What in the world is going on between Jon Rahm and the DP World Tour? A one-stop explainer on this brewing feud

Have you watched Jon Rahm complain about the DP World Tour over the last few days, felt vaguely interested, but then subsequently overwhelmed by endless backstory? Do you have the first inklings of an opinion, but need some facts to back it up before you go public? Are you sitting at your computer or phone, wishing someone would explain the whole saga to you like you’re a 5-year-old, but with the sense of humor of a 9-year-old?

Well, my friend, you’ve come to the right spot. I’ve also confronted the Rahm story with a degree of weariness, and I also enjoy a good, simple explanation replete with adolescent humor. Now that I’ve done the hard work of sorting through this mess, I’m happy to share the fruits. Let’s do this, Q&A style.

How far back in time do we have to go? When you wrote an explainer for the Portrush parades last summer, you returned us to 1534.

Not that far this time! In fact, I think we can start in 2023.

Isn’t that after LIV Golf began?

That’s right, but something important happened that year, and it happened on Masters Thursday. That’s when the decision from Sports Resolutions UK ruled that it was OK for the DP World Tour to suspend and fine players who went to LIV Golf.

OK, so who was being fined and suspended?

A: This was the first crop of European defectors, 16 of them total, and it was mostly the old guys grabbing a last paycheck—your Ian Poulters, your Lee Westwoods, your Sergio Garcias, your Henrik Stensons, your Graeme McDowells, your … I’m going to stop doing the “your” thing now, but you get it. Any DP World Tour member who played in the first LIV event in the summer of 2022 at the Centurion Club outside London was instantly suspended for three events and fined £100,000.

How was this different from the PGA Tour?

The PGA Tour also banned its members (and former members) who played in LIV events, and commissioner Jay Monahan’s hammer hit quite a lot harder, with no stated limit on the suspensions. That prompted its own legal battle, which was settled with no resolution when the tour and LIV Golf “merged” (pause for laughter) in the summer of 2023 with the infamous “framework agreement.” The de facto result has been that the PGA Tour has been able to do pretty much whatever it wants with regard to LIV, while the DP World Tour still sorta-kinda had to follow procedure.

How much was/is the DPWT fining these guys?

It’s a weird system in which, to quote Sports Illustrated’s Bob Harig, “the amounts, which have not been publicly disclosed, may vary by event and time zone.” We have that initial £100,000 figure, but it seems like they’ve built in surge pricing, or something. (That’s a joke, I think?) Some reports estimated that it’s around £1 million per season.

More From Golf Digest

LIV Golf Jon Rahm sends private jet to stranded LIV Golf players in Middle East

Golf Digest Logo The Undercover Pro: How a lot of us feel about Brooks coming back

LIV Golf LIV boss softens tone on World Ranking, acknowledges other tours’ welcome into ‘golf family’

OK, back to this decision on Masters Thursday in 2023. Why was it a big deal?

Well, for one thing, at the time it basically seemed like that European old guard could kiss any chance of playing in a Ryder Cup goodbye. After the initial DPWT suspensions and fines, the LIV players sought and received an injunction, but now the arbitration panel said they could be suspended each time they teed it up. So it seemed there was no recourse for them gaining their full status back.

Did anybody in the European Ryder Cup power structure care?

Not really.

Because of morals?

Wellllllllll …

I sense it wasn’t about morals.

As hindsight would prove, it seems to be the case that the players in question were too old to matter. As it happened, somebody cared, and that somebody was LIV Golf, who agreed to pay its players’ DP World Tour fines going back to the first event in 2022. That lasted until the end of 2025, when LIV announced it would no longer pay those fines. In the meantime, a bunch of players resigned their DP World Tour memberships—Garcia, Poulter, Westwood and Richard Bland—while others took LIV up on the offer to pay the fines and maintain their standing. Garcia would later rejoin the DPWT and pay his fines (via LIV, to the tune of around £1 million) in the hopes of playing in the 2025 Ryder Cup. (He didn’t make the team.)

Does this bring us, at last, to Rahm?

It does! Just when it seemed like the dust had settled and all the really big defections had already happened, Rahm shocked the world in December 2023 by announcing he would play on LIV Golf starting in 2024. A month later, Tyrrell Hatton followed him, and these remain—for now—the last really big signings LIV has managed.

