In light of a Jon Rahm social media post following his LIV Golf individual season title, today I’m tiering Rahm’s professional golf wins. The purpose of this exercise is to visualize the highlights of Rahm’s career to date and place the arc of his competitive window in perspective. Tournaments are tiered based on their prestige and strength of field.
On Monday, Rahm posted a message online in which he likened his LIV season-long individual championship to summiting Mount Everest. It is a preposterous way to frame Rahm’s first winless calendar year (so far) since turning professional in 2016. That isn’t to suggest that winning the individual title on LIV isn’t some level of accomplishment, regardless of whether or not LIV’s point distribution scheme would benefit from tweaking. Rahm’s consistency this season, albeit in small, shallow fields, is worthy of respect. However, the accomplishment of his season-long title should pale in comparison to previous mountains the former world No. 1 has climbed.
When you examine Rahm’s career through the lens of a graphic like the one above, you’ll see that the bulk of his peak performances came between 2019 and the front half of 2023. He won four tournaments between January and April of 2023, three of which are on the top two rows of the above visual. Since that window, he has not been a bad golfer. In 2025, for example, he is one of just 16 golfers to make the cut in all four major championships, and he had a legitimate chance of winning the PGA Championship late into Sunday’s final round. Despite where the Official World Golf Ranking may place him, Rahm should be considered a pretty clear top five player in the world right now.
Nonetheless, we haven’t witnessed the best version of Rahm in a couple of years now. I am not going to attribute that to his signing with LIV Golf at the end of 2023. It’s impossible to determine the extent to which joining LIV is a contributing factor to a small decline in his performance, if it even is a factor at all. However, competitive windows often take on a parabolic shape, and it is reasonable to question which direction Rahm’s performances are trending.
I don’t doubt Jon Rahm’s ability to recapture his elite-level form and return to frequently contending in major championships once again. After all, he is an exceptional talent and driver of the golf ball, a sticky and valuable asset year over year. Still, it is somewhat disappointing to see a player of his caliber compare this 2025 season to summiting Mount Everest, all while four-time major winner and undisputed active world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler climbs higher mountains.
Ok, that’s all for this week. As always, you can shoot feedback and questions to me at joseph@thefriedegg.com!
