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LIV Golf poached arguably its biggest name to date from the PGA Tour when it got Jon Rahm to defect at the end of 2023, but he’s already calling on the league to abandon one feature that defines it to the point where it’s literally in its name.
It’s been almost four months to the day since LIV Golf shook up the sport yet again by convincing Jon Rahm, the third-best player on the planet based on the OWRG rankings, to make the leap with the help of the contract that will reportedly allow him to earn more than $300 million over the next three years.
Rahm was named the captain of Legion XIII (the team that’s also home to fellow PGA Tour defector Tyrell Hatton as well as Kieran Vincent and Caleb Surratt) and has played in five events since LIV Golf kicked off its current season. His squad is currently sitting in second place and earned its second win of the year with a one-stroke victory over the rest of the field at last weekend’s showdown in Miami.
Rahm has already acknowledged he misses certain aspects of the PGA Tour, and based on what he had to say when things wrapped up at Trump National Doral on Sunday, he seems to think his new organization should take a page out of its rival’s playbook.
According to the BBC, Rahm made it clear he thinks LIV Golf’s 54-hole format is holding it back as it continues to attempt to position itself as a legitimate circuit while implying increasing that number to a traditional more 72 holes could help in that particular quest, saying:
“If there ever was a way where LIV could go to 72 holes I think it would help all of this argument a lot. The closer I think we can get LIV Golf to some other things the better.
I think it would be for some kind of unification to feed into a world tour or something like that. I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but I definitely wouldn’t mind going back to 72 holes.”
It’s obviously worth noting LIV’s name is the Roman numeral for 54, and that feature (along with its team-based format and relatively relaxed atmosphere at tournaments) has been harnessed to lure in golfers looking to decrease their workload a bit while differentiating it from the rest of the pack.
Rahm probably isn’t wrong when he says switching to 72 holes would make people view LIV a bit more seriously, but it’s a bit hard to imagine it will abandon one of its foundational tenets.