/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2023/12/jon-rahm-liv-golf-jacket-hat.jpg

Those guys are both Europeans, yes?

Oh yes. And as Europeans, they were subject to the same byzantine drama on the DPWT as that initial crop of Euro oldsters, right down to the issues of fines. In late 2024, the situation was clear—to remain a member in good standing, and to have a chance to play in the Ryder Cup, Rahm and Hatton needed to play four DPWT events and either A) pay his fines or B) appeal the fines.

But wouldn’t LIV have just paid those fines for Rahm?

At the time, yes, but money wasn’t the issue, and both he and Hatton were stubbornly holding out.

So Rahm appealed?

Rahm appealed, in September 2024.

And when the older Euro guys appealed, how long did it take to settle?

About nine months.

And how long was there between Rahm and Hatton’s appeal and the next Ryder Cup in Bethpage?

Twelve months.

And in this case, there was a very cut-and-dry precedent, meaning Rahm and Hatton would clearly lose again in front of the same arbitration panel?

That’s right.

So clearly, the hearing was held in plenty of time to decide their Ryder Cup fates.

Wellllllllll … THERE’S WHERE YOU’RE WRONG, BUCKO! In fact—prepare to be shocked—they didn’t even take minimal steps to hear the appeal. We can fairly say now that there was never any intention of hearing the appeal and, in fact, months after the Ryder Cup, there is no hearing in sight.

The DP World Tour gains some badly needed strength and name recognition in a few of its tournament fields, LIV gets more exposure for its players and the LIV guys can earn more World Ranking points, remain Ryder Cup eligible and the end all fines, without paying much of a financial penalty themselves.

But why? What makes this different than the Westwood/Poulter/Garcia case from 2023?

Oh, you sweet summer child. Obviously, it’s because the DP World Tour very badly wanted Rahm and Hatton to play in the Bethpage Ryder Cup.

So that’s why you said their decision in the previous case wasn’t based on morals or ethics.

Bingo. Nobody was even trying to hide it. European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald openly said he was pleased when Rahm appealed the fines, and way back in 2023 when Rahm defected, Rory McIlroy said, “Jon is going to be in Bethpage in 2025 so, because of this decision, the tour are going to have to rewrite the rules for Ryder Cup eligibility, absolutely. There’s no question about that. I certainly want Jon Rahm on the next Ryder Cup team.”

Bottom line, the European powers-that-be saw a massive chance to win an away Ryder Cup—armed with a great captain and an experienced team going against an American side that seemed to be in total disarray, bouncing from one bad choice to another—and they were not about to let the chance slip away.

Did they get what they wanted?

They won the Ryder Cup by two points, with Rahm and Hatton combining for 6½ of Europe’s 15 total points. The answer is, Hell yes, they got what they wanted.

Maddie Meyer/PGA of America

But you said that even six months out, there is still no hearing on Rahm and Hatton’s appeal. What gives?

With everything coming to a head, and LIV refusing to pay DPWT fines starting in 2026, there had to be some resolution. In lieu of holding that long-deferred hearing with its seemingly certain outcome, LIV and the DPWT started brainstorming about a deal that might make everyone happy. Eventually, they came up with a proposal.

What were the DPWT’s terms?

First, all outstanding player fines had to be paid (and remember that LIV would pay everything through the end of 2025). Second, to qualify for the release, the LIV players in question had to agree to play six DPWT tournaments in 2026—up from the minimum four—with DPWT officials choosing two of the specific tournaments. Finally, players had to drop all pending appeals.

Can you sell that as a win-win?

Depending on your perspective, I think so. The DP World Tour gains some badly needed strength and name recognition in a few of its tournament fields, LIV gets more exposure for its players and the LIV guys get opportunities to earn more World Ranking points, remain Ryder Cup eligible and the end all fines, without having to pay much of a financial penalty themselves.

Did the players go for it?

Eight did: Tyrell Hatton, Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, David Puig and Elvis Smylie.

But there is a ninth.

And the ninth is Jon Rahm.

What’s his problem?

