The year certainly presented its challenges, including an infection that kept him out of the U.S. Open, illness that kept him out of LIV Golf’s final tournament and then the hurried journey to Spain so he could fulfill his DP World Tour obligations.
Yes, nobody is going to feel sorry for Jon Rahm after a whirlwind year that saw him get a massive signing bonus for joining LIV Golf, suffer through some struggles on the course, win a couple of times on LIV and then welcome the birth of a baby girl.
The latter happened between the end of LIV’s season and Rahm’s trip to the Spanish Open after his wife, Kelley, had the couple’s third child in late September just hours after he returned home from LIV’s season-ending event in Dallas.
“We knew (she) was going to be induced that Sunday, and I knew that I was possibly going to be flying to Spain on Tuesday or Wednesday,” Rahm said. “And I was fully ready to land on Thursday morning if needed. Luckily, everything went great, especially since it wasn’t the easiest pregnancy, and it was a very reassuring moment for us. Being able to hold our baby and know that everything is going to be O.K.”
Rahm was relaxed telling the story last week at LIV Golf’s Team Days in West Palm Beach, Fla., where nearly all of the players convened for a few days of internal meetings and media opportunities in advance of LIV’s 2025 season, which begins next month in Riyadh.
But Rahm will first return to the DP World Tour this week for the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, likely his only event on that circuit until the conclusion of the LIV season and the Ryder Cup.
Getting to that point took some work, as heading into that busy stretch in September before the birth of his daughter, Rahm was required to first appeal his fines and suspensions imposed by the DP World Tour for competing in conflicting events as part of LIV Golf.
That appeal still has yet to be heard and nobody knows when it will occur. Meanwhile, Rahm is expected to rack up more penalties every time he competes in a LIV Golf event this year. (It is interesting to note that Sergio Garcia, who plans to rejoin the DP World Tour, is prohibited from playing in Dubai this week as he is under suspension.)
“Golf, when I think about the whole year ... it’s crazy that it’s only been a year,” Rahm said. “So many different things happened, and early on, I think because of the way I played at the Masters, I was maybe criticized about my game. And I think the media was speaking about my game being worse than it really was. Because I felt good.”
It took until late July for Rahm to finally win his first event on LIV Golf, the UK tournament just prior to the Olympics.
But he was never out of the top 10 in any of his LIV starts—with five top-3s—and was hurt by his tie for 45th at Augusta National in his Masters title defense, a missed cut at the PGA Championship and then the foot infection that saw Rahm withdraw prior to the start of the first round at the U.S. Open.
Given the high-profile nature of his move to LIV Golf, it was a tough first six months of the year for Rahm, who attributed an equipment change to a different driver shaft that helped him get his game going in the right direction.
“I saw the impact on the ball right away, where maybe for the better part of last year, I was compensating with my swing to make the shaft work,” he said. “Once I made that change, I started to play better and get to a point where I am right now. It’s not like I embarrassed myself in the majors.”
Starting with the British Open, where he tied for seventh at Royal Troon, Rahm was not outside of the top 10 in any event the rest of the year.
He won the LIV UK event, and although he was disappointed to finish fifth in France at the Olympics after leading early on the back nine (Scottie Scheffler rallied to win), Rahm bounced back. He had a playoff loss to Brooks Koepka at LIV Greenbrier and then won LIV Golf Chicago to also capture the season-long LIV individual title.
After the birth of his daughter, Rahm, 30, acquitted himself quite well in Spain, managing to get into a playoff that he lost to fellow Spaniard Angel Hidalgo. He then tied for seventh at the Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland and finished sixth at the Andalucia Masters in Spain.
That meant top-seven finishes in his last seven Official World Golf Ranking events. He will begin this year ranked 26th in the OWGR—he is not getting points for LIV events—with an eye on a better performance at the Masters.
“I think because I took so long to win and I put myself in position, I think getting the first win was more of a relief than anything else,” Rahm said of his late-July victory. “So to finish as strong as I did and win it all as well was quite special in that sense. like I feel like I personally needed that. ... I needed that to happen just because I knew what I was capable of and I knew how well I was playing and I didn't want any doubt to be in there.”
Rahm will be joined in Dubai this week for the first full-field event of 2025 on the DP World Tour by Rory McIlroy, who is making his season debut. Others in the field are fellow LIV golfers Tyrrell Hatton, Patrick Reed, Adrian Meronk, Dean Burmester and Thomas Pieters.
