Jon Rahm, Amid Spinning LIV Questions, Plays With ‘Extra Noise’

Jon Rahm made a few things clear during his press conference Tuesday at the LIV Golf stand in Washington, DC — he’s not a lawyer and he’s not much of a businessman. Another one? LIV executives “have a lot of work to do.”

Rahm, his Legion XIII teammates and LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil addressed the media Tuesday at Trump National DC, their first availability since The Saudi Public Investment Fund announced last week would only fund the breakaway league for the remainder of the season.

O’Neil spoke first, both in a lengthy Q&A session with LIV CCO Ilana Finley and taking questions from reporters on the ground. He discussed the business side of things (“I’ve never seen momentum like this”) and that he feels inspired by the pressure (“I feel like we have a clear path to victory”).

“I understand that 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. Everyone is made for a certain thing in their life. I believe this is what I am meant for. I love this moment.”

The most obvious topic of discussion was one of the first questions Rahm was asked: Can the league survive without PIF funding?

“I think that’s definitely a question for 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 spending some time with them. But only time will tell. Scott and his team have a lot of work to do, but obviously they have experience in this area, and that’s why they were chosen to take on this role.”

Rahm said when he first heard the league’s reports uncertain future while in Mexico a few weeks ago he tried to ignore them, as at that point they were just “rumors” and he didn’t want to waste energy on them.

“So for me, the reality came next,” he said Tuesday. “I would say, like everybody, surprised, definitely unexpected. We heard the news that there was going to be funding for many years, so unexpected.”

last week, Golf Digest reported Representatives of several LIV players reached out to the PGA Tour to discuss possible return routes.

Rahm said Tuesday that he had “no idea” if he could get out of his contract anyway.

“I can’t tell you. I have very few talents in my life and reading a contract or business is not two of them,” Rahm said. “Right now, I have a few years left on my contract and I’m sure they did a pretty good job when they drafted him. So I don’t see a lot of options, and right now, I’m not really thinking about it because we still have a season to play and majors to compete for. So it’s not something I want to think about yet.”

O’Neil and Rahm both talked about a future business plan, but didn’t go into detail. Rahm said LIV has been good about talking to team captains and listening to them about potential format changes so LIV can continue to evolve to optimize the business, and he agreed that for a business plan to change, there may have to be concessions on the players’ end.

“It’s a playbook that won’t surprise a lot of people once you see it,” O’Neil said, when asked about the right size of the business and whether the bags can shrink. “We’ve got a good track this season fortunately, and for next year we’re going to make some pretty significant, fundamental changes. It’s all the things you’ve heard from me. If you can put together what I’ve said over the last six months, there won’t be too many surprises 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 out for the second season of the year at the Aronimink outside Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, Rahm says questions about LIV’s future are just “additional noise” but not necessarily a distraction. He will get his third win of the season this week.

“It can’t be denied, can it?” Rahm said. “But I think we treat it as athletes honestly. I think it’s part of the job a lot of times, and sometimes that extra noise is internal about something that might happen family-wise that’s not public, which is a lot worse than, I’d say, this. At the end of the day, we practice enough, so once you get into competition mode, it shouldn’t matter. It could be one worry before or after. We’ve said it a few times, when it’s so Uncertain and so out of our control, there’s nothing to think about.”