You can see his full response here, from a presser at LIV Hong Kong:

The highlights are that he doesn’t like having to play six events, he’s annoyed that he was asked to appeal the fines two years ago for Ryder Cup expediency but is still getting hit by demands, and that by levying fines and demanding appearances, the DPWT is “trying to benefit both ways” and “extorting players like myself … that have nothing to do with the politics of the game.” He added that he would sign the deal that night if the minimum was four, rather than six, events.

How did other players react to that?

By other players, you mean Rory, right?

Is there anyone else?

It won’t shock you that, yes, Rory had something to say. In fact, he took a pretty hard swipe at Rahm, saying prior to this week’s action at Bay Hill that the DPWT’s offer was “really generous” and “a much softer deal than what Brooks took to come back and play on the PGA Tour.”

“The European Tour can only do so much to accommodate these guys,” he added. “There’s a reason eight of the nine guys took that deal, right? I think it’s a really good deal.”

Harry How

Is that the first time Rory and Rahm went back-and-forth on this?

In fact, no. Back in January, Rory made the cheeky remark that “we all sat up there and said that we would pay to play in Ryder Cups. There’s two guys that can prove it.”

What did Rahm say to that?

From the same Hong Kong presser as above: “It would make a lot more sense if all 12 of us were being asked to play, not only just the two of us,”

Does that make any sense?

Not really, nor does Rahm’s contention that same day that he shouldn’t need a release to play on the PGA Tour back when he was on the DPWT, or vice versa, so why should he be penalized for doing so now? Why can’t we all just freely play wherever we want?

Well, what is the actual difference?

On this topic, we probably won’t improve on Eamon Lynch, who put it succinctly in his recent Golfweek column:

“The irony was probably lost on Rahm that he made his comments at Hong Kong Golf Club, which used to be on the European Tour’s schedule before welcoming LIV’s embrace. Same goes for next week in Singapore and a summer stop in Spain at Valderrama. HSBC used to be the title sponsor in Abu Dhabi and JCB underwrote a senior tournament; both are now in business with LIV. Competition is fine, and both brands and venues are free to make commercial decisions, but Rahm is essentially arguing that the DP World Tour has no right to protect itself, and he should be free to come and go as the employee of (and advocate for) a league intent on taking more of its business.”

Clearly, LIV is an existential threat to both the PGA Tour and the DPWT, so Rahm’s innocent posture—”gee, why can’t we just play wherever we want?”—looks naive in the most performative way, especially considering that he’s contractually forbidden from playing anywhere else when there’s a LIV tournament happening. It’s a position you see a lot from LIV, both at the executive, player and fan-bot level: They want the freedom to attack and weaken their competition, while also whining when that competition fights back. It’s a particularly annoying brand of constant grievance, and Rahm is working from a classic playbook here.

Fair enough, but is there any room for sympathy for Rahm?

On an individual level, the answer is a qualified yes. When you consider the fact that McIlroy himself advocated for a Ryder Cup rules change the minute Rahm defected, and Donald and the rest of the European Ryder Cup power brokers, including the DPWT, molded their version of justice into a diluted form to make sure Rahm could play at Bethpage—in other words, they used him when they needed him—you can understand him being annoyed at the general tone from the other side now that he’s fulfilled his purpose. McIlroy’s potshots in particular must rankle, and make it abundantly clear that his teammates and the DPWT saw him as a commodity that lost a huge chunk of its value the minute the final point went on the board at Bethpage. Even if you think he’s wrong on most (or all) of the issues, you can see why that would piss him off.

Andrew Redington

In the end, how does Rahm come off in all this?

Mostly bad. The move to LIV worked on one level for Rahm (financial) but has been a bust in almost every other way. He lost a hefty chunk of good will from fans, his apparent bet that a swift merger would get him back on the PGA Tour was an utter failure, and he hasn’t even been quite as sharp as a player. As far as the terms set by the DPWT, you could argue whether they’re “generous,” as McIlroy says, or exploitative as Rahm holds, but he should keep in mind that it’s a better deal than the outright ban the PGA Tour offered. The ball is in Rahm’s court now, and he’s going to have to decide what’s actually important to him—and how much pride he’s willing to swallow to get it.

Read the full article here