BOLINGBROOK, Ill. — The Ryder Cup is more than a year away but Jon Rahm’s involvement remains murky as ever. He’s alone in this endeavor, and he knows it.
Rahm has set his sights on playing three DP World Tour events in the next six weeks, which might normally be an easy schedule addition, but this isn’t a normal time. Also in his next six weeks, Rahm has two LIV events and a new baby set to join his family. But before any of that happens, Rahm needs to do something about the fines he’s facing from the DP World Tour. Either pay the fines or appeal them, like Tyrrell Hatton recently did. Otherwise, Rahm will not be playing the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black next fall. (Mandatory asterisk: We live in fluid times. Regulations can change. Rory McIlroy basically asked for things to change the instant Rahm committed to LIV Golf.)
It’s been discussed at an increasing frequency as the summer has gone by. Rahm needs to play four tournaments this season on the DP World Tour to maintain his membership for 2025, which is his mandatory ticket to becoming a Ryder Cup team member. Thus far, he’s only played one, the Olympics in France, which counted towards his total. According to Rahm, he’s signed up for three tournaments to meet this minimum, beginning with the Spanish Open in three weeks, the Dunhill Links a week later, and the Andalucia Masters, also in Spain.
According to the DP World Tour, however, Rahm is currently ineligible.
“Jon has outstanding sanctions for breaches of the DP World Tour’s conflicting tournament regulation,” a spokesperson from the Tour said. “Until those outstanding sanctions are resolved, he is ineligible to play in a DP World Tour event.”
Those “sanctions” are suspensions and fines lobbed his way for every start he’s made at LIV Golf. From the earliest days of pro golf’s civil war era, the DP World Tour has issued one-tournament suspensions and £100,000 fines for its members who play tournaments without conflicting event releases from the Tour. While it is understood that Rahm has enough open weeks in his schedule to find space for the one-week suspensions, he is clearly uninterested in paying the fines.
“I’m not a big fan of the fines,” Rahm said from LIV Golf’s individual championship on the outskirts of Chicago, where he and Joaquin Niemann gave a joint press conference Wednesday.
“I think I’ve been outspoken about that. I don’t intend to pay the fines, and we keep trying to have a discussion with [the DPWT] about how we can make this happen. I’ve said many times, I don’t go to the Spanish Open for the glory or anything else. I think it’s my duty to Spanish golf to be there, and I also want to play in Sotogrande.
“At that point, it would almost be doing not only me but Spanish golf a disservice by not letting me play. So yeah, that’s why we’re trying to talk to them and make that happen. I would also love to play the Dunhill [Links Championship]. I have a good friend who asked me to play, and Johan has been a great, great ambassador for the game of golf. I would love to be able to play all those events.”
At this point, Rahm is running into a rules-are-rules situation. But not a completely hopeless one. Rahm’s Legion 13 teammate, Tyrrell Hatton, has faced the same battle but has been allowed to play without facing penalty because he has appealed the sanctions, tapping into a middle-ground, somewhat undefined stay-of-penalty that allowed Hatton to enter the Betfred British Masters earlier this month. It’s the same thing that will allow him to play the events Rahm seeks later this month. But it’s a formality that Hatton has sought out that Rahm has apparently not just yet. He hasn’t appealed his sanctions.
Do we have ourselves a stalemate? It appears so. But there is a deadline to all of this. Rahm confessed that the entry timetable for spots in the Spanish Open closes at noon Thursday. He may have a grace period during which he can pay fines or enact an appeal in the days that follow, but the dates of the Spanish Open aren’t shifting. It begins in two weeks, in Madrid.
“I think it’s not only that I have to play those three, but I want to play those events,” Rahm said. They’re fun. My last experience at the Dunhill I didn’t play good, so maybe I’ll get a little bit of redemption, even though being the fourth week in a row after having a baby might be a little much, for Scottish weather especially and Carnoustie. But still looking forward to some really fun golf ahead.”
Golf fans may recognize parts of this situation, particularly LIV Golf fans. A number of LIV’s first commits were stalwarts of Europe’s best Ryder Cup teams. Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Henrik Stenson and Sergio Garcia all starred in Ryder Cups past, but were not involved in the 2023 Cup as they had resigned their memberships.
The final days of Garcia’s membership were marred by a dispute about unpaid fines. Lee Westwood confessed to having more than $1 million in unpaid fines from the DP World Tour earlier this year, penalties that, until he makes good on them, have barred him from competing in the Senior Open Championship.
Poulter, who was one of the main players who appealed sanctions back in the summer of 2022, also resigned shortly after losing that appeal in April 2023. Will Hatton’s appeal find a similar fate?
“That side of it is a bit messy,” Hatton told Golf Digest two weeks ago.