Also in the field are Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Nicolai Højgaard and Robert McIntyre.
The Riviera dilemma
The PGA Tour is in the midst of assessing the wildfire situation in Southern California with Genesis Invitational tournament officials and local authorities. Given the enormity of the tragedy, which has seen significant damage to property in the Pacific Palisades area as well as loss of life, the playing of a golf tournament is clearly not a top priority.
The annual event at Riviera Country Club that is hosted by Tiger Woods and benefits his foundation is scheduled for Feb. 13-16. That’s still four weeks away, but in reality, not much time at all.
The Tour is unlikely to cancel the event entirely, so its options are to try and play at Riviera, move it to another location or postpone it.
And no option is ideal.
The Tour wants to be sensitive to the needs and wants of the local community. When there were fires in 2023 in Hawaii, the tour went ahead with plans to play at Kapalua in early 2024 with the blessing of local leaders, who welcomed the infusion of tourists and wanted to continue to get out the rebuilding message.
But there was far more time to work with then. The Tour certainly would want to play if that is what the community wants, but there are so many questions about hotel room access and other issues related to the use of resources that playing there might not be appropriate. And Riviera is also not yet out of danger, with windy weather forecasts—which have helped spread the fire—forecasted for this week. Even an event without spectators presents plenty of logistical challenges.
Postponing the event to another week is problematic because there are no open dates on the schedule. The Genesis is a signature event and, in theory, would need to be played prior to the FedEx Cup playoffs in August.
The leaves moving the event, the logistics of which are not simple, either.
Could the tournament be played at another Los Angeles-area course, such as Sherwood Country Club—longtime previous host of Woods’s Hero World Challenge—or Los Angeles Country Club, site of the 2023 U.S. Open? Both venues could very well endure some of the same issues that Riviera now faces.
What about the Palm Springs area? Could the Tour try to use either the Pete Dye Stadium Course or the Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West? Both are part of the three-course rotation this week at the American Express Championship. You could leave the infrastructure alone following the event.
The problem, of course, is what might already be scheduled there. Tee times and hotel rooms that are booked, for example. At least it would offer time to change the branding from one event to another.
The Tour could also try to play consecutive weeks in Scottsdale, Ariz., at the site of the WM Phoenix Open. That tournament precedes the Genesis and would allow officials to stay on-site to set up for another week. The Tour did something similar during the COVID-19 issues of 2020 when it played back-to-back weeks at Jack Nicklaus’s Muirfield Village in Ohio. Having no spectators made that transition far easier.
But going from WM Phoenix Open to the Genesis Invitational on the same site in a matter of days might be too much to overcome.
And the Phoenix area is a tourist mecca in February, so securing the proper number of hotel rooms and blowing up plans for that week at the course could be problematic.
The Tour likely will be forced to make a decision soon with no easy answers.
RIP, PIP
The last iteration of the Player Impact Program was announced last week, and despite playing just five times, Tiger Woods was again the winner, pocketing $10 million from the $50 million set aside for 10 players.
The program proved to be quite the boondoggle for Woods, who banked $45 million from it over four years while playing just 13 times.
It is fair to argue that Woods was being repaid for his years of being the game’s biggest draw, increasing TV rights fees and sponsorship fees almost single-handedly while, relatively speaking, being underpaid for his contributions inside the ropes during his career.
But beyond that benevolence, the program was mostly a big miss. Set up in 2021 and seen as a way to funnel money to players without “guaranteeing” them pay, it’s difficult to see what the Tour got out of it.
Reserves were drained to pay out some $300 million in bonus money over four years that was dispersed based on a handful of metrics tied to popularity and benefit to the Tour. Players were required to do some menial tasks such as clinics or meet-and-greets to collect all of the loot and there were some other minimum requirements.
But players such as Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm left for LIV Golf despite the program, which saw Rory McIlroy bank $35 million over the four years. Scottie Scheffler got $8 million for second place in 2024 after a seven-win season.
The program is coming to an end now. That likely has to do with Strategic Sports Group’s $1.5 billion investment in the Tour and the player equity program that has been put in place.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jon Rahm Is Relaxed and Ready for (Hopefully) Less Drama in 2025.
