OPINION: Jon Rahm Was the Straw That Broke Rory McIlroy’s Back

Jon Rahm’s departure from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf is perhaps one of the biggest headlines of the year in the golf world, but the announcement may have even swayed one of the controversial tour’s biggest adversaries to a point of self-reflection.

Rory McIlroy has used words like “hate” to describe his feelings about LIV Golf. The PGA Tour’s outspoken golden boy has been one of the main proponents against a rival golf promotion, but Rahm’s choice to defect to LIV has McIlroy thinking about the potential merger between the two, and beyond.

After yesterday’s announcement, McIlroy was sought out by various publications, eventually speaking to Sky Sports, and stating that there needed to be a rules change that would allow Europeans that left for LIV the opportunity to play on future Ryder Cup teams:

“Jon is gonna be at Bethpage in 2025. Because of this decision, the European Tour are going to have to rewrite the rules for Ryder Cup eligibility.”

However, it is going to take more than a demand from Team Europe’s unnamed player-captain, as Telegraph reported this morning that the European Tour is not committing to changing the rules on Ryder Cup qualification for its team.

But what is perhaps more polarizing than anything is McIlroy’s quick change of tune on who should be allowed to play on the Ryder Cup team, and of course, it has changed as soon as it would be a convenience to him. 

Rahm’s performance at the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome was spectacular. Already a vicious competitor, Rahm’s performance, along with Rory’s helped surge the Europeans to a commanding lead before the Americans started to gain momentum themselves. Eventually, Rahm, McIlroy, and the other heavyweights that the Europeans brought to the 2023 tournament, stuck a fork in the United States and regained the Ryder Cup.

But the Americans will have home-field advantage when 2025 rolls around and Bethpage Black is the venue. If things stood the way they are right now and LIV Golfers were not allowed to play on the European Ryder Cup team, it means Rahm, and potentially other names in the future, might not have an opportunity to represent for them. It would be a massive blow for them, and the Americans, who allowed Brooks Koepka to play in 2023, mostly due to his win at the PGA Championship, would be a huge favorite.

This morning, McIlroy continued to defend his position that the European Tour needs to backtrack and allow LIV Golfers to participate. “We didn’t NEED any of the others in Rome and we didn’t miss them,” Rory said about those who were exiled from the team, which included Ian Poulter, who was one of the Europeans’ most dominant and consistent players over the past two decades in a Ryder Cup setting. “We’d certainly need and miss Jon at Bethpage.”

Which is very true… we didn’t NEED any of the others in Rome and we didn’t miss them. We’d certainly miss and need Jon at Bethpage.

— Rory McIlroy (@McIlroyRory) December 8, 2023

Given McIlroy’s tremendously outspoken and aggressive vocalization about LIV and how terrible it is for the game of golf over the past two years, it is interesting to see him flip on what should qualify and disqualify those who have gone away from the PGA Tour so quickly, especially as Rahm is not the only big name who has fled.

Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith, Brooks Koepka, and plenty of others have jumped ship. Why is McIlroy so adamant on change now? One thing Rahm does not have in common with all those previously mentioned names is the fact that he’s European, and they are not.

McIlroy knows that without Rahm, the Europeans have a slim chance of retaining the Ryder Cup. It is no secret that the Ryder Cup is perhaps the most important thing in golf to many, McIlroy included. You see a different side of Rory when he is on Team Europe, a competitive, hard-nosed, almost scary version of the Northern Irishman comes about. This is not to say that he is not a competitor when it comes to Tour events or Major Championships, but things are certainly different.

Now that McIlroy has admitted that the rules need to be changed, will we see a different tone from him when discussing LIV altogether? Probably not, but Saudi PIF now holds major weight in the ongoing discussions with the PGA Tour with Rahm’s jump. McIlroy may have to embrace the impending change with grace, just as the rest of the world will.

Cover Image via Telegraph