Jon Rahm, thrilled at a new deal allowing him to play on the DP World Tour, said Tuesday he expects LIV Golf players must make concessions to save the series.
The 31-year-old Spaniard, a former world number one, spoke ahead of this week’s LIV Golf Virginia event at Trump National Washington.
FOX SPORTS, available on Kayo Sports, is streaming The 2026 PGA Tour LIVE & Exclusive | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which had promised long-term support for the series, says it will pull funding after this 2026 campaign concludes.
While LIV Golf chief executive officer Scott O’Neil seeks new backers, two-time defending LIV season champion Rahm says players will likely face compromises if the series is to continue.
“It’s a team effort. It’s not about one person agreeing or not. We all, as captains and team owners and players involved in the league, need to in essence have a large majority to agree on for it to work,” Rahm said.
“I do believe that for the business plan to change, whatever they’re coming up with, there will need to be some concessions on our part.” Several big names jumped to LIV Golf from the PGA Tour, which banned those players from its events. Some players have made the move back, such as five-time major winner Brooks Koepka, but a return path for others remains uncertain.
Rahm, for his part, said he likes where he is at with LIV.
“We want to be here. It has been a lot of fun. I want to keep competing. I want to keep sharing some time with them,” Rahm said.
“But only time will tell. Scott and his team have a lot of hard work to do, but obviously they’re experienced in the area, and that’s why they’ve been chosen to take this role.”
First-place individual champion captain Jon Rahm, of Legion XIII, poses with the trophy after the final round of LIV Golf Mexico City.Source: AP
Rahm, the 2021 US Open and 2023 Masters champion, jumped in 2024 and won the past two season crowns.
This year, in his final tune-up for next week’s PGA Championship, Rahm has won LIV titles at Hong Kong in March and Mexico City in April.
Rahm ended a long-running issue on Tuesday as the DP World Tour announced they reached a deal with Rahm allowing him to play on the European circuit this year while paying all outstanding fines since his 2024 jump to LIV.
Two-time major winner Rahm has been punished for three conflicting events this season, and has around £2 million in fines outstanding since he joined the Saudi breakaway circuit in 2023.
In exchange for securing conditional releases for 2026, Rahm has also said he will play in agreed European Tour events for the remainder of this year.
“There’s no longer a standoff. We were able to reach an agreement,” Rahm said. “There was some concessions on both sides. I offered some, they extended an olive branch. That will not be a stress anymore.”
“The DP World Tour and Jon Rahm have come to an agreement on conditional releases to play in conflicting tournaments on LIV Golf during the remainder of its 2026 season,” said a DP World Tour spokesman.
“This involves payment of all outstanding fines accrued from 2024 to date, along with participation in agreed DP World Tour tournaments (outside the majors) in the remainder of the 2026 season.”
READ MORE
PGA Wrap — Scott on brink of absurd history after ‘incredible’ $1m surge; star’s honest call stuns
‘Screw those guys’: Rebels face ‘bumpier’ PGA return as Trump weighs in on $7b bombshell
Bad blood and who’s on blacklist: ‘Scar tissue’ to spark PGA hunger games after $8bn LIV bombshell
Rahm will no longer have to worry about his place on the Europe side for the 2027 Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in Ireland or future stops.
“The Ryder Cup is still really far away, but I’m happy that hopefully I won’t have to think about any worries or any predicaments (ahead of) Adare Manor then or hopefully ever,” Rahm said.
“I want to support the DP World Tour. There’s a lot of events I want to play.”
When it comes to getting out of his LIV contract, which is reportedly worth US$300-500 million, Rahm said he isn’t worrying about that for now.
“I have several years on my contract left and I’m pretty sure they did a pretty good job when they drafted that,” Rahm said.
“I don’t see many ways out, and as of right now, I’m not really thinking about it since we still have a season to play and majors to compete for.” Rahm said players had been told there would be funding for many years from PIF so learning last month of the Saudi’s financial pullback was a shock.
Get all the latest golf news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!
Meanwhile, LIV Golf sees hope in finding new financial sponsors to carry the series beyond this season, when its vast Saudi funding will end, even though chief executive officer Scott O’Neil was short on details in comments Tuesday.
Speaking ahead of this week’s LIV Golf Virginia event at Trump National Washington, O’Neil said he has spoken with potential investors as he works on a business plan he can pitch to players and sponsors alike.
“I definitely will not be talking through specifics of the plan,” O’Neil said. “But it’s a playbook that won’t surprise too many people once you see it.
“It’s for next year that we’re going to be making some pretty significant, substantive changes.” The days of players golfing less and making more money than PGA Tour talent figure to be at an end since the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) has said it will pull the plug on backing LIV once the season concludes in August.
LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil, right, answers questions from LIV media official Ilana Finley at Trump National Golf Club.Source: AP
O’Neil believes that even with changes, LIV players will want to remain with the series.
“Do I believe that when we have a business plan and we raise money, that this is the place the players will choose? I do,” he said.
“I have a lot of confidence this is a place players want to be.” O’Neil said he was “very confident” of support from new sponsors. “I had about a dozen inbound calls this weekend from potential investors,” O’Neil said. “It was a split between private equity, family office, and then your traditional high net worth guys who invest in sports and sports teams. So that has been really positive.” He has also spoken with broadcast and marketing partners about staying with LIV, saying, “We have a good sense at this point. We know where we’re going.” O’Neil wants to keep a 14-week season but have other tours allow LIV players into events to produce showdowns with all the world’s top talent.
“If you want to see the best players in the world playing together more often, no problem, let’s do it on the other 38 weeks,” he said.
The PGA Tour has banned LIV players from its events, opening a brief return path that allowed Brooks Koepka back this year.
O’Neil had no timetable for when LIV might have a plan to offer players and investors.
“I won’t speak to specific timing other than to say that you’ll find urgency here,” he said.
When it came to return value on investment, O’Neil pointed to LIV teams, some of which have changed in recent months to reflect more national line-ups.
“If you’re looking for direction, we believe teams will have extraordinary value,” he said. “Once we set the business in the right direction with the right trajectory, with the right revenue base and cost base, these teams will have extraordinary value.” O’Neil said players have offered to make visits to private equity firms in hopes of deals to sustain LIV, which has made a splash with events in such places as Adelaide.
“To see the impact it’s having in markets like Australia, where we had 115,000 people, and South Africa we had 100,000 people and the UK, where we had 60,000 people last year… You start to feel that movement that the teams are catching on.
“I’m feeling good. I’m feeling an appropriate amount of pressure. I’m feeling inspired and I feel like we have a clear path to a win.”