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NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Fifty years after the first of an increasingly anemic half-dozen Rocky movies was filmed a few miles from Aronimink, Philadelphia welcomed another pugilistic figure whose legacy has been cheapened by a rush to easy money and lazy, repetitive entertainment.
On some topics, Jon Rahm is as readily conversant as he used to be – about the architecture of this old Donald Ross course, for example, or when comparing the record of his Spanish compatriots in the PGA Championship to the other majors. But there’s a constant wariness about him now, as though circling the ring anticipating jabs he knows with grim certainty are coming. Two weeks after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced that it was withdrawing financing for LIV Golf, the former world No. 1 still doesn’t quite know what to say about the mess he’s in. But it was apparent Tuesday that he does know what he can’t say. Contracts being what they are, you understand.
Reminded that he’d once suggested his jump to LIV would hasten a deal with the PGA Tour to reunify the game, Rahm was asked whether he’d do anything differently since that deal didn’t happen and the game didn’t reunite. “I was never like thinking that I was going to be any sort of weight that would tip the scales to make things come together. That was never an argument in my mind,” he said, apparently forgetting that four months after joining LIV he told the BBC that he felt he’d be the “tipping point” in the war between the tours.
“I never made a decision based on that,” he added today. That was at least more convincing, since his decision was likely based on more on cash than on politicking.
Rahm went on to construct a response that was as abstract as it was philosophical: “Now, I would also say I've made a lot of decisions in my life, and I've never gone back thinking, Oh, had I known this again, I would do X and Y different. I could do that about 15 different golf shots on the golf course every single day. If I lived my life like that as a golfer, I would be a very pessimistic person. So we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, and all we can do is learn from things that happen in the past good and bad. Just to speculate on what could have done, what could have been different, doesn't really make much sense.”
His words befit a man who sees no sense in reflecting on a screw-up because he has no way out. As he admitted last week, he lacks an alternative to the screw-up because his commitment to LIV has several years to run. Nor can he even admit that a screw-up happened, since non-disparagement clauses would prohibit him from making any comment that might adversely impact a business that has torched more money than Sylvester Stallone’s entire back catalog of pictures ever earned. Contracts being what they are, you understand.
Regardless of what might be read into his competitive results since moving to LIV two-and-a-half years ago, there’s something sad about listening to Rahm speak. He looks diminished on the dais and sounds almost dejected, expected to sound optimistic notes on LIV’s moldering corpse being resuscitated.
Compare that to Rory McIlroy, who met the media immediately before his Ryder Cup teammate. He speaks with freedom now because no weighty, unanswered questions burden him. The career grand slam has been accomplished, and backed up. His legacy is secured and everything else is gravy. He can turn up to a major championship and chat breezily about his cameo in The Devil Wears Prada 2 and attending a state dinner for King Charles. And unlike Rahm, he can admit he got it wrong about the Saudis.
In 2024, McIlroy was advocating the consummation of the recent Framework Agreement that would have brought the PGA Tour and LIV together. “I'm glad I was wrong. I can admit when I'm wrong, and that was one that I did get wrong,” he said.
This is the ninth major Rahm has played as a member of LIV. For the first eight, he experienced forced advocacy, an unrelenting requirement that he justify his decision to leave the PGA Tour, insist that his competitiveness hasn’t been lessened by playing middling courses in far-flung cities against shallow fields. For the ninth major, he is being asked not to advocate for his league but to autopsy it. But he can’t. Contracts being what they are, you understand.
“I would say that elements have changed a little bit. That's it,” he offered, chalking up LIV’s failure to recent geopolitical developments in the middle east, rather than to a lousy idea badly executed by mediocre leadership.
So what did he learn from going to LIV?
“That is for me to know, and that's about that,” was all he could muster.
He didn’t say it with a nasty tone, but more with wry resignation and a rueful smile. Most everyone in golf could offer a guess at the tough lessons Rahm has learned about choices made for money, about potential jeopardized, opportunities missed and relationships damaged. He can’t though, at least not publicly. Contracts being what they are, you understand.
If only he’d been a fan of the original Rocky movie, and heeded the words of the wise old trainer, Mickey Goldmill, played by Burgess Meredith. “I'm gonna tell ya! You had the talent to become a good fighter,” Mickey chastised Rocky, “but instead of that, you become a leg-breaker to some cheap, second rate loanshark!”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Jon Rahm sounds a dejected note, trapped in LIV's golden cage
Continue reading...
