‘He Moves the Delta:’ Jason Day, Justin Rose React to Jon Rahm Leaving the PGA Tour for LIV Golf
NAPLES, Fla. — Reports of Jon Rahm leaving the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf loomed large on Thursday at the Grant Thornton Invitational.
With less than a month remaining until the Dec. 31 deadline for the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund (LIV’s backer) to settle on a deal, Rahm’s departure could be especially impactful. The two-time major champion and world No. 3 has reportedly traveled to New York City to finalize details of his contract for 2024.
Former World No. 1 players Justin Rose and Jason Day both had strong reactions to the news, citing the potentially detrimental impact of Rahm’s move for the PGA Tour.
“This is a huge part of the jigsaw puzzle that you’ve seen Jon go,” former world No. 1 Justin Rose said to Sports Illustrated after Thursday’s pro-am at Tiburon Golf Club. “And then I don’t know who else goes with Jon. I mean, obviously if it’s just Jon, that’s bad enough. What does that mean now to the trickle if it’s Jon plus a trickle?”
Initially, the framework agreement between the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the PIF included a clause that would prevent the poaching of players while negotiations were still underway. However, antitrust regulations caused that specific condition to be dropped.
Rumors of Rahm’s defection have been circulating since the Ryder Cup. His decision to pull out of TGL, the simulator golf league started by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, only added fuel to the fire. In the past, the Spaniard has been firm about his opposition to LIV Golf—not only the league’s 54-hole shotgun-start format but the very idea of playing golf for money.
Justin Rose (left) and Jon Rahm, pictured at the 2023 British Open, were also teammates at the Ryder Cup.
Oisin Keniry/Getty Images
“I laugh when people rumor me with LIV Golf," Rahm said in August on the Spanish-speaking podcast Golf Sin Etiquetas. “I never liked the format.” Back at the 2022 U.S. Open he said “never really played the game of golf for monetary reasons.”
Since Rahm’s name re-entered the rumor mill, however, he has been silent.
“The silence is deafening, for sure. There’s a lot of smoke without there having been a bit of a fire to start it up. We’re talking as if going to happen. We may as well assume it’s going to happen now, because I think there’s been a lot of window of opportunity for him to have said something different,” Rose said.
Rose competed alongside Rahm in this year’s Ryder Cup in Rome, where much was made of the Spaniard’s distinguished place in European golf history. The Englishman referenced Rahm’s concern about his “legacy” as one of the elements that makes the decision particularly shocking.
“I think Jon’s a legacy-focused player. He really represents Spain, he understands who he’s following there in terms of Seve (Ballesteros) and Jose Maria (Olazabal). So I don’t think he was careless about this decision,” Rose said.
More than anything, however, Rose is realistic about the magnitude of Rahm’s move. If the division between the two tours continues and a deal is not reached, LIV’s recruitment of Rahm only helps their long-term cause.
“We’re all trying to evaluate PGA Tour versus LIV in the sense of the fan base and the economics around both tours, but he’s the delta. He moves the delta. He weakens one side and strengthens the other. So it’s a big move,” Rose said.
Day, whose name was also floated in recent LIV Golf rumors, was less shocked to see the report of his departure. With several close friends on the Saudi-funded league, many of whom are managed by his own agent, the Australian said he is “happy” for Rahm but wished he remained on the PGA Tour.
“If he does go, it's gonna be sad to not see him as much because I actually like Jon a lot,” Day said. “But on the other end of it, I know that the numbers that they're throwing out or what I'm hearing is generational wealth. That is actually quite significant in regards to thinking about future generations as well. It's gotta be exciting for him. I know that for a fact. But I have mates over there so I don't fault anyone for going across. I mean, I wish he stayed and I wish a lot of the other guys stayed too. That's just the nature of the beast right now.”
Additionally, Day cleared the air as to his own intentions with LIV Golf at the moment, but left his future plans ambiguous if circumstances were to change.
The former PGA champion admitted that if LIV had offered him an opportunity “one, two years ago,” before he made a resurgence after his debilitating back injury, he might have taken it. This season, Day won on the PGA Tour for the first time since 2018, at the AT&T Byron Nelson. He compared his situation to that of Brooks Koepka, who joined LIV coming off of a severe knee injury.
“I think it was just based on pure speculation that typically, like in the beginning when everyone was looking at LIV, they'd be going ‘O.K., who's older, who's injured,’ you know what I mean?" Day said. "I think that kind of would make sense. Maybe if they would have come to me a year, two years ago, there might have been an opportunity for me to go because at the time with my back and everything, I was like sitting there going, ‘How much longer do I really have to play?’ Essentially the same thing as what kind of Brooks did. He was going through some injuries and everything but I've been healthy and I've kind of come out on the other side now.
“I've never really wanted to go across anyways. Right now I don't. Maybe, maybe I'll change my mind down the road sometime. Maybe I won't, I don't, I just don't know. I've never really been kind of down that road of like, oh, we're close to a finish line or any sort of contract, anything like that.”
Day, like Rose, sees Rahm’s LIV deal as a “big hit” to the PGA Tour. Nick Taylor, the winner of RBC Canadian Open in June, put it more bluntly: “It would suck. I don’t think anybody can argue that.”
With Rahm and Koepka, the team-format league is now home to two of the major winners to come out of the 2023 season.
Day also addressed speculation that Rahm’s negotiations with LIV were somehow related to the ongoing conversation between the PGA Tour and the PIF to reach a deal. The Australian was frank in saying that Rahm’s situation had nothing to do with finalizing the framework agreement.
“No, if anyone offered you 400, 500, 600 million—I don't know what the number is but it's somewhere in that ballpark. If someone offered you that much, you'd play on Mars, you know what I mean?” Day said. “So, yeah, I don't think it has anything to do with the PIF and the PGA Tour deal or something.”
Twenty-three year old Ludvig Aberg, another Ryder Cup teammate of Rahm’s, revealed that he was approached by LIV Golf “a few months ago.” But the rookie is committed to playing on the PGA Tour.
“Obviously I love him as a person and a player,” Aberg said. “And selfishly, I would love to compete against him, But everyone is entitled to their own opinions and decisions, and everyone has to respect that.”
Rickie Fowler, who has previously been open about considering a contract with LIV Golf, also said that news of Rahm’s departure would not change his own career direction.
“It doesn’t necessarily change where I’m at or anything like that,” Fowler said. “We definitely don’t want to lose anymore guys to LIV. I feel like we’re potentially in a good spot with the Tour as far as top players being together, I know there’s some other stuff player-related going on. Yeah, it doesn’t change where I’m at. Ultimately, I’m kind of always trying to make the Tour better.”