The agreement between Jon Rahm and the DP World Tour enables Rahm to play in the Ryder Cup.
SIMON BRUTY, COURTESY AUGUSTA NATIOINAL
The Jon Rahm saga took an important turn toward reconciliation last Tuesday with the announcement that he and the DP World Tour have settled their differences, assuring Rahm’s eligibility for the 2027 Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in Ireland.
Rahm also said he intends to honor his LIV Golf contract, which stretches beyond 2027, despite uncertainty about the league’s future after this season.
Rahm’s standoff with the DP World Tour – related to paying fines he has accrued since joining LIV Golf in December 2023 and a disagreement over how many tour events he would be required to play to maintain membership on the European-based tour – had shadowed the two-time major champion in recent months and taken on more significance in light of recent news regarding LIV Golf’s changing business model.
Speaking before the LIV event in Virginia on Tuesday, Rahm confirmed an agreement with the DP World Tour that removes any potential obstacles to his Ryder Cup eligibility.
“There’s no longer a standoff. We were able to reach an agreement. There was some concessions on both sides. I offered some; they extended an olive branch. Obviously we’ve reached an agreement. That will not be a stress anymore,” Rahm said. READ MORE
“It was funny, I wasn’t nervous going in, and I get to the first tee, and I’m like, Holy s***. … All of a sudden the hole looks so small. Got to a 2-footer and I’m like, ‘I’m not going to hit the hole.’”
Michelle Wie West, describing the nerves she felt in the first round of the LPGA’s Mizuho Americas Open after coming out of retirement to compete.
RICH GRAESSLE, ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES
In his first public comments since Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund confirmed it won’t back LIV Golf after this season, CEO Scott O’Neil said he is already working on a new business plan that will keep the league going into the future, though he offered few specifics.
“I think I find myself energized, excited, happy, feeling a bit of pressure for sure, and very grateful for this opportunity, for the team I get to work with,” O’Neil said last Tuesday ahead of the LIV Golf Virginia event. “To have this chance in this business, to be able to reset and create something special, something lasting ... I feel an appropriate amount of pressure, which I hope we all do here. I’m feeling inspired. And I feel like we have a clear path to a win.”
While voicing a commitment to LIV’s team format, which he called “transformational,” O’Neil acknowledged changes will be necessary for the league to remain economically viable. “I can tell you that it was very clear 18 months ago that for this to be a going concern, we were going to have to make significant and substantive changes in terms of the way we do business,” he said.
“We are going to create a business plan. We’re going to lock arms with the players. We will go to market and raise money on the top, on a league level, and then we will go and get investors in teams, in that order.” READ MORE
The PGA Tour is preparing to release an updated social-media policy that will expand players’ rights to publish content on pre-tournament and competition days, Front Office Sports reported last Friday, citing a source with knowledge of the tour’s plans.
The updated policy will allow players to capture and publish more content on site at PGA Tour events, the report said. For example, the amount of content created on-site during competition that players will be allowed to distribute will increase to three minutes from two minutes.
News of the impending changes came in the wake of comments from Bryson DeChambeau suggesting that the social-media policy might be an obstacle to him returning to the PGA Tour from LIV Golf. DeChambeau, a two-time U.S. Open champion whose YouTube channel boasts 2.69 million subscribers, suggested that he might focus on growing that audience should LIV dissolve after this season.
“I think, from my perspective, I’d love to grow my YouTube channel three times, maybe even more,” DeChambeau said. “I would love to. I’d love to do a bunch of dubbing in different languages, giving the world more reason to watch YouTube. And then I’d love to play tournaments that want me.”
DeChambeau, whose participation in a 2022 antitrust lawsuit against the tour also figures to complicate his potential return to the circuit, likely didn’t win friends in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, by suggesting the tour’s business is struggling.
“Look, the [PGA Tour] isn’t doing great either. Let’s be honest about the situation. They’ve got the media. They’ve got everybody on the side that helps pump it up. But they’re reducing field sizes, cutting employees and restructuring their business too.” READ MORE
Yurav Premlall wasn’t exactly a household name before Sunday, but with his maiden DP World Tour victory by a whopping 14 strokes in Barcelona, Spain, the 22-year-old South African nearly equaled a mark held by Tiger Woods.
Premlall, who started last week ranked 598th in the world, captured the Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship running away with closing rounds of 64-63-63 at Real Club de Golf El Prat. He came up one stroke shy of equaling what the tour considers its record for margin of victory – Woods’ historic 15-stroke romp in the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
Premlall arrived in Spain fresh off missing the cut in the previous week’s Turkish Airlines Open, where he shot 75-79. In seven prior DP World Tour starts this season, his best finish was T31 at the Hero Indian Open in March. READ MORE
Tap-Ins
The PGA of America extended Dustin Johnson a special invitation to compete in this week’s PGA Championship at Aronimink. Tiger Woods was not listed on the field list released last Tuesday, while Phil Mickelson, who has been coping with a family health matter, withdrew shortly after the list was released. READ MORE
Lexi Thompson withdrew from a U.S. Women’s Open qualifier in Naples, Florida, last Wednesday, Golfweek first reported. Thompson, who has not missed a Women’s Open since qualifying at age 12 in 2007, could still qualify by winning an LPGA event or climbing into the top 75 in the Rolex Rankings by May 25. She was ranked 94th before missing the cut in last week’s Mizuho Americas Open. READ MORE
Six more LPGA players – Celine Boutier, Danielle Kang, Megan Khang, Andrea Lee, Minjee Lee and Albane Valenzuela – have committed to WTGL, the women’s indoor golf league operated by TMRW Sports that will debut next winter, bringing the roster of committed players to 14. READ MORE
Compiled by Mike Cullity
