NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — In April 2024, Jon Rahm sat at the dais at Augusta National, months removed from a decision that seemed to be a defining moment of pro golf’s fractured era, and explained how he went from one of the PGA Tour’s most loyal soldiers to LIV Golf’s biggest prize. It was a move that breathed life into the breakaway league at a time when, post-framework agreement, it seemed to be on the ropes. The two sides had been calcified for over a year; there had been no major defections and the stunning June 6 announcement seemed to signal that unification was somewhere on the horizon.
Then, Rahm, the reigning Masters champion, donned a LIV letterman’s jacket and resuscitated golf’s civil conflict. Months later, Rahm arrived at Augusta as the defending champion and said he hoped his seismic move would be the final one in the great golf chess game — one that ended golf’s fracture.
“I understood my position, yes. And I understood that it could be, what I hoped, a step towards some kind of agreement,” Rahm said that day at the 2024 Masters. “Or more of an agreement or expedited agreement.”
Rahm, like all elite golfers, is a man who loves control despite playing a game where results often come down to chance, luck or fate. Schedule, ball flight, recovery, fitness, travel, etc., Rahm is most comfortable when he’s dictating it all. That includes narratives, which can be hard to shape no matter how hard you try. That’s where Rahm now finds himself, two-and-a-half years post-LIV U-turn, with the league facing an uncertain future after the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund announced it would withdraw financial backing for the tour after the 2026 season. Rahm’s move never brought professional golf together, a goal that he now says was never part of his motivation for flipping sides.
“I was never thinking that I was going to be any sort of weight that would tip the scales to make things come together,” Rahm said Tuesday at Aronimink Golf Club ahead of the 2026 PGA Championship. “That was never an argument in my mind. When asked if that was the case for people to come together, that would be great. I never made a decision based on that.”
Ever since his LIV switch, Rahm has shown himself to be the ultimate dichotomy. It’s an inner contrast that could very well come to define this era of pro golf. He pledged his “fealty” to the PGA Tour and said “$400 million” wouldn’t “change” his life. Then he left for LIV and admitted the money was a factor in deciding to “create” a new legacy. He’s a two-time major winner who believes he is “unfairly” judged for his major record but doesn’t acknowledge this is what he signed up for when agreeing to play in a league with a strength of field akin to the Bahrain Championship. He lives for the Ryder Cup but risked sacrificing that to join LIV Golf. He’s a historian of the game whose appreciation for golf’s traditions equaled his world-beating talent. He’s also the man who left all that behind to play 54-hole [now 72-hole] shotgun starts. He’s thoughtful and introspective in a world that is often shallow and full of privilege. That made him different. It’s also why his LIV move was a shock to the system.
On Tuesday, as LIV Golf tries to find a way to extend its life past this season, Rahm was confronted with that initial choice — one that appeared to be antithetical to who he had shown himself to be.
“We all go back. We all think what could have been and what couldn’t have been. It’s inevitable,” Rahm said. “Whatever decision you’ve made or choice is thought through and made for the reasons that you think are proper reasons, there’s no sense in dwelling on it. In fact, you shouldn’t really be unhappy about it. At least there’s nothing that you regret.
“If the terms change afterward, like it’s happened with LIV, that things changed a little bit, it’s an afterthought, not a problem from the choice.”
That choice has seen Rahm arrive at the majors surrounded by uncertainty. He wasn’t a factor in any of the 2024 majors. After a non-competitive, backdoor top-10 at the 2025 Masters, the noise around Rahm, his decision to join LIV and how it has affected his game grew louder. He heard it. He read it. Then came last year’s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, where Rahm mounted a Sunday charge to tie Scottie Scheffler on the back nine before falling apart on the Green Mile. Despite the collapse, Rahm described that Sunday as the “most fun” he had had on a golf course in a long time.
That was the product of being in true major championship contention again, the adrenaline that comes from being on the precipice of a lifelong goal and learning that things are not always as they seem — an almost daily lesson in pro golf’s current universe.
“It was really fun to be out there in the landscape nowadays, in which as players in LIV we hear a lot of things from articles, from social media, from comments,” Rahm said at Aronimink. “While I understand why things are being said, it’s something you have to deal with. That Sunday, playing against Scottie, that has the lead, and to feel the support and love from the crowd is what made it really enjoyable. To realize that sometimes the truth is very different from what [is] made up to be. … It was a realization of having such support from the crowd and playing good golf that made me realize in a way how I’m truly perceived from the public, as opposed to what I read sometimes.”
Perhaps it was also a reminder of what life was like — and could’ve continued to be — had a different road been traversed. Had Rahm’s choices not led him to a place he admits has been filled with lessons.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and all we can do is learn from things that happen in the past good and bad,” Rahm said. “Just to speculate on what could have done, what could have been different doesn’t really make much sense.”
In the end, your life is the sum of your choices. Every decision has ramifications. The big ones lead to growth. Rahm said 2025 was a year of doing that, both on and off the course. They also teach you about yourself. Rahm is no different. That life-changing, career-defining choice left a mark; what it was remains to be seen.
“That’s for me to know, and that’s that,” Rahm said, smiling, when asked what he had learned looking back on his initial LIV decision.
Perhaps one day — and maybe even Sunday, with him holding the Wanamaker Trophy — Jon Rahm will reveal his secret, and we can all start wondering about what’s next, instead of what could’ve been.
