Jon Rahm once fought Scottie Scheffler for No. 1 in the world. A move to LIV Golf changed that
It was only three years ago that Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler were fighting to be No. 1 in golf
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. -- Scottie Scheffler made a Sunday charge that came too late at the PGA Championship, a 65 that wasn't enough to catch Brooks Koepka at Oak Hill. The runner-up finish came with a small consolation prize for Scheffler: He replaced Jon Rahm at No. 1 in the world.
Scheffler has been there ever since.
As for Rahm? He can only wonder which direction his career would have gone had he not bolted from the PGA Tour at the end of 2023 to take the Saudi riches of LIV Golf.
He firmly dismissed the notion Tuesday that his departure — six months after the PGA Tour tried to strike a deal with the Saudis — was an attempt to force the two circuits to unite.
“I was never thinking that I was going to be any sort of weight that would tip the scales to make things come together," Rahm said. “That was never an argument in my mind.”
The Spaniard prefers not to look back — not at any shot or any round that cost him a chance to win any tournament. And certainly not a decision that is starting to look worse by the day as LIV's future no longer includes financial backing from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.
“I've made a lot of decisions in my life, and I've never gone back thinking, ‘Oh, had I know 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," Rahm said. "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,” he said. “Just to speculate on what could have done, what could have been different doesn’t really make much sense.”
Three years ago can seem even longer considering where he was.
Scheffler won the Phoenix Open — Rahm finished third — to return to No. 1 in the world, which lasted all of one week until Rahm won at Riviera. Three weeks later, Scheffler went back to No. 1 by winning The Players Championship and stayed there for a month until Rahm won the Masters.
Back and forth they went — Rory McIlroy joined the fray in the summer — until December when Rahm famously wore that black letterman's jacket during the announcement that he had joined LIV.
Where are they now?
Scheffler has been No. 1 since that 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill, the longest streak of anyone other than Tiger Woods since the ranking began in 1986.
Rahm is at No. 20, a ranking that comes with an asterisk because LIV Golf started getting ranking points only last year, and then at a reduced rate because of the size and strength of its field. Only the top 10 on LIV receive points, but Rahm has never finished out of the top 10. Moot point.
Rahm, though, is keenly aware of the perception.
He referred to himself as being under the radar at the Masters this year, and then lived up to that by nearly missing the cut.
But he has a point because he hasn't been part of the conversation about the best golf. Despite two wins and four runner-up finishes in the seven LIV events this year, the talk of golf is Scheffler and McIlroy, with Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick on the fringes.
“As good as I played this year, nobody’s expects anything from me this week,” Rahm said. “It’s just funny, in that sense. ... I think as players, we usually have a fairly good assessment of where we stand. I don’t really necessarily need a ranking to tell me where I’m at or where I feel like I’m at.”
And where is that?
Rahm wasn't about to attach a number to where he thinks he should be. That's asking for a debate he doesn't want.
“I will just say I feel like the way I’ve played, including the last three years, I feel like I'm playing better than the ranking I have now,” he said.
That makes weeks like this so important for Rahm.
It's only four weeks a year that he gets a crack at a full field of golf's best players, and it hasn't gone very well for him since he left a full schedule of top competition.
In the eight majors Rahm has played since leaving for LIV, he has finished out of the top 30 in half of them, including a missed cut.
He has had three top 10s but only one serious chance of winning. That was last year in the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow when he rallied from five shots back of Scheffler, only for his Sunday charge to stall. He played the last three holes in 5 over when the tournament already was decided and wound up in a tie for eight, seven shots behind.
He also tied for seventh in the U.S. Open, though he started the final round 11 shots behind. He tied for seventh in the 2024, eight shots behind.
Rahm described his form as “very, very comfortable.”
“I've been playing — obviously besides the Masters — pretty good golf up until now,” he said.
The Masters is where he gets the true measure. The PGA Championship is no different. Winning won't return him to No. 1 in the world or get him close to Scheffler or even McIlroy. But it might at least get him back in the conversation.
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On The Fringe analyzes the biggest topics in golf during the season. AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
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