This one hurts the worst.
This one cuts to the PGA Tour’s core.
When Phil Mickelson jumped to LIV Golf and have become the face of the upstart Saudi-backed tour, he was dismissed by the PGA Tour as a grasping contrarian gone rogue, out for no matter was greatest for Phil Mickelson.
When Dustin Johnson went to LIV, he was seen as aloof and disengaged anyway, by no means a face of the PGA Tour.
When Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau joined LIV, they have been each appeared upon as lone wolves who have been low on the PGA Tour reputation checklist and who have been each battling accidents that pushed them to money in on the assured thousands and thousands LIV was providing.
When Cam Smith joined LIV, he was No. 2 on this planet and recent off profitable the 2021 British Open, however the Australian was by no means seen by the PGA Tour as one among its charismatic faces.
Jon Rahm, although?
Ouch.
When information broke Thursday confirming weeks of rumors that the 29-year-old Spaniard, who’s ranked No. Three on this planet and has been one of many PGA Tour’s most ardent public supporters, was signing on with LIV for a reported sum that might attain $600 million, that shook the muse of the PGA Tour’s shiny new headquarters in Ponte Vedra, Fla.
Rahm’s departure hurts the PGA Tour worse than any of the earlier gamers going to LIV.
By quite a bit.
You may make the argument that apart from Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, Rahm is the sport’s most essential participant.
Woods, in fact, is about to show 48 and is properly into the again 9 of his enjoying profession along with his litany of accidents.
And McIlroy, who’s ranked No. 2 on this planet, was the loudest mouthpiece for PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan till Monahan, behind his gamers’ backs, struck that “framework settlement’’ with the Saudi leaders of LIV Golf final June. However there’s been a major quantity of McIlroy fatigue amongst many as a result of he’d gone too excessive in his public allegiance to the PGA Tour to the purpose that even McIlroy has backed off, resigning from the PGA Tour’s participant board.
Rahm becoming a member of LIV is proof of this: Each participant has his value.
Rahm has by no means been a LIV detractor publicly, at all times taking the excessive highway and supporting those that made the transfer whereas professing his allegiance to the PGA Tour and Monahan. One among his widespread refrains when requested in regards to the ungodly quantities of cash the Saudis have paid its gamers to hitch has been that cash has by no means been a motivator for him as a golfer.
This was Rahm on the 2022 U.S. Open: “I’ve by no means actually performed the sport of golf for financial causes. I play for the love of the sport, and I wish to play in opposition to the very best on this planet. I’ve at all times been all in favour of historical past and legacy, and proper now the PGA Tour has that.’’
This was Rahm on a Thursday night time convention name after his transfer to LIV was made official when he was requested what position the cash performed in his determination: “It’s one of many causes, I’m not going to sit down right here and misinform you. It’s one of many causes.”
Rahm, too, has been one of the crucial outspoken European gamers about how he bleeds to play within the Ryder Cup, to comply with his Spanish heroes, Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal and Sergio Garcia, who cemented their respective legacies in it.
This was Rahm on Thursday night time’s name: “What they needed to supply was well worth the threat of perhaps not enjoying a Ryder Cup.”
Rahm acquisition is LIV’s greatest and most vital going ahead, notably with the Dec. 31 deadline for the PGA Tour and LIV to consummate that “framework settlement’’ — no matter precisely that’s.
Rahm has at all times been the proper face of the franchise for the PGA Tour. He’s a self-made star. He got here from Spain to play school golf at Arizona State having by no means spoken English earlier than and now he speaks the language extra eloquently and with extra deep and eager perspective than most of us who’re natives of the U.S.
He’s at all times deftly straddled the road between being one of many sport’s most fiery rivals to being one among its most respectful representatives.
The 5 greatest gamers on this planet proper now are Scottie Scheffler, McIlroy, Rahm, Koepka and Smith. Three of these 5 gamers are with LIV Golf now. Even probably the most ardent LIV detractors can’t ignore this reality.
This one hurts the PGA Tour badly. It hurts the worst.