Jon Rahm seemed more than happy to address a recent report that surfaced citing a veteran tour insider that the LIV golfer was experiencing “deep regret” over his decision to make the jump to the rebel golf league last December.
Sitting inside a swanky Manhattan hotel, Rahm shot down any suggestion that he wasn’t happy with the decision in a lengthy conversation with The Post.
“There’s zero validity to what any of that said. I don’t know where it came from.,” Rahm said. “I don’t know why they feel the need to say that some of us are unhappy when we’re not. It’s one of the things that frustrates me a little bit, the fact that they can claim that there’s a source and there’s zero truth to it.”
Rahm’s decision to defect to LIV Golf was met with plenty of shock from those in the golf world and inside the PGA Tour, and though he may have started off the 2024 season struggling, as the LIV Golf calendar comes down to its final events, Rahm’s year has turned around.
And he has been steadfast about the decision to make the jump.
“I’m very comfortable with my decision, very happy with my decision, very, very eager for the future of my team and the league,” explained Rahm, who as part of the move runs the Legion XIII team. “I get to be a part of something very different to what we had in the past. I always enjoyed being part of a team and to be in charge of one now is something incredible.”
Bethpage Black is ‘a monster’
Rahm was in New York at the US Open this week as part of his partnership with Maestro Dobel Tequila, which is also the official tequila of the famed tennis tournament, roughly 30 miles away from Bethpage Black, where in a year’s time the Ryder Cup will be taking place.
The Spaniard spoke glowingly of the Long Island golf course and expressed hope of being part of the European team next year when they battle the Americans in the golf competition held every two years.
Because of Rahm’s jump to LIV Golf, there had been some questions over his eligibility to be part of next year’s team.
“It’s something so special,” Rahm said of the Ryder Cup. “It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s going to be absolutely incredible. And hopefully, I can be a part of the team.”
Rahm has played Bethpage Black in the past and knows the challenges of the course.
It hosted the U.S. Open — 2002 and 2009 — The Barclays — 2012 and 2016 — and the 2019 PGA Championship.
“It’s a monster,” Rahm said of the course. “They have a sign over there warning you for a reason. It is a difficult golf course.”
Rahm had been part of the field during the 2019 PGA Championship.
“I missed the cut. I played horribly bad, and suffered all throughout the 36 holes I played. But it’s a beautiful golf course,” he recalled about that tournament. “They’re all difficult holes, right? It’s a tough challenge, no matter how you look at it, and an incredible finish of a golf course.”
A year of two halves
Rahm isn’t naive to how he played earlier this year to how he’s been playing of late.
The golfer pointed to June as the turning point of his season this year and acknowledged that he wasn’t getting it “done” and “wasn’t comfortable with my swing.”
Rahm tied for 45th at this year’s Masters, a tournament he won the year before, and he missed the cut at the PGA Championship in May, before dealing with a left foot injury in June that forced him to withdraw from the U.S. Open, another major he also has won.
The tide started to turn in his last two LIV Golf tournaments, winning for the first time at the end of July at LIV Golf UK at JCB Golf & Country Club and coming in second at Greenbrier earlier this month.
Though the LIV format and being in charge of a team was a change for Rahm, he wasn’t looking to use it as an excuse.
“I don’t think the adjustment was that bad or that long,” Rahm explained. “I think it was more about just me not playing my best. I’m never going to blame the outside environment. You can maybe make that excuse for one or two weeks, but not for the entire first half of the season, right? So it was absolutely 100 percent me for the most part.”
Rahm is able to laugh about some things that occurred in the first half of his season, including the hot mic moment that occurred in June during a LIV Golf tournament in Nashville.
with Maestro Dobel Tequila. Getty Images for Maestro Dobel
The mic caught a frustrated Rahm using colorful language to complain about a drone being used for the broadcast whizzing by in the middle of his backswing.
The shot sailed into a water hazard.
“Are those things I’m proud of? No, but it’s the heat of competition, it happens,” Rahm said. “Yeah, I can laugh now, because it’s funny. Listen it is part of who I am. I compete at a very intense level, and I care a lot, and not my finest. Not my finest, especially because I played that hole terribly all week. I think that’s why the reaction was more that it’s partly the drone, mostly me. I’m very aware of that, but at some point, I feel like on the golf course, you need to feel invincible, and then you can be accountable afterward.”
The more positive outlook is where Rahm has landed too in terms of his memories of his Olympic performance in July in Paris.
Rahm had watched his four-shot lead disappear and ended up finishing T5 in the Olympics in heartbreaking fashion.
Nearly a month later, the circumstances still hurt, but Rahm was able to look back with a bit more positivity on the experience.
“That was that was hard to get over, but then it is your job to do the hard part and think about it,” Rahm said. “OK, what could I have done better? Where did I go wrong? And try to learn from that. … I can look back at that week as a very positive thing, which it was. The entire week, besides an hour and a half of it, was absolutely incredible. And that’s the best way I can look at it.”
