AUGUSTA, Ga. — Arms crossed, face scowled, Jon Rahm stood on the top of the hill on the ninth green staring at where he used to be. The top of the leaderboard.
He didn’t look away. He didn’t watch Wyndham Clark finish the hole. Rahm remained locked in on the analog scoreboard at Augusta National, hunched forward with his eyes squinted to get a closer look. What he saw were his peers.
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• Scottie Scheffler: Clubhouse co-leader, 4-under.
• Rory McIlroy: 3-under through 10.
• Bryson DeChambeau: 2-under through nine.
Rahm’s name was nowhere to be found, already 2-over-par and well on his way to a messy, wrathful 75 in which he nearly snapped his driver and often lived amongst the Georgia pines. For the fourth consecutive major, he did not look like the world-beating, balanced force of nature he was when he signed the dotted line to join LIV in December 2023 for a reported $300 million up front. It’s in knowing this that you can understand why Jon Rahm is losing his patience.
When Rahm won this tournament two years ago, he was world No. 1. He was part of an undeniable “big three” with Scheffler and McIlroy, a large dropoff after them. It’s why when he left the PGA Tour, it felt like the most damning loss of them all. Rahm was arguably the pound-for-pound best of them all. The No Laying Up podcast called him the buoy, because he never sank, always hanging around contention. He was thoughtful and a nerd for golf’s history, hopping on the computer before the kids woke up to watch old tournament highlights on YouTube. He was, like McIlroy in many ways, the version of an elite golfer that golf nerds had always wanted.
Since then, Rahm’s performances in majors have contained more visuals like the ones we saw on Thursday: Rahm slicing a drive into the ninth fairway trees, dropping his club, picking it up and nearly snapping it from his head to his knee with all 220 pounds of body weight behind him. He missed a three-foot par putt on 10. He chipped 20 feet past the hole on No. 4 and again on No. 11. He put it in the bunker on 12, and his driver fell out of his hands at least three times off the tee.
Friday, Rahm will need to put up a good number to even make it to the weekend.
Rahm shot himself out of contention on Thursday. (Harry How / Getty Images)
He entered this week as the unquantifiable unknown, because we all understand what Rahm’s peak looks like as a two-time major champion. Nobody knows what to make of LIV results, with smaller, weaker overall fields, but he won the 2024 individual title and has finished top 10 in all five tournaments this year.
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He is simultaneously someone whose game you have to respect and untrustworthy until proven otherwise.
All of this is because of what happened last year.
For the first time, Rahm was a target. Every time he showed up at a major, his press conferences were filled with questions about the PGA Tour-LIV war that he helped inflame. He admitted he felt “hostile attitudes” from other players. The reaction from fans was far more muted when he did perform well. Rahm was clearly uncomfortable with this. He got defensive. His anger came out more. Golf Digest and Global Golf Post have cited anonymous sources saying Rahm regretted his decision to join LIV (Rahm has since denied these reports).
The result? T45 at the Masters. Missed cut at the PGA Championship. Withdraw from the U.S. Open because of a foot infection. He ended with the high of a T7 at the Open Championship, but even that came with an opening 73.
No golfer should be damned for two poor tournaments. Let alone not a golfer with two majors in the three preceding years. It’s not about the results, though. It’s about what’s happening inside those rounds.
Yes, he admitted Tuesday, the negative attention did affect him in some way.
“There was a few times where there was a lot of questions that I didn’t really have an answer to, and I tried to, and I just really didn’t,” Rahm said. “Kind of like … the state of the game and what’s happening. We don’t know. No one knows. We all want a solution, and it’s hard to give one.”
He admitted at last year’s Masters that part of his motivation for joining LIV was hoping to put more pressure on an agreement on PGA Tour to make an agreement with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which backs LIV. What he actually did was exacerbate the situation.
He said last year at the Masters was even more of a challenge because not only was he at his first major since joining LIV, he was also the defending champ, preparing for his first Champions Dinner and all the obligations that come with it.
“Be careful, you might need that a little later on.” 😅
Jon Rahm almost snapped his club 😱 #themasters pic.twitter.com/lurT5FZqxh
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 10, 2025
There’s something even deeper inside of all of this that makes it more difficult for Rahm.
Rahm wants to be loved. He wants to be respected. He wants to be treated like one of the icons of the sport that he is. In Joel Beall’s new book, “Playing Dirty,” he reports that Rahm “harbored a deep-seated belief that the Tour had failed to properly showcase his talents, while players he considered his inferiors wielded disproportionate influence over the organization’s future.”
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Yet in the 16 months since Rahm’s departure, he’s only pushed himself further away from the spotlight he seeks. Scheffler has elevated to a new level, winning a second Masters and nine times worldwide in 2024. Xander Schauffele won two of the last three majors, replacing Rahm at the sport’s highest level. DeChambeau caught up with Rahm with a second major championship at the 2024 U.S. Open. McIlroy has won at iconic venues like Pebble Beach and the Players Championship, the type of prestigious trophies LIV hasn’t established.
All of these feelings come out when you see Jon Rahm want to snap his driver. When he talks to himself in disgust. When he crosses his arms as he walks off the green.
Of course, Rahm is 10 back with 54 holes to go. Far crazier things have happened in golf history, and he still believes he can put himself back in the mix. “I’m confident. It’s a very difficult golf course. It’s going to get harder. If I can get off to a good start, post a round in the 60s tomorrow, then the weekend could be a new story.”
That is, at the core of this, what Rahm is hoping for. A new story. Because the story right now is a golfer who took a massive payday and saw his play decline on the biggest stages.
Rahm may have left because he wanted to be treated like one of the biggest stars in golf. Now, it’s time to hold him to that kind of standard.
(Top photo: Harry How / Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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