Jon Rahm walked down the 18th hole at Fanling Golf Club on Sunday finally calm. His lead was five over Thomas Detry, and his 539-day winless drought was all but snapped.
When he met for a closing bogey, he pumped his fist and exhaled.
“Very relieving,” Rahm said after him LIFE Golf Hong Kong win. “That’s the only way I can describe it. I’ve been very excited about wins in the past. This is just a huge weight off my shoulders. That’s all I can say.”
The wait was long for the two-time major winner. He’ll tell you he’s won since LIV Chicago in 2024, but he also doesn’t. It was the Individual Championship that he took home last year, despite never lifting a trophy. Rahm called it “bittersweet.” It was the 2025 Ryder Cup win with Team Europe at Bethpage Black. This was a victory he will never forget, something that countless individual victories could not overshadow.
But Rahm hasn’t won, by himself, in 18 months. He has been close. He’s lost in the playoffs, he’s been beaten and he’s lost. He answered questions about a streak of top-10s that he admitted was helped by LIV’s small fields. He has shrugged off criticism of his great record since joining the breakaway league. He made a bold charge Sunday at the 2025 PGA Championship before blowing up on Quail Hollow’s Green Mile.
It’s been a journey for Rahm to get back into the winner’s circle. And this week in Hong Kong was perhaps the perfect summary of the LIV golf path that Rahm has traversed.
It started with difficult questions and unknown answers.
Tuesday was Rahm explaining why he turned down the DP World Tour offer to grant LIV players conditional releases to compete in LIV events without incurring further sanctions. Seven players accepted the offer. Rahm refused. He didn’t like that part of the deal would require him to play six events instead of four in order to keep his Euro Tour membership, with the DP World Tour having a say in two of the events he would take part in.
“I don’t like what they’re doing right now with the contract they’re making us sign,” Rahm said. “I don’t like the conditions. They ask me to play at least six events and dictate where two of them should be, among other things I don’t agree with.
“I don’t know what game they’re trying to play right now, but it just seems like they’re somehow using our influence in the tournament and fining us and trying to take advantage both ways of what we have to offer, and it’s just – in a way they’re extorting players like me and young players who have nothing to do with the politics of the game. So I don’t like that situation and I don’t agree.”
Rahm, who has said his fines from the DP World Tour are more than $3 million, will not move. He is still waiting for his appeal to a UK arbitration board to be heard. He is clearly hoping that since OWGR now recognizes LIV as part of the professional ecosystem, the decision will be different from the one LIV players lost in 2023. If not, he will not be able to be a member of the DP World Tour without paying his fines, which he has said he will not do. That means no Ryder Cup.
Rahm’s Ryder Cup future was the dominant theme of the professional golf world earlier in the week. Luke Donald, who will captain Team Europe for the third consecutive Cup in 2027, was asked about it. He has yet to speak with Rahm, but plans to do so soon. Rory McIlroy, who has been the heartbeat of this current group along with Rahm, said it was a “shame” that Rahm turned down a “generous” offer..
But with unanswered questions surrounding his future, Rahm took a plane to help some LIV players flee the Middle East as the US and Israeli attacks against Iran continued. like GOLF’s Alan Bastable first reportedthe players — Thomas Detry, Sam Horsfield, Anirban Lahiri, Adrian Meronk, Tom McKibbin, Caleb Surratt, Lee Westwood and his caddy — had to make the 280-mile drive from Dubai to Muscat, Oman, where they boarded a private jet that Rahm arranged through a partnership with private aviation company VistaJet.
“I was raised with that value, if you have the ability and the ability to help someone in need, go and help them,” Rahm said of his action Sunday. “It was never about karma. It was just about getting those guys out of a dangerous situation. Like I said earlier, sometimes it wasn’t even about the golf.”
The first half of the week wasn’t about golf for Rahm. Then, as always, golf became everything.
Rahm has been knocking on the door of an LIV win for as long as his drought has lasted. He is omnipresent in the leaderboards of the Saudi-backed league, and yet, he has not been able to overcome it. He has lost to Adrian Meronk by two, to Talor Gooch by one, to Dean Burmeister in a playoff, to Sebastian Munoz in a playoff, to Elvis Smylie by one and lead Sunday by five strokes over Anthony Kim.
Of course, Rahm found himself back on the leaderboard this week in Hong Kong entering Sunday tied for the lead with Harold Varner III and Detrywhom he helped drive out of the Middle East. It was another opportunity for Rahm to return to the winning ways that defined his pre-LIV career, or another opportunity to break out a bit.
“You have to keep putting yourself out there and giving yourself chances,” Rahm said Saturday. “As long as I’m doing that, I’m playing good golf, take advantage of the opportunities I get, but it will come. As long as I’m playing solid golf, hopefully I can have a good Sunday tomorrow and get it done.”
Rahm fell behind Varner early but made birdies at 3, 4, 7 and. 8 to jump forward. When he turned in four straight birdies from 13 to 16, all that was left was the walk to the trophy and another question – one he’s more than happy to try and answer now that he’s put his winless drought to bed.
“There’s been a lot going on this week and I think there was still a little bit of tension in me on the first day,” Rahm said with the trophy in hand. “Going down the stretch, swings 13 through 16 were absolutely perfect swings. I think those holes are pretty much the peak of Jon Rahm that we’re going to see.
“Can it get any better?” Rahm asked. “I hope so, but I’ve played pretty good golf.”
;)
