Jon Rahm made a couple of things clear during his Tuesday press conference at LIV Golf’s stop in Washington D.C. — he’s not a lawyer, and he’s not much of a businessman. Another? LIV executives “have a lot of hard work to do.”
Rahm, his Legion XIII teammates, and LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil addressed the media on Tuesday at Trump National D.C., their first availability since the Saudi Public Investment Fund announced last week it would only fund the breakaway league through the remainder of the season.
O’Neil spoke first, both in a lengthy Q and A session with LIV CCO Ilana Finley and by taking questions from reporters on-site. He discussed the business side of things (“I have never seen momentum like this”) and that he’s feeling inspired by the pressure (“I feel like we have a clear path to a win”).
“I understand uncertainty is difficult for some people, and I understand that not knowing what tomorrow brings can be a challenge,” he said. “This is 100 percent what I love to do, this moment. Everybody is meant for a certain thing in their life. I believe this is what I am meant for. I love this moment.”
The most obvious discussion topic was one of the first questions Rahm was asked: Can the league survive without PIF funding?
“I think that’s obviously a question for the business people,” Rahm said. “We want to be here. It’s been a lot of fun. I want to keep competing. I want to keep sharing some time with them. But only time will tell. Scott and his team have a lot of hard work to do, but obviously they’re experienced in the area, and that’s why they’ve been chosen to take this role.”
Rahm said when he first heard the reports of the league’s uncertain future while in Mexico a couple of weeks ago he tried to ignore them, since at that point they were just “rumors” and he didn’t want to waste energy on them.
“So for me, the reality kind of came afterwards,” he said Tuesday. “I would say, like everybody, surprised, obviously unexpected. We did hear the news that there would be funding through for many years, so unexpected.”
Last week, Golf Digest reported representatives for several LIV players reached out to the PGA Tour to discuss potential pathways back.
Rahm said Tuesday he had “no idea” if he could get out of his contract anyway.
“I couldn’t tell you. I have very few talents in my life, and reading a contract or business are not two of them,” Rahm said. “As of right now, I have several years on my contract left, and I’m pretty sure they did a pretty good job when they drafted that. So I don’t see many ways out, and as of right now, I’m not really thinking about it since we still have a season to play and majors to compete for. So it’s not something I want to think about just yet.”
O’Neil and Rahm both spoke of a future business plan but didn’t go into details. Rahm said LIV has been good about talking to team captains and listening to them about potential format changes so that LIV can continue to evolve to optimize the business, and he agreed that for a business plan to change, there might have to be concessions on the players’ end.
“It’s a playbook that won’t surprise too many people once you see it,” O’Neil said, when asked about right-sizing the business and if purses might shrink. “We have a good runway through this season fortunately, and it’s for next year that we’re going to be making some pretty significant, substantive changes. It’s all stuff you’ve heard from me. If you can piece together what I’ve said over the last six months, there won’t be too much surprise in terms of what you find.”
This week’s tournament begins Thursday at Trump National. It’s LIV’s final tune-up before next week’s PGA Championship, where a dozen league members are exempt for the second major of the year at Aronimink outside Philadelphia.
In the meantime, Rahm says the questions about LIV’s future are simply just “extra noise” but not necessarily a distraction. He’s going for his third win of the season this week.
“There’s no denying it, right?” Rahm said. “But I think we deal with it as athletes honestly. I think it’s part of the job a lot of times, and sometimes that extra noise is internal for something that may be happening family-wise that’s not public, which is much worse than, I would say, this. At the end of the day, we practice enough so once you get in competition mode, it doesn’t matter. It might be a worry before or after, but it shouldn’t be once you get to that first tee. We’ve said a few times, when it’s so uncertain and so out of our control, there’s really nothing to think about.”
