"No regrets" for Rahm and Westwood as end nears for LIV Golf
Jon Rahm. Picture: Augusta National
Jon Rahm and Lee Westwood say they have no regrets about joining LIV Golf, even as they face uncertainty about where they will play next.
The Spaniard returns to action alongside the likes of Rory McIlroy in the DP World Tour’s Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship, where he needs a “solid” week to make the top 50 players available to play next week’s DP World Tour Championship finale in Dubai.
While Rahm can play the DP World Tour next year, insisting he felt no frustration at leaving an estimated $100-150m on the table by refusing to sign up for LIV 2.0, he admitted he would take a Brooks Koepka-style deal to play on the PGA Tour.
“I seriously doubt I get offered the same deal that Brooks did,” he said. “But yeah, if I got offered exactly the same penalties as him, I probably would do it.”
Given all that has happened, he still insisted that he had no regrets over signing for the breakaway tour three years ago,
“I can only reflect on those three years as a positive,” Rahm said of LIV as he enters the week at Yas Links ranked 51st in the Race to Dubai. “It was a wonderful experience.”
On his decision to cut ties with the breakaway league following PIF’s decision to withdraw its multi-billion-dollar support, he added: “I wasn’t thrilled with the changes they were doing to 2.0, and I just wasn’t willing to follow that path.
“It seemed like it was going away from team golf and some of the things that made LIV, LIV. It just became more of a regular tour.
“It wasn’t really ever much of a consideration to be honest.”
Unlike Koepka, who accepted fines and an inability to earn equity from PGA Tour Enterprises for five years under the PGA Tour’s ‘Returning Members Program’, Rahm did not take up the one-time offer last year but admitted he’d take it now.
“Most likely, yeah. Why not?” he said.
He’ll likely have to serve a one-year PGA Tour suspension and appears ready to play a DP World Tour schedule in 2027 instead
“As of right now, I really don’t know what 2027 is going to look like for me,” Rahm said. “I have yet to have a discussion with the PGA Tour to see if there’s any path back for next year.”
He added: “My plan would be to spend the year on the DP World Tour, and I’m looking forward to it…
“A worst-case scenario I get to play on a wonderful tour for a whole year.”
Political uncertainty in the Middle East, driven by the Iran-US-Israel war, has prompted a host of top players to skip this week.
Absentees include Ryan Fox, Matt Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry, Alex Fitzpatrick, Min Woo Lee, Ludvig Aberg, Si Woo Kim, Justin Rose and Ryan Gerard, while Robert MacIntyre has opted out of the last two events.
Their absence improves Rahm’s chances of making the top 50 available players who will tee it up next week. The Spanish star is looking forward to competing again after his wife, Kelley, recently gave birth to the couple’s fourth child, and he admitted that the uncertainty over LIV Golf had been a distraction this year.
“Whether you like to admit it or not, it’s just noise in your head,” he said
“It definitely has been something that’s taken attention and effort from what I want to do, and in that way it has been a distraction for sure.”
As for Westwood (53), the 11-time Ryder Cup player told the Chipping Forecast podcast that he was currently “unemployed”, having not yet decided whether to sign for LIV 2.0.
Sounded out by the DP World Tour as a potential Ryder Cup captain before signing for LIV, he’s resigned to the fact that he’s ineligible to skipper the side under current rules but admitted he was “not sure I wanted it enough” as he preferred playing to watching from the wings.
On choosing LIV, he said: “I made all the decisions that were right for Lee Westwood…A massive financial package was put in front of me. And I think I would have been stupid not to take it… I have no regrets over the choice I made there.”
While Sergio Garcia was roundly criticised for his recent statement on his return to the DP World Tour, Westwood said he was unsure of his future, which will likely involve a 10-event suspension before he can tee it up on the European circuit.
“I won’t be making a statement,” he said. “It’s nobody’s business but mine where I go and play golf.
“I currently am unemployed. I haven’t signed up to anything anywhere… I’m enjoying the flexibility of it all.”
Westwood is adamant that the DP World Tour’s decision to walk away from a potential partnership with the Saudis was a chance missed and remains critical of the US-centric golfing landscape.
“Keith Pelley said it was ‘my dream to have the European Tour feed into the PGA Tour’,” Westwood recalled the former DP World Tour CEO saying. “At that moment, I just got a shiver down my spine.”
