Last Thurday, PGA Tour star and 2023 Masters Champion Jon Rahm Rodriguez confirmed that he would be leaving the Tour to join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf. According to ESPN, Rahm’s LIV contract is expected to be more than $300 million and run for at least three years.[1]
While the PGA Tour has banned Rahm, and other defectors like Phil Mickelson, Brooks Kopeka, and Dustin Johnson, from particpating in PGA Tour events, it has become increasingly clear that those discipliany measures do little to influence star players’ decesion to join LIV Golf. The calculus appears to be simple: star players only care about the major championships. And while the LIV’s Golf application to be awarded points in the Offical World Gold Ranking points – which determines player’s elbigibilty in Majors – the governing bodies of the Major Championships have not categorically bannded LIV Golf members from participating in the tournaments. [2]
To that end, because Rahm picked up his second major at the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in April, he’s assured of being eligible to compete in each of the four majors through at least the 2027 season. Winning a green jacket gives him a lifetime exemption into the Masters. Even without the Masters win, Rahm was already eligible to compete in the U.S. Open through 2031 after he won his first major at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, in 2021.[3]
Similarily, Kopeka, Johnson, Mickelson, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Seriog Garcia, and Charl Schwartzel all enjoy a lifetime exemption to the Masters. Koepka, who picked up his fifth major victory at the PGA Championship in May, will have a five-year exemption into all four through 2028. Cameron Smith can play in all four through 2027 after his win at the The Open in 2022; Mickelson is set until 2026; and Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau are exempt through 2025. [4]
Finally, it is likely that Rahm made his decision based on his assement of the current merger negioations between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. Whether those negioations result in a merger or the PGA receives investment from non-Saudi soruces, it is clear that golf as the world knows it will be mighty differernt by the end of this decade.
As Brody Miller of The Athletic put it:
“But the mere fact we’re even discussing wanting LIV to be better, the reality that we are thinking about two leagues and accepting their coexistence just returns us to the real point. Joining LIV is no longer scandalous. It won’t get you canceled. It’s just one more drop in the slow drip of the new normal.” [5]
Ultimately, it appears that the world of golf is headed down a path of co-existence between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. The more that becomes a reality, the less leverage the PGA Tour and other governing bodies of golf will have to penalize players for joining LIV. Rahm’s departure from the PGA Tour, despite knowning the Tour would ban him from particpating in its events, only underscores this impending relality.
[3] https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/39063789/jon-rahm-pga-tour-liv-golf-everything-know
[5] https://theathletic.com/5120154/2023/12/07/jon-rahm-liv-pga-tour-golf-future/
[6] Picture Credit: Hunter Martin / Augusta National