Minutes before speaking with Ten Golf, Jon Rahm attended to the media gathered at Valhalla Golf Club for the PGA Championship. He did so earlier than initially expected due to the brief suspension of the practice round due to the storm that fell on Louisville.
You may agree more or less with the ideas that the man from Barrika holds, but what cannot be denied is that he usually leaves headlines and reflections that are more than interesting. Jon has always been a person who has avoided conflict and has rather dedicated himself to building bridges. In recent years he was one of the few people who publicly sent messages of unity with the players who were beyond the seas of LIV Golf. The most critical will think that he did it with a view to what happened later, but the reality is that Rahm’s personality is to look for solutions and not problems. Peaceful by nature and with common sense outside the usual standards.
In this sense, it can be said that Jon Rahm has not changed. That he has chosen LIV does not mean that he now abhors the PGA Tour, or vice versa, as happened before. An ‘unofficial’ stance of the Saudi circuit would never say what the winner of two Majors has expressed this afternoon and that is another of Rahm’s great virtues. He has his ideas and expresses them when and how he wants. Today he wanted to make it clear, once again, that the PGA Tour is still part of his heart… and his head.
Rahm was asked how he saw, now that he is in the LIV (“on the other side”, the journalist said), all the comings and goings that are happening on the American circuit, whether Rory enters or leaves the Board, whether Jimmy Dunn‘s (vice president) resignation is timely, the relationship between Tiger and the Northern Irishman…. Rahm’s response is priceless: “You keep saying “the other side, but I am still a member of the PGA Tour, regardless of whether I am suspended or not. I still support the circuit. I think that’s an important nuance. I don’t feel like I’m on the other side. I’m just not playing there. That’s at least how I see it personally”.
Indeed, Rahm still feels a member of what was his circuit, in fact he has always pointed out, and continues to say, that he would like to return to play on the PGA Tour. “Even though I am playing full time on LIV Golf, as I have said many times, if I had been allowed, I would have played some events at the beginning of the year, and if in the future they did not conflict with my schedule, I would also play them”. Let’s say that Jon opts for the philosophy of why choose if you can have the best of both worlds.
The man from Barrika knows where he comes from and, despite having made the decision to leave it, values everything he received and the fact of being suspended does not change his vision: “The PGA TOUR has given me a lot and has provided me with the platform and the opportunity to be who I am, so now I am not going to look the other way to go against them, I am not going to go against the PGA Tour”.
About the future of world golf he has also expressed himself and has repeated what he has always said regardless of the side he was on: “I hope we come to a resolution and that it is beneficial for everyone”, and has built bridges with Rory McIlroy about the possible solution to the conflict: “Rory has mentioned a few times the possibility of a world tour where the best players in the world are playing together. I agree. I would love to be able to see that. As I have said many times, we have the opportunity to put golf on a different level and make it more global than ever, and I fully support that idea”. This alignment with Rory is a further reflection of the approach they both had at the past Masters, when they embraced on the practice field at Augusta.
Jon Rahm is in Valhalla with the clear intention of lifting the third Major of his career. In the meantime, he will not tire of continuing to build bridges between the circuits.
