‘A trophy is a trophy’: Jon Rahm on LIV, Augusta and Seve Ballesteros

Jon Rahm roars with laughter. ‘I have to be careful here. I don’t want to create a headline.” The undesirable kind, he means. Rahm has been on billboards for years. The question should be simple enough. Who does he think is the best male golfer in the world right now? Still, Rahm, the reigning Masters champion, is aware that this opens the giant can of worms created by his and others’ departure for LIV Golf. The Rebel circuit’s inability to gain official recognition in the world golf rankings adds a layer of complexity that Rahm has been vocal about in the past. This time he calms himself down and gives a perfectly sensible answer.

“Let me put it this way; I think I can compete with anyone at any time,” Rahm said. “I’m going to leave it at that. I think at my best I can handle anyone. But everyone should think that. I think Rory (McIlroy) would tell you the same thing, or Dustin (Johnson) or Scottie (Scheffler).

McIlroy will arrive in Augusta on Tuesday hoping to win the one major that has so painfully eluded him. Johnson, another LIV convert, no longer gives the impression that he’s particularly concerned about jousting against the best. Scheffler is the hottest player in men’s sports and a legitimate, cheap favorite to don the green jacket.

However, Rahm’s story is the most intriguing. He has grown from a critic of the LIV format to a pin-up boy. Any claims that the Saudi-backed tour is a knacker’s ground for washed-up golfers are contradicted by Rahm, perhaps the most combative animal in golf. He insists he will place any LIV reward alongside the silverware from earlier in his career. “Hell yes!” he says. “A trophy is a trophy. You could argue that I have some PGA Tour trophies that aren’t worth the most, but they are still so valuable to me. The Spanish Open is extremely valuable to me. It’s not on the level of winning the Memorial or (the US Open) at Torrey Pines, but a win is a win. He looks insulted when he says otherwise.

No one could say Rahm won the 2023 Masters easily. He produced a double bogey on the first hole of the tournament. In the 29-year-old’s mind, being level on the 7th fairway is always a strong position; he recovered to that precise point. Rahm was four shots behind Brooks Koepka when play was stopped due to weather delays on Saturday. Rahm would prevail by the same margin on Sunday night.

During the intervening period, he fell so much in love with the PGA Tour that an LIV switch became inevitable. Rahm admits there is a point of significance attached to his Masters return. “Yes and no,” he says. “I think we all know where we stand. We all know where we stand in this game. The competition doesn’t change and my mentality doesn’t change, I still go out to win. I don’t think it’s a point to prove in that sense. But hopefully that mentality itself is a point I can get across.

“There is expectation. You just look forward to it. Returning as champion is different, it is a special week. But the main goal is to try to remember that you are there to hopefully win it again. I’m going to enjoy all the benefits that come with being a champion, but without losing sight of what I’m trying to do.”

In any case, Rahm seems completely at ease in his new surroundings. It’s easy to cite money — hundreds of millions of dollars in this case — as the primary motivation for his decision in December. However, we shouldn’t forget that golfers of Rahm’s skill level were on their way to becoming billionaires anyway. There is understandable disquiet about the guaranteed riches LIV offers, but Rahm certainly doesn’t seem the type to tone down his professional instincts.

“It’s different, right?” he says about the LIV background. “People will tell you all different things based on their own experience. I’ve heard a lot about the music being louder than you think, the warm-ups (where teammates shot next to each other) being different, things like that. If you’ve played enough junior golf or college golf, you’re used to these things. In college we had five guys warm up in one spot and take turns shooting. I play with music at home and in competition mode I don’t hear it anyway.

“Once the gun goes off, once you turn off, there’s honestly no difference in my mind. Sometimes I honestly forget that it’s a 54-hole match. You’ll be playing against some of the best players in the world. The competition is there and you have to go out there and shoot low.

But does Rahm care about perception? That he took bags of cash and ran away? “Well, I’m human, so to some extent you care what people think of you, but in this case you don’t,” he says. “I understand if someone doesn’t agree with me, but that doesn’t really affect me.

“I think it was different circumstances than a lot of other players who moved. For the most part, I haven’t heard many negative things from other players. There will always be people who don’t like it, who don’t approve of it, but overall it wasn’t really a problem.” By “different circumstances,” Rahm means that LIV’s first recruits faced more criticism. He now sees golf as closer to global unification than it has ever been in the messy two years.

Many have wondered what Spanish golf icon Seve Ballesteros would have made of Rahm’s move. Rahm suggests – without being certain – that Ballesteros may have been a supporter of Greg Norman’s breakout plan in the 1990s. Decades later, with the help of the Public Investment Fund, Norman realized his dream. “I didn’t know him, so I don’t know (what he would think), but he was a competitor, a dog,” said Rahm of Ballesteros. ‘I don’t think he would have disagreed or disapproved of me. He would want me to remain myself.

“I still play in the premier league. I have always wanted to engrave my name in the history books of Spain and have been fortunate to be able to do so. But there are also many ways to do this. I think we have an opportunity here to create something special. If my career here over the next 20 years goes as well as it did on that PGA Tour, then that will be something to show for.”

This is striking. Rahm, who has immersed himself in shaping his LIV team from logo design to apparel choices, sees himself as someone who is redefining golf in a positive way. “I like to think about it that way,” Rahm adds. “We can be seen as leaders or pioneers. Hopefully, right? This is an opportunity. That’s the way I choose to look at it. It’s about how you use that opportunity.”

Funnily enough, Rahm can’t name the golfers he now shares an Augusta locker with. He only knows that it is the 1968 champion – Bob Goalby – and someone from the 1940s. Rahm returned to the home of the Masters in recent weeks to play a round with one of his college teammates, but essentially to get rid of the emotion of his return to Augusta. “You’re in that champion’s locker room, you’re excited to be part of that golf cub’s history forever,” he says. “Your name will be on that locker forever. It’s a special feeling.”

Rahm’s Ryder Cup situation is complicated by his playing domain. Essentially, the European side must find a way to make Rahm eligible to defend the trophy in September next year. He is keen to join the DP World Tour in the future – especially when it visits Spain – but is subject to sanctions for the time being. “What do I think? I think I’ll be there,” he says of the Ryder Cup. “I want to be at Bethpage and I think I’ll be at Bethpage. Hopefully I can qualify so they don’t have to pick me .” Over to you, Luke Donald.

If Rahm successfully defends the Masters – and if he isn’t already – it seems impossible that he wouldn’t be part of Donald’s team. Rahm would gain a new level of status and reputation from a two-time Masters winner. “It puts you in a different league,” he acknowledges. “If I were to do it, I would focus more on being the first Spanish-born player since Seve to achieve three majors. Not many Europeans have three majors. I would think about that more than about two Green Jackets.” LIV or no LIV, Rahm exudes a confidence that suggests he will once again play a prominent role at Augusta.