When Jon Rahm signed with LIV Golf for an estimated half a billion dollars last December, he made the smart play. Rahm became the second highest-paid athlete in the world (behind soccer’s Cristiano Ronaldo) with enough money to take care of future generations of his growing family. It also appeared as if he would soon regain the opportunity he had sacrificed by defecting to LIV - regularly competing against the best fields in golf.

Rahm’s soulful drive to be the best is what had made the 29-year-old Spaniard a commanding and compelling figure. However, smart alone can be soulless, which is why the move rang off key. Rahm had built his reputation on the historical continuum provided by the PGA Tour, to which he had emphatically declared fealty. He had rhetorically asked, “Would our lifestyle change if we got $400 million?” and immediately answered, “No.” When he reversed field with his announcement - while wearing a LIV letter jacket - it caused a whiplash from which the golf world still reels.

By putting money ahead of what had always felt like an uncompromising pursuit of greatness, Rahm, at a decisive moment for the professional game, had done what the modern giants - Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods - had declined to do. The thought occurred to many that Rahm represented a rapidly encroaching era of selfishness and a turning point away from the examples of great players of the past.

That image, with all the contradictions and consequences of his decision, weighed on Rahm, who lost his unshakable veneer when he began playing in LIV events early this year. It was a change reminiscent of Phil Mickelson’s awkwardly diminished persona when he first appeared in public after shaking up the world with his own stunning - and personally devastating - defection to LIV.

Right away, Rahm made comments that seemed nostalgic for the PGA Tour. In March he lamented that his automatic PGA Tour suspension for joining LIV would not allow him to defend three tournaments that he had won during his domination of the PGA Tour in early 2023 - the Sentry at Kapalua, the American Express at PGA West and the Genesis at Riviera.

“Not being there was difficult,” he conceded sadly before recovering with the rote. “It’s a decision I made, and I’m comfortable with it.” But it was not comfortable enough to keep from longingly adding, “but I hope I can come back.”

In an interview with the BBC in April, Rahm lobbied his new LIV bosses to change the league’s format of 54 holes to 72. “The closer we can get LIV to do some of these things, the better,” Rahm said.

Most of Rahm’s 2024 golf lacked fire. Against LIV fields with a lack of depth, he played indifferently, notching two third-place finishes but staying winless in his first 10 events. He was worse in the majors, finishing T-45 at the Masters, missing the cut at the PGA Championship and withdrawing from the US Open with a foot injury. Something was clearly off.

“He’s not on the cutting edge the way he was,” said commentator and former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley on the eve of the Open Championship at Troon. “His performances in majors are showing that. I don’t think he’s in a happy place; he doesn’t look content on the golf course.”

Indeed, Rahm was set up for greatness on the PGA Tour, having hit the time-honored markers of a superstar in the making. He had fame, the respect of his peers, the admiration of the golf world and more than $70 million in career earnings from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.

At 28, he had won the 2023 Masters and the 2021 US Open and had 11 PGA Tour wins to go with eight on the DP World Tour. He had been World No. 1 for 52 weeks. His big game and superb touch were accompanied by a love for competition fueled in part by appreciation for golf history and where he could fit into it.

Rahm said his perspective on entreaties from LIV changed after June 6, 2023, when the PGA Tour signaled it would be willing to work with the Saudi’s Public Investment Fund on a “framework agreement.” “That opened the door for me to do the same thing,” he told the BBC in April. Once he reconsidered the realities, historical greatness took a backseat to “a duty to set my family up as best as possible,” Rahm said, and “I’m getting paid more to play the same sport and have more time. I don’t know about most people, but that sounds great to me.”

Once he left, Rahm came to see his move as a step toward unification. “I could be the start of a tipping point,” he said. Such comments were not popular with his former colleagues at the PGA Tour.

According to the anonymous “Undercover Pro” interviewed by Golf Digest senior writer Joel Beall, many PGA Tour players were upset with Rahm because they believe his defection, coming when PIF and the PGA Tour had agreed to cease recruiting during negotiations, widened the schism and prolonged the path to a solution. The players had been unified in staying put on the PGA Tour while a deal was being worked out, and Rahm had hurt that cause.

When Rahm said at his press conference at the PGA Championship in May that he still sees himself as a PGA Tour member despite his suspension for going to LIV, and that he would play in PGA Tour events if allowed, it drew a strong on-air reaction from former player and Golf Channel commentator Arron Oberholser, who said, “I wanted to wring his neck through the television screen ... and every player in that locker room, if they watched that, should be incensed.”

Whether they are, Rahm’s actions, more than any earlier LIV signing (including those of major-championship winners Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Cameron Smith and Patrick Reed) brought further clarity to some hard truths.

The idea that the best PGA Tour players can be counted on to put the existential health of the tour above their new potential fortunes is over, as is the surety that an elite player in his prime will put a single-minded pursuit of greatness ahead of the new money.

Why does that matter? Because the most interesting parts of golf history are written through the stories of its best players. When they are at their best, the game is at its best. The striving for glory and greatness is the best producer of epic golf.

Bobby Jones’ Grand Slam, Byron Nelson’s 11 victories in a row, Ben Hogan’s six major-championship triumphs after a near-fatal car accident, Arnold Palmer’s charismatic years of dominance and Jack Nicklaus’ unprecedented two decades at the top have all been repositories and beacons of what golf greatness entails. With the “irrational” financial offers that have destabilized professional golf, LIV has lessened the long-presumed importance of week-to-week tournament play, and drained the sport of some of the passion and intensity that is essential to this otherwise slow-moving game. –golfdigest.com