It's Too Soon for Jon Rahm's LIV Golf Retrospective

Jon Rahm’s LIV Golf days appear to be over. 

On Wednesday, Rahm’s attorney said that the Legion XIII captain “has independently reviewed the proposed terms of LIV 2.0...and has determined that those terms are unacceptable to him, and he will not be participating going forward in LIV 2.0.”

Back at LIV Virginia in May, Rahm confirmed that he still had multiple years remaining on his contract and suggested there was no obvious path out. 

“I have several years on my contract left, and I'm pretty sure they did a pretty good job when they drafted that,” said Rahm. “So I don't see many ways out…It's not something I want to think about just yet.”

Five months later, Rahm and his legal team are in the midst of negotiating a separation from LIV, which reportedly still owes him north of $100 million.

From the moment Rahm announced his move to LIV on Fox News wearing a varsity letterman jacket, his departure from the PGA Tour was met with no shortage of opinions. Speculation ran rampant that by leaving the Tour, Rahm believed he could serve as a key domino in hastening a reunification of the PGA Tour and LIV, allowing him to collect a lucrative payday while bringing professional golf back together. 

“I understood my position, yes,” Rahm said at the 2024 Masters. “And I understood that it could be, what I hoped, a step towards some kind of agreement, yes. Or more of an agreement or expedited agreement…But at the end of the day, I still did what I thought was best for myself.”

Over the nearly three years since, opinions about his decision have only intensified. A prevailing sentiment in golf circles is that leaving the PGA Tour squandered three years of Rahm’s prime — a stretch that produced zero major championship victories for a two-time major champion who was ranked third in the world when he signed with LIV. 

Reasonable minds can adjudicate the steepness of Rahm’s falloff and how much of his decline to attribute to playing on LIV versus simply following the natural arc of a professional golf career, his performance ebbing and flowing like the trajectories of many golfers who have come before him. 

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The Spaniard won four times on LIV during his tenure and played a key role in Europe upsetting the American side at the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage. He also recorded four top-10 finishes in 11 major championship starts after joining LIV. It isn’t as if Rahm suddenly dropped from one of the best players in the world to a nobody the moment the ink dried on his contract. 

What shouldn’t be debated is that Rahm’s performance over the last three years — particularly in the most important and strongest-fielded tournaments on his schedule — failed to meet the standard he should expect of himself. 

And throughout those three years, Rahm has routinely arrived at the biggest events of the season only to face questions that have nothing to do with the tournament he is preparing to play: whether he regrets signing with LIV, tensions with the DP World Tour, his Ryder Cup eligibility, his competitive future, and more. 

Questioning whether Rahm has been in a comfortable headspace since signing with LIV — the kind of headspace required to play consistent, elite-level golf — is within reason. 

At this year’s Masters, before ultimately reaching an agreement to settle his fines with the DP World Tour, Rahm looked visibly frustrated answering questions about his standing with his home tour and whether he was confident he would be eligible to compete at Adare Manor in 2027. Two days later, he shot a 6-over 78, tying the worst score of his major-championship career. At the U.S. Open, Rahm missed the cut by two strokes despite playing from the favorable side of a significant wave advantage. He entered the 2026 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale among the betting favorites and finished T-46. 

In his most recent appearance at last month’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, the DP World Tour’s flagship event, Rahm posted 78-77, missing the cut by 13 shots and finishing dead last in the field. 

Not every Rahm performance since signing with LIV has been disastrous, and overzealous attempts to characterize his last three years that way are not entirely honest. At the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink, he entered the final round two shots off the lead and remained in contention deep into Sunday until Aaron Rai pulled away. Rahm settled for a T-2 finish, his best major result since leaving the PGA Tour. 

Still, Rahm has been uncharacteristically inconsistent at the most prestigious and competitive tournaments in golf. Given the lackluster results and constant scrutiny surrounding one of the most high-profile players in the world, speculation about his level of comfort and focus — whether due to LIV or personal matters — is hardly unfounded. 

From the outside, it is impossible and irresponsible to interpret Rahm’s intent to leave LIV as an admission that he regrets signing there in the first place. Though Rahm is still owed millions of dollars by the renegade league, he secured an extraordinary, life-changing sum of wealth during his tenure with LIV and enters the next chapter of his career at age 31 with plenty of runway to prove he is one of the best players in the world. 

The definitive Rahm retrospective — what went into his signing with LIV, his experience with the league, and any level of regret about the path he chose — is best left for Rahm to reflect on years from now, with the benefit of time and perspective. 

But in the meantime, one of the most talented and decorated golfers in the world can finally return to focusing on golf, field fewer questions about whether he loses sleep over the decisions he’s made, and attempt to reclaim his place near the top of the world rankings, all with a clear head and more money in his bank account than he could ever have dreamed of.