AUGUSTA, Ga. — No disrespect to the U.S. Open, but winning the Masters is, quite simply, a different animal. Defending champion Jon Rahm admitted as much on Tuesday at Augusta National, saying far more people knew who he was after becoming Masters champion than when he was just a U.S. Open winner.
“Your notoriety goes up quite a bit,” Rahm said.
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Despite the power the green jacket wields, though, the 29-year-old Spaniard has been humbled since his move last December to LIV Golf, which he believed would help the Saudi-backed league and the PGA Tour come to a swift agreement. That has not been the case, which has caused a number of LIV players, including Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau, to begin speaking out about the two circuits uniting in an effort to speed up the process.
In an interview published by the BBC on Monday, Rahm said he thought his signing could be a “tipping point” with other big-name players signing with LIV. In the Augusta National interview room on Tuesday, he was asked if part of his motivation for leaving the PGA Tour also was to attempt to bring the game together, and whether or not he expected more movement on that front by now.
“I understood my position, yes,” he said. “And I understood that it could be, what I hoped, a step towards some kind of agreement, yes. Or more of an agreement or expedited agreement.
“But, unfortunately, it’s not up to me. But I would hope it would be something that would help expedite that process. But at the end of the day, I still did what I thought was best for myself.”
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
