When Jon Rahm jumped to LIV Golf in late 2023 for what was reported to be a massive payday and an ownership stake in the league as well as his own team, Legion XIII, it pushed Rahm into a new and unfamiliar role as team captain.
While he didn’t have much experience in the gig, whatever Rahm’s doing is clearly working.
With Tyrrell Hatton, upstart Caleb Surratt and youngster Tom McKibben also on the roster, Legion has a sizable edge in the LIV team standings, heading into the final two regular-season tournaments of the year. And the team is getting hot at the right time, winning each of the last two events in Spain and the UK.
New role has been good for Jon Rahm
Rahm admitted in advance of this week’s LIV Golf Chicago that he’s had some tender moments as the leader, something that’s vastly different than life on the cutthroat PGA Tour.
“I do get some moments where some players can be a little bit more vulnerable towards me more than they would ever have been because of the position I’m in as captain,” he said, “and I think they’re also more willing to ask for help because of the environment we’re in as opposed to any other tour being more individual. Sometimes people can hesitate asking for advice.”
But what’s been the secret to success for the team this season? Obviously, Rahm’s play has been one of the key pieces in driving Legion XIII to its impressive lead.
However, he insists that a little team camaraderie has helped as well, and it all stems from a karaoke bar in Hong Kong back in March.
“I think my favorite part of this year, having arrived early in Hong Kong and having plenty of time until Friday after a team dinner, for some reason, I don’t know if it was me or Tyrrell [Hatton], I think it might have been me, who had the brilliant idea of let’s go find a karaoke bar, and Google Maps works as it works, translated from Chinese to English,” Rahm said. “Finding myself and Tyrrell in this building in Hong Kong Island, not that we were ever in danger, but somehow I ended up on the roof looking for this place. At some point we ended up in the basement finding a different place.
“Caleb hasn’t traveled that much, hasn’t seen that much worldwide. Him telling the story of we were in the sketchiest part of the city. We were not. We were in a very nice part of Hong Kong Island, never in danger.
“Almost having those team experiences — we ended up finding a very nice place. It was a lot of fun. Jet lag hours, your brain and your body are obviously operating in different places and you’re awake at weird times, so it was in a weird way a very fun night with the team, unexpected because not that it was the plan, but recalling that story the next morning from Caleb’s eyes thinking that we were — I wouldn’t know how to explain it, but if he were to tell you the story, you would have thought we were on skid row. We were not. It was a little bit of a fun night early on in the year.”
Does Jon Rahm sing karaoke?
Rahm insists he’s not musically inclined, although it’s a skill he wishes he had.
“I’m a terrible singer. I’ve said many times if I could trade a lot of my golfing talent for singing, I would, but not everybody has the bravery, I guess, to stand up and sing,” he said. “But most of us did. I guess after a while you get comfortable enough. But not in public. We had our own little room. There’s no way without going in a room like this and sing. No chance.”
So is he a regular on the karaoke scene?
“No, that was the first time I ever went to one,” he said. “I figured China was as good a place as any other to go to.”
As for the season, Rahm said a key change helped to allow Legion XIII really shine. And it was all about accountability.
“I think the format change, allowing all four scores to count all three days was something that I thought would be very beneficial for us, the second I knew we were going to add Tom McKibbin to the team, somebody that was relatively unknown to almost everybody at LIV, who now is not, knowing how good he was, obviously Tyrrell doing Tyrrell things, and Caleb with more experience playing better,” he said. “I was always confident we could do really well, and it’s funny, we started great and had a bit of a slump, then our second win, and almost going into summer we’re all playing at a much higher level getting those two wins in a row and being consistently in a good place.
“At this stage obviously getting the No. 1 spot to where we can control as much as we can control going into the last event is something important.”
