This is the moment it all becomes normal. When it’s no longer a spectacle, controversial, or even taboo. When it’s not about right or wrong or strong opinions or sticking it to the man. Jon Rahm’s move to LIV Golf is imminent, and it feels like the final confirmation that this is simply the way things are. This is what the golf world is going to be.
Because this is not somebody chasing a payday like Dustin Johnson or Brooks Koepka. And it’s not a pariah spurning the PGA Tour like Phil Mickelson.
This is a golf nerd. An obsessive. A 29-year-old golf history buff who rises at 6 a.m. before the kids are up to rewatch tournaments on YouTube, who pesters golfers during rounds to learn more about famous shots they’ve hit, who reveres his Spanish childhood idols like Seve Ballasteros and Jose Maria Olazabal. It’s the same person who shut down LIV rumors in Summer 2022 by saying he and his wife agreed LIV money wouldn’t change their lives at all. “I’ve always been very interested in history and legacy,” Rahm said, “and right now the PGA Tour has that.”
Right now. That, in retrospect, was the key choice of words.
The moment Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour went behind the players’ backs and made a deal with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (the financiers…
