Tom McKibbin refused to rule out a move to join Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII team on LIV Golf and as it is the January transfer window for football fans across the globe, being coy at this time of year usually means one thing doesn’t it?
It’s funny. The new LIV Golf season gets underway in a month’s time and up until now the Saudi backed tour had not announced any major signings for 2025 nor had they been linked with anybody of note prompting thoughts that perhaps a peace deal between them and the PGA Tour was imminent. I mean, why spend money recruiting if everyone will be playing together again?
But securing one of golf’s brightest young talents in McKibbin would be a major coup.
“I’m not going to make any comments this week out of respect for Justin (Rose, Team GB&I captain) and Luke (Donald) and this tournament,” McKibbin told Golf Digest Middle East in a brief interview ahead of this week’s Team Cup in Abu Dhabi.
“I’m not going to make any comment this week”
Tom McKibbin addresses the reports that he has signed a deal with LIV Golf and Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII team ahead of this week’s Team Cup in Abu Dhabi on the DP World Tour
Full story on Golf Digest Middle East#LIVGolf #tommckibbin pic.twitter.com/S3hzQKwzvY
— Golf Digest ME (@GolfDigestME) January 8, 2025
“It’s a team event so I’m just trying to give my best to the team to see how many points I can get.”
Interestingly, one of McKibbin’s Great Britain and Ireland teammates this week is Tyrrell Hatton, who is a teammate of Rahm’s at Legion XIII.
McKibbin is rumoured to be putting pen to paper on a deal worth up to €8 million. And in a world where LIV is guaranteed money, that’s not actually that much for a 22-year-old who has the world at his feet.
The timing is incredibly strange. McKibbin has just secured his PGA Tour card and is about to embark on a debut campaign in America that will not only boost his Ryder Cup hopes but also give him the world ranking points he needs to break back inside the top-100 and launch an assault on the top-50.
The Holywood man has an exemption into the Open Championship at Royal Portrush this year and is almost certain to be in the field for the PGA Championship in May but given his world ranking of 110, singing with LIV Golf would initially put paid to his spots in the other two major championships for the foreseeable.
For years McKibbin has talked about playing on the PGA Tour and the fact he has such a close bond with his fellow club mate Rory McIlroy makes this potential decision an even stranger one.
“Yeah it would be great to be over there on the PGA Tour, a tour I’ve watched for a long time, and it will be great over there and play some golf,” McKibbin said in Dubai after clinching his PGA Tour card with a closing birdie in November.
But money talks and even in this context the smallish sum of eight million quid.
Whether a peace deal is imminent or not, LIV Golf’s potential recruitment of McKibbin signals a new direction for the breakaway tour.
So far, big impetus has been on making big money major signings in Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith. But McKibbin’s signature would indicate a change in recruitment strategy to young up and comers who will beef up LIV Golf fields but also drain the two main tours of their depth.
McKibbin would replace the relegated Kieran Vincent on Legion XIII and given that Nicolai Hojgaard was strongly linked with the role last year it suggests that LIV are looking at recruiting younger players.
Should McKibbin sign, he would complete a trio of exciting young talent alongside David Puig and Joaquin Niemann.
For McKibbin’s own career aspirations, he would have to forego a rookie campaign on the PGA Tour, although a pathway back to the DP World Tour does seem less complicated given that six LIV Golf players are pencilled in for next week’s Dubai Desert Classic and Hatton’s presence at the Team Cup this week.
Fourteen LIV players competed at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in October, which was won by Hatton.
Hatton and Rahm will be eligible to play in the Ryder Cup in September and while the rules will be the same for McKibbin it’s difficult to see him playing his way onto Luke Donald’s European team from there.
From a world rankings point of view, McKibbin would not be joining LIV from a position of strength given his world ranking of 110, he would not have the same power or exemptions as Rahm and Hatton, thus making it difficult to maintain a solid footing on the world stage.
But perhaps McKibbin is the smartest guy in the room. Maybe a peace deal is imminent and signing with LIV will give him the best of both worlds where he is able to compete alongside some of the best players in the world (yes LIV do have top players, grow up) and flock back to the PGA Tour for a belated rookie campaign at some stage.
If not, it would be a crying shame to see one of the world’s brightest young talents moving away from the spotlight to don some ridiculously flashy team uniform and bop to horrendous techno music. But hey, maybe that’s what the kids are into these days.
One has to wonder what Rory McIlroy makes of this and what he has told McKibbin. If anything.
“Don’t do a Meronk on it.” Be a sound word of advice wouldn’t it?
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