Jon Rahm Says His Job Is Playing Golf, Not Pitching LIV to Investors

Jon Rahm is not interested in taking a leading role in helping LIV Golf find new investors following the Saudi PIF’s decision to pull its funding from the league.

“It would be more of a stay-in-your-lane type situation as it goes to me,” Rahm said Tuesday ahead of this week’s LIV event in his home country of Spain. 

Fellow LIV star Bryson DeChambeau last week said he was “very optimistic” about LIV’s business plan moving forward, and that he has “quite a few ideas” that could be interesting. “We’ll see if investors like it or not,” DeChambeau said.

But Rahm is taking a different approach.  

“I know nothing about business,” Rahm said. “I’m never going to claim to know anything about business, and if I was in a business pitch, I would not know the first thing to say. My job is to play golf.”

LIV CEO Scott O’Neil has previously said that multiple players have been offering their support in helping the league fight for survival. 

“If any player who knows what they’re doing is willing to do certain things like that, I think it can only help,” Rahm said. “To have insight from a player on a meeting like that can help, and I’m open for any suggestions possible, but I would also say I don’t have the free time that Bryson has to be flying around the country to attend meetings with three little ones and one on the way. Even if I wanted to, I don’t know if I could do it.”

LIV last month created a new independent board led by two longtime corporate restructuring executives and hired U.S.-based Ducera Partners as its investment banking adviser—all of which have previously worked on various bankruptcy efforts for companies in financial crisis.

Fellow Spaniard Sergio Garcia said Tuesday he remains “really excited about the work” that O’Neil and LIV’s new executive team is doing. 

“We enjoy being involved in it, giving our input and seeing how we can help make sure that the league keeps going forward,” Garcia said. “We’re very confident that that’s going to happen. It’s just going to look different. In my opinion, more than being worried about if LIV is going to keep going or the league is going to keep going, it’s more ‘How is it going to look going forward?’”