In the world of sports – or any business – the best way to succeed is to keep a cool head while others are losing theirs. In professional golf, nobody has his head on better than Jon Rahm. And nowhere is that evident than at this week’s Masters, where the Spaniard is the defending champion.
That “defending champion moniker might be cringe-worthy to anti-LIV Golf activists, but Rahm knows exactly his place in the hierarchy of professional golf – whether it’s his LIV Golf League or the PGA Tour.
When he jumped from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf this past December, it was generally seen as the biggest “get’’ to date for the upstart league – one that possibly could force an agreement – if not a merger – between the warring factions.
Time will tell the outcome, but there’s no uncertainty as to Rahm’s belief he made the right decision despite the potential professional costs.
“I understood my position, yes,’’ Rahm said at Augusta National Golf Club. “And I understood that it could be, what I hoped, a step towards some kind of agreement (between the Tour and LIV Golf), yes. Or more of an agreement or expedited agreement.
“Unfortunately, it’s not up to me. I hope it will help expedite that process. But at the end of the day, I still did what I thought was best for myself.”
That doesn’t mean, however, that Rahm doesn’t at least sneak a peak in the rearview mirror.
“There’s no secret, I’ve mentioned a few times, there are some venues that I miss not being at, not only because I won but just because I love it, right?’’ Rahm said. “ And that’s the reason why I played well in those tournaments. Not being at Palm Springs, Torrey, Phoenix and L.A. wasn’t the easiest. And I’ll keep saying that because those are venues that I absolutely love.
“Driving by Phoenix as often as I had to, seeing the stands, and knowing that I wasn’t going to be there was quite hard. Right? I still love the PGA Tour, and I still hope everything is the best, and I still hope that at some point, I can compete there again.
“Yeah, I mean, you do miss competing against certain people, right? But at the end of the day, I’ve had so much to focus on … I’m a team leader, a team captain, to an extent.
“I’ve had a lot of fun playing in those events. The competition’s still there. Yeah, they’re smaller fields, but you still have to beat some of the best players in the world, and you still have to play at the same level you have to play on the PGA Tour to win those events. So that doesn’t change.’’