On some topics, Jon Rahm is as readily conversant as he used to be – about the architecture of this old Donald Ross course, for example, or when comparing the record of his Spanish compatriots in the PGA Championship to the other majors. But there’s a constant wariness about him now, as though circling the ring anticipating jabs he knows with grim certainty are coming. Two weeks after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced that it was withdrawing financing for LIV Golf, the former world No. 1 still doesn’t quite know what to say about the mess he’s in. But it was apparent Tuesday that he does know what he can’t say. Contracts being what they are, you understand.
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Reminded that he’d once suggested his jump to LIV would hasten a deal with the PGA Tour to reunify the game, Rahm was asked whether he’d do anything differently since that deal didn’t happen and the game didn’t reunite. “I was never like thinking that I was going to be any sort of weight that would tip the scales to make things come together. That was never an argument in my mind,” he said, apparently forgetting that four months after joining LIV he told the BBC that he felt he’d be the “tipping point” in the war between the tours.
“I never made a decision based on that,” he added today. That was at least more convincing, since his decision was likely based on more on cash than on politicking.
Rahm went on to construct a response that was as abstract as it was philosophical: “Now, I would also say I've made a lot of decisions in my life, and I've never gone back thinking, Oh, had I known this again, I would do X and Y different. I could do that about 15 different golf shots on the golf course every single day. If I lived my life like that as a golfer, I would be a very pessimistic person. So we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, and all we can do is learn from things that happen in the past good and bad. Just to speculate on what could have done, what could have been different, doesn't really make much sense.”
His words befit a man who sees no sense in reflecting on a screw-up because he has no way out. As he admitted last week, he lacks an alternative to the screw-up because his commitment to LIV has several years to run. Nor can he even admit that a screw-up happened, since non-disparagement clauses would prohibit him from making any comment that might adversely impact a business that has torched more money than Sylvester Stallone’s entire back catalog of pictures ever earned. Contracts being what they are, you understand.
Regardless of what might be read into his competitive results since moving to LIV two-and-a-half years ago, there’s something sad about listening to Rahm speak. He looks diminished on the dais and sounds almost dejected, expected to sound optimistic notes on LIV’s moldering corpse being resuscitated.
Compare that to Rory McIlroy, who met the media immediately before his Ryder Cup teammate. He speaks with freedom now because no weighty, unanswered questions burden him. The career grand slam has been accomplished, and backed up. His legacy is secured and everything else is gravy. He can turn up to a major championship and chat breezily about his cameo in The Devil Wears Prada 2 and attending a state dinner for King Charles. And unlike Rahm, he can admit he got it wrong about the Saudis.
In 2024, McIlroy was advocating the consummation of the recent Framework Agreement that would have brought the PGA Tour and LIV together. “I'm glad I was wrong. I can admit when I'm wrong, and that was one that I did get wrong,” he said.
This is the ninth major Rahm has played as a member of LIV. For the first eight, he experienced forced advocacy, an unrelenting requirement that he justify his decision to leave the PGA Tour, insist that his competitiveness hasn’t been lessened by playing middling courses in far-flung cities against shallow fields. For the ninth major, he is being asked not to advocate for his league but to autopsy it. But he can’t. Contracts being what they are, you understand.
“I would say that elements have changed a little bit. That's it,” he offered, chalking up LIV’s failure to recent geopolitical developments in the middle east, rather than to a lousy idea badly executed by mediocre leadership.
So what did he learn from going to LIV?
“That is for me to know, and that's about that,” was all he could muster.
He didn’t say it with a nasty tone, but more with wry resignation and a rueful smile. Most everyone in golf could offer a guess at the tough lessons Rahm has learned about choices made for money, about potential jeopardized, opportunities missed and relationships damaged. He can’t though, at least not publicly. Contracts being what they are, you understand.
If only he’d been a fan of the original Rocky movie, and heeded the words of the wise old trainer, Mickey Goldmill, played by Burgess Meredith. “I'm gonna tell ya! You had the talent to become a good fighter,” Mickey chastised Rocky, “but instead of that, you become a leg-breaker to some cheap, second rate loanshark!”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Jon Rahm sounds a dejected note, trapped in LIV's golden cage
Continue reading...
