LIV Golf commissioner Greg Norman has taken to social media to embrace his league’s newest bombshell signing Jon Rahm.
After months of speculation, the Masters champion confirmed golf’s worst-kept secret Friday, announcing he was leaving the PGA Tour for the Saudi-backed league.
“It’s been tough,” Rahm told reporters of the intense speculation. “It’s a topic of conversation that was out there on the golf course, every single day. People making jokes, people thinking that they know what they’re talking about. It’s been difficult to just focus on the task at hand and even just practise.
“I leaned on my family a lot for that. It hasn’t been the easiest way for my wife and I but easiest weeks to be fair, but you know, looking forward to the future. I feel like after weighing all the risks, it was very well worth it. And we’re very happy about it.”
Moments after Rahm’s announcement, Australian legend Norman took to social media to welcome the Spaniard to the LIV stable, posting a photo of the pair reenacting an old scene from the time they met when Rahm was a 19-year-old phenom.
Rahm did not address the mega sums he was rumoured to have been offered. But the 2021 US Open winner did acknowledge it was “a really good offer”.
“[Money] was one of the reasons, yeah,” he said. “I mean, I’m not gonna sit here and lie to you, so it was definitely one of the reasons… this decision was [made] for many reasons [like] what I thought was best for me, don’t get me wrong. It’s a great deal. Right? I had a really good offer in front of me, and it’s one of the reasons why I took it.”
Rahm’s defection adds a fascinating layer to an already complex negotiation between LIV Golf’s financial backers, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and the PGA Tour, who together had been working towards a December 31 deadline on a new framework that would shape a new ecosystem for the professional game. Asked what it would mean moving forward, Rahm had little to offer.
“I can’t speak on what I don’t know,” he said. “I wish I knew more about where the framework agreement stands. I’ve kept myself absent from all that to be able to play the best golf that I can play. I found it to be a little distracting at times. I can’t comment on that.
“But there’s been some leaps in some growth towards the game of golf getting together and I surely hope for the future we can keep working towards making decisions that make golf better, right? That’s, my position. My position is to play golf and leave the game in a better position than I found it when I started playing golf.
“In Spain, which is my market, I always idolised Seve [Ballesteros] and how much he grew the game of golf in Spain, and indirectly worldwide, so hopefully I can do half as much as what he did. That would be a success.”
