Jon Rahm has confirmed that, like the rest of the PGA Tour players, he remains very much in the dark regarding the future direction that the Tour will be taking following the announcement of the planned merger with the Saudi Public Investment Fund who control LIV golf, and the reigning Masters champion has also confirmed that many of his colleagues remain disgruntled with the PGA Tour’s leadership.
“Well, there’s a lot of unanswered questions,” Rahm said. “It’s tough when it’s the week before a major. Trying not to think about it as much as possible.
“I think it gets to a point where you want to have faith in management, and I want to have faith that this is the best thing for all of us, but it’s clear that that’s not the consensus. I think the general feeling is that a lot of people feel a bit of betrayal from management.
“I understand why they had to keep it so secret. I understand we couldn’t make it through a PAC meeting with more than 10 minutes after people spilling the beans right away in some article by you guys already being out there. So I get it. I get the secrecy. It’s just not easy as a player that’s been involved, like many others, to wake up one day and see this bombshell.
“That’s why we’re all in a bit of a state of limbo because we don’t know what’s going on and how much is finalized and how much they can talk about, either. It’s a state of uncertainty that we don’t love, but at the end of the day, I’m not a business expert. Some of those guys on the board and involved in this are. So I’d like to think they’re going to make a better decision than I would, but I
don’t know. We’ll see. There’s still too many questions to be answered.”
After an incredible start to 2023 that saw him capture the Sentry Tournament of Champions, The American Express, The Genesis Invitational and The Masters, he’s gone a little off the boil in the four tournaments since, but it’s testament to his consistency that he’s yet to miss a cut this year and he’s placed inside the top-16 in three of those four most recent starts.
“Well, I’d like to think so,” he replied when asked if he arrived at L.A. Country Club with high confidence. “My belief in myself is the same. I haven’t played my best golf the last two starts. Actually I played really good at Memorial. Just couldn’t make the putts I needed to to keep the rounds going. But I still think I finished 16th in a really tough setup. Hit it really, really well. Obviously PGA was a tough one.
“Yeah, my confidence level is very high. You have to have that belief in yourself as a competitor no matter what happens. You stick to the process — that’s basically what I think has happened this year. Haven’t really changed. There’s no magic formula. I’ve just stuck to working on the things that I have to work on, and when you do the little things properly, eventually scores come, and that’s what happened to me this year. Late last year and early this year.”
Most of the pre-tournament favourites are playing L.A. Country Club for the first time, but Rahm is one of the few with prior experience having played a Pac-12 college event here whilst attending Arizona State University, though he feels that the course will play very differently this time around.
“Well, Max Homa shot 9-under on this golf course,” Rahm said. “That’s not happening right now. It’s a big difference.
“It’s just clearly a much different golf course. The rough wasn’t as high as it is right now. You could actually afford to miss a fairway and have confidence that that ball was going to be around the green area, not always on the green. Even though maybe still being Pac-12s and some of the best collegiate golfers in the world, it’s not set up for a U.S. Open. It’s not like I can draw a lot of what I did that week into this week.
“The only thing I can say is that I have really good memories about it, and again, I enjoyed the design and I enjoyed the challenge back then. I think I’m going to as well this week.”
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