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Jon Rahm was in great form ahead of LIV Golf Chicago, sharing a hilarious story about a late-night karaoke bar adventure in Hong Kong with his team.
The Spaniard also discussed the ongoing push for OWGR points, the state of his game, and his Ryder Cup text exchanges with Europe captain Luke Donald. From travel laughs to serious golf talk, Rahm covered it all in style.
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 McKibben to the team. um somebody that was relatively unknown to almost everybody live who now is not right knowing how how good it was obviously Ter doing tero things uh and Caleb with more experience playing better right so uh I was always confident we could do really well and it’s funny we started great then had a bit of a slump got our second win and then almost going into summer we’re all playing at a much higher level um getting those two wins in a row and being consist consistently in a good place. So, um, at this stage, again, hopefully getting the number one spot to where we can control as much as we can control going to the last event is, uh, is something important. Awesome. Um, can we start with Mike? John, given that Waco’s won five times, are you surprised you even have a mathematical chance of catching him? Yes, I think it was after Valorama when finished second and I know he didn’t have a great week that week when I looked and I was only 16 points back. It’s just kind of it’s one of those moments where math wasn’t math very well. Um but but it’s I guess afterwards where uh somebody told me I think it was yesterday actually the weeks he hasn’t won he hasn’t had his best stuff and hasn’t added a lot of points right so that’s where keeping my consistency I’ve had a chance to to stay somewhat close now he has won five times so I mean I guess this is as close as I can get without without getting a win that’s why I’m saying if I can win this week and he doesn’t have a great one I think I’m definitely going to be a fun week going to next week. And I wanted to ask you too about you mentioned you guys have won eight times as a team and you’ve got the two tournament wins and the individual championship. How do you process a team victory versus an individual victory? Is it similar kind of gratification? Is it is it somewhat different? How how is it in your mind? No, it’s it’s very different. I mean the team victory is a collective collective effort right it’s something we share between all of us um in its different stages of the year I feel like they have a different meaning right earlier on when you get in those wins at least in my case I feel like I’m much more excited about the actual win and then later on the year like right now it’s almost more about okay one step closer to having the number one spot going into the final event and obviously the team championship ship starts to take much more of a presence and weight uh and almost thinking about that more right so throughout the year it’s a weird way how it changes how I feel about each spot right individually obviously you always want to want to win as well but um it’s a different feeling it’s just a different feeling but even then individually the team is there to celebrate with you which is which is quite special and then beyond the the victories themselves What kind of moments have you experienced as a captain that have been gratifying? Whether it’s, I don’t know, watching Caleb develop, maybe it’s a it’s a moment that sticks out in your mind from a from a team bonding standpoint, maybe it’s a sponsorship. is what what kind of gratifying moments have there been there without I mean I I do get some moments where some players can be a little bit more vulnerable towards me more than they would have ever been because of the position I’m in as captain and I think they’re also more willing to ask for help because of the environment we’re in opposed to uh any other tour right being more individual sometimes people can hesitate asking for advice. So without getting too much into what other people have asked I think my favorite part of this year uh having arrived early in Hong Kong and having plenty of time till Friday after a team dinner for some reason I don’t know if it was me or Terra I think it might have been me who had the brilliant idea of let’s go find a karaoke bar. Um, and you know, Google Maps works as it works, translating from Chinese to English, right? So, finding myself in this building in Hong Kong Island, not that we were ever in danger, but somehow ended up on the roof looking for this place. At some point, we ended up in the basement finding a different place. Uh, so that whole story as a team and almost showing the one the one that’s troubled the least, and I know his name comes up in a lot of this, but it’s Caleb, right? Kayla hasn’t traveled that much, hasn’t seen that much world, right? It’s um you know him telling the story of we were in the sketchiest part of the city. We were not. Okay. We’re in a very nice part of Hong Kong Island, never in danger. So almost having those team experiences, we ended up fighting a very nice place. It was a lot of fun, right? Jet lag hours, your your brain and and your body are obviously operating in different different places and you’re awake at weird times. So it was in a weird way a very fun night with the team. uh unexpected cuz not that it was the plan, but uh recalling that story the next morning from Caleb’s eyes thinking that we were I mean I wouldn’t know how to explain it, but if he were to tell you the story, you would have thought we were in skit row. We were not. So it was just a little bit of a of a fun night early on the year. And just for the record, did you actually sing? Did you sing yourself? Yeah. No, I’m a terrible singer. I’ve said many times if I could trade a lot of my golfing talent for singing, I will. I would. Uh but yeah, I mean, not not everybody has the bravery, I guess, to to stand up and sing. Uh 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 of going in a room like this and saying, “No chance.” Do you have a go-to karaoke song? Uh that was No, that was the first time I ever went to one. Yeah, I figured China was a good aer place as any other to go to. So, right, thanks. I think just over here and then we’ll go over here. Uh, John, you mentioned the the format change helping all scores count. Did you campaign for that kind of when you arrived? Uh, no, I did not. Um, whenever it was brought up, I thought it was a good idea. I thought it would be better for everybody and and for the strength of competition