NEWNow you can listen to Pak Gazette articles!
Two-time major winner and LIV Golf star Jon Rahm responded to the DP World Tour this week, accusing the European sports organization of “extorting” players by forcing them to play additional tournaments and pay fines for failing to obtain clearance to play in the rival Saudi-backed golf league.
Last month, the European Tour announced that it had reached an agreement with eight LIV Golf professionals that would allow them to continue playing on the rival circuit without receiving further fines for playing in events that took place during the same week as DP World Tour events.
Team Europe’s Jon Rahm hits his tee shot on the No. 1 hole during the singles on the final day of Ryder Cup competition at Bethpage Black in Bethpage, New York, on September 28, 2025. (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters via Imagn Images)
Rahm was not one of the eight.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON PakGazette.Com
“I don’t like what they are currently doing with the contract they are making us sign,” he said, speaking to the media on Tuesday at the LIV Golf Hong Kong event. “I don’t like the conditions. They ask me to play a minimum of six events and dictate where two of them have to be, among other things that I don’t agree with.”
Rahm, winner of the 2023 Masters and 2021 US Open, argued that he never needed to be granted exemptions from either the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour before joining LIV.
“I’ve been a dual member my entire career, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour. Now that LIV Golf has been accepted into the world rankings as part of the ecosystem, you could almost say I’m a member of three tours, even though I’m suspended from the PGA Tour. But I’ve always been a dual member. I’ve never been asked for clearance to play on any of those tours. We’ve never submitted a clearance. So why do we have to offer this now and there are all these sanctions?”
He continued: “I just don’t like the situation. I think we should be able to play freely wherever we want and have the option to play wherever we want and not be dictated to what we do. Especially me. I can’t speak for others, only for myself.”
Jon Rahm of Spain hopes to play on day four of the Spanish Open presented by Madrid 2025 at the Villa de Madrid Country Club in Madrid, Spain, on October 12, 2025. (Álvaro Medranda/Quality sports images/Getty Images)
Rahm said the minimum requirement for membership, which is four tournaments, is something he has always done and is committed to continuing. In response to the European Tour’s latest request, he said he would sign if they reduced the requirement to four, something he said they had not agreed to.
“I don’t know what game they are trying to play right now, but it seems that somehow they are using us: they are using our impact in the tournaments and fining us and trying to benefit us both ways from what we have to offer, and in some way they are extorting players like me and young players who have nothing to do with the politics of the game. So I don’t like the situation and I’m not going to agree with that.
“I simply refuse to play six events,” he later added. “I don’t want to and that’s not what the rules say.”
Jon Rahm in action during the first round of play at LIV Golf Riyadh at the Riyadh Golf Club in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on February 4, 2026. (Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters via Imagn Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE Pak Gazette APP
Despite the four-tournament minimum to maintain membership, the latest conflict puts Rahm’s participation in the 2027 Ryder Cup in jeopardy.
An arbitration panel in Britain, Sports Resolution, ruled in April 2023 that the tour had the right to penalize players as a membership organization. If the panel rules again in favor of the tour, Rahm would have to pay his fines or lose his membership, which would keep him off the Ryder Cup team next year.
Related article
