was not started with benevolent intentions. The idea was to secure as many of the best players as possible and its 14-event worldwide schedule was always going to make it difficult to be complementary to another tour’s rules.

In the case of the DPWT, LIV Golf has gone into competitive markets where the DPWT currently is or once was, such as Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Spain, the U.K. and South Africa. It is fighting back with its rules—and yet still offering the chance to compete without penalty going forward.

Rahm has elected not to go along with that, which means next week when LIV Golf plays in Hong Kong while the DPWT is in South Africa, another fine will be added to the tab.

At some point, his appeal will be heard. And if he loses? Then things get really interesting.

“I think any organization or any members' organization like this has a right to uphold its rules and regulations,” Rory McIlroy said earlier this year at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. "What the DP World Tour is doing is upholding its rules and regulations. We, as members, sign a document at the start of every year, which has you agree to these rules and regulations.

“The people that made the option to go to LIV knew what they were. So, I don't see what's wrong with that.”

This week’s PGA Tour stop shows what a compressed schedule could look like

So much of the talk early in the PGA Tour season is how the schedule will look in 2027 and beyond. Changes are coming, perhaps phased in over a couple of years, with the likelihood that there will be less tournaments and they will be compressed into a smaller window.

That is already happening to a degree now with this week’s Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches taking a field hit because of all the significant events that surround it.

And it will happen again following the Masters.

After playing consecutive signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera, the Cognizant does not have a single top-20 player in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Following it is the third signature event in four weeks, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and then the Tour’s flagship tournament, the Players Championship. That’s four must-play events in five weeks for the Tour’s elite, leaving the Cognizant in a very difficult spot.

Scottie Scheffler and the rest of the top 20 in the world (that are eligible) are sitting out the Cognizant Classic, as it is sandwiched between signature events and the Players. | Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

It doesn’t get much better after the Masters.

The RBC Heritage follows the first major, then the Zurich Classic of New Orleans followed by two more signature events back-to-back, the new Cadillac Championship at Doral and then the Truist Championship in Charlotte the week prior to the PGA Championship.

This will get more attention as it gets closer, but scheduling those two signature events up against a major is a bad idea. And it then impacts two longstanding events on the other side, the Byron Nelson Championship and the Charles Schwab Championship at Colonial.

Both of those Texas events are favorites of Scottie Scheffler, who lives in Dallas and won the Nelson last year.

So what is the No. 1-ranked player in the world to do?

The Masters, RBC Heritage, Zurich, Cadillac, Truist, PGA Championship, Byron Nelson, Colonial, Memorial, Canadian Open, U.S. Open, Travelers—in that 12-tournament stretch are three majors and five signature events.

Scheffler is also the defending champion at the Nelson and at the Memorial.

“There’s always decisions to be made in terms of tournaments,” said Scheffler, whose tie for 12th at the Genesis Invitational broke a streak of 18 straight top-10 finishes. “If I could, I would play every week, it’s just not feasible for me. I think most of the stuff is still up in the air for me. I definitely don’t announce any tournaments that I'm committing to unless it’s—I’ve got to be 100 percent because it would be tough not only on the tournament but that’s just not the way we like to do it. I would say everything is still kind of up in the air.”

The new wrinkles around Augusta National

The Masters 2026 media guide shows some changes to the course for this year, including 10 more yards added to the official yardage at the par-4 17th and the addition of previously lost trees behind the 11th and 15th greens.

The 17th now measures 450 yards after the hole’s yardage plate was repositioned, bringing the par-72 course to 7,565 yards.

Three pine trees had been at the back of the 11th green until Hurricane Helene in September 2024. They were absent for the 2025 tournament but now the map shows a return of trees behind the greenside bunker.

Two pines had also been lost behind the 15th green, trees that came into play for shots that went long over the green. There was just one such pine last year and now—according to the course map—there are three.

The history between Tiger and Anthony Kim

It goes way back, but Tiger Woods and Anthony Kim do have an interesting, if brief, history. The 15-time major champion praised Kim in the aftermath of his LIV Golf victory in Adelaide after having left the game for 12 years.

Back in 2008, the duo conducted a clinic together on behalf of their endorser, Nike, in which they somewhat hilariously had far different approaches to the way they practice, played and hit shots.

Earlier that year, Kim won the AT&T National in Washington, D.C., a tournament that Woods hosted but did not play in due to the knee surgery that followed his U.S. Open victory a few weeks prior. A year later, they played together in the final group at the same tournament, with Woods prevailing.

“This kid hit it so good,” said Woods, 50, who is 10 years older than Kim, when asked a question about him last week. “He was on an unbelievable run when he won at Charlotte, and we played each other—against each other at Congressional. He played unbelievable at the 2008 Ryder Cup. He had so much natural talent. He could hit any shot he wanted.

“Then to see him struggle in life and didn’t really want to play golf, didn’t really want to be part of golf, and for him to come all the way back and for him to win and to be as devoted as he is to his family, it’s a story in which—you just have to wrap your heart around it because of the struggles. We can all relate to struggles. We all struggle in life. The longer it goes, the more tough times you’ve had. But for him to fight through it and for Anthony to get to where he’s gotten to, from the low that he was in, is something that, as I said, you have to just wrap your heart around it.”

Kim went 2–1–1 in that 2008 Ryder Cup, including a singles victory over Sergio Garcia. The following year, he went 3–1 in a victorious U.S. Presidents Cup, where Woods went 5-0.