as a league, right? I think on Thursday, on on Friday and Saturday, if somebody was way out of position, not playing great, you could have the excuse of, well, my score doesn’t count either ways, and be able to give up. That’s something that I personally can’t stand. Uh I’ve told everybody on my team, even if it doesn’t count on Friday, that was before they changed it. I’d rather you shoot eight over than 9 over, compete till the end cuz that kind of sets an ideology that you’re always going to keep fighting no matter what. That’s always been my philosophy at least. If you can finish 33 instead of 34th, go ahead cuz it’s better, right? You have to give your your duty as a competitor to do that till the end. And I think changing that rule was great for everybody to actually try and again I thought it was to my benefit as a team, right? It was it was better for us. Clearly winning a lot. Uh on the idea of format changes with Liv’s ability to do that pretty nimly uh as the league looks to pursue world ranking points. Have you been in the discussions of what changes you think would get that done or should be made on that front? Yes and no. Um, I think the way I see it at least right now that there’s a process to hopefully enter those world ranking points and and get at least our our foot in the door and then once we’re allowed we can see what changes can be made to earn as many as possible keeping the integrity of what live golf is about. Right? So examples of that would be let’s say with whatever we’re doing currently we get 20 points right if you add a fourth round you go to 25 is that worth it is that not worth it if you add a cut things like that as in right now with as little players as we have I don’t see a cut working very very well with the teams and I think it would be a little odd um but if the league were to span and you want let’s say you go to 15 teams you have 60 players now you can actually make possibly something work. Um, there’s many possibilities that I could think of. By the way, this completely hypothetical because I haven’t spoken to anybody about it, but there’s things I think we could do to add more world ranking points if needed, right? So, I don’t know. And I’m sure there’s more that I can’t think of that that uh the folks at OWGR and and maybe Scott or in the front of the live office can can probably tell us about to to give us a little bit more of a of strength of field just here on the right. John, what do you like about this golf course and how does it suit your game? It’s all I know about it obviously is based on last year and it was so firm and fast and windy that it was pretty clearly a ball striker’s golf course, right? Greens small and very undulated. So you had to be very precise going into the greens. Um there’s some of them like like three and 12 that you’re playing with such small margins that you’re almost thinking, well, I’m going to have to get an up and down most likely two out of three days cuz it’s so hard to hit those grains in two. Um but I almost also say it’s the fairways are already firm. Grains are still a little soft. Uh but they’re probably trying to keep them save them. Uh we’re going to have the complete opposite wind in theory than we had last year. So the golf course is going to play vastly different. We also have a brand new T which seems like 150 yards further back on 12. Um went from being a short par4 last year at least playing short to a very long par five cuz he might play into the wind. And then the eighth hole which we didn’t use the back te last time cuz he played into the wind. Now maybe playing downwind and it’s a T- box that’s 95 yards further back. So we are going to see some changes on the course um and especially the way he plays. So I still think it’s a ball striker course. Furways are wide but they don’t play as wide because of how much they bounce and roll out. So if you have a crosswind and they have that ball going with the wind, it can easily bounce and and keep on going. Like an example I can give was 11 yesterday in practice round. Caleb and I hit a we over faded our T- shot a little bit and landed not dead center but not too far right of center and both of the balls missed the farway right because it just big bounce and kept on going right so uh there’s many examples of that um and once the greens get firm it’s a bit of everything needs to be good right so uh I was hitting it so good last year at this point that I felt like it really really suited my my game at that point as well with that in mind what do you need to work on these next couple of days before Friday gets here. Same as any other week really. Uh we’ll see how the golf course develops, but there’s no rain forecasted. There’s wind forecasted. So I’m I’m sure the superintendents are going to do a great job at making sure the golf course is as challenging as possible. Um the main thing I would say just trying to control the ball in the wind, tractory control, ball flight, right? Make sure your spin control is good just in case the winds are the greens are still soft enough early on the week. They’re so sloped that you need to make sure you have enough control coming onto the greens. So, you know, you don’t roll off or or get into the habit of missing too many grains cuz it’s not easy up and down. The rough is quite thick and you’re most likely going to have to deal with quite a bit of slope into those shots. Do we have any more questions? That’s fun. Uh, on the RDER Cup front, I think there’s a lot of assumptions that are fair that you’ll just be involved. Uh, have you been in conversations with Luke to confirm things? Is is your September, late September look pretty solid at this point? There’s nothing I can confirm nor deny, but I I I think he has been texting me like he has been texting quite a few other players that are on that list of possibly getting picked, right? Uh Luke is extremely dedicated and very well organized as a captain. So I think there’s probably what is six six automatic and then six picks, right? So there’s probably about I’ll say at least 10 names on top of those guys who are qualified that is probably constantly texting. Um he might have told some people that they’re I don’t think he’s actually told anybody they’re in yet because it’s too early, right? probably waiting till uh probably the end of August uh through the playoffs and our events till um to maybe start making statements like that. Uh in my case, no, but I think I’m just one more of of those many names. All right. Thank you very much for your time, John. Play. All right. All right. All right.
