RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Sadly, Rory McIlroy is right to row back on his Ryder Cup stance… you don’t always get what you want, but he NEEDS LIV’s Jon Rahm as Ryder Cup team-mate
- Rahm became the latest player to divert to LIV this week for over £400million
- McIlroy has been heavily critical of the circuit and has slammed its players
- He has admitted, however, that Team Europe would miss Rahm in Ryder Cup
As Rory McIlroy has found in his death-wishes for the LIV circuit, you don’t always get what you want. But the question now is whether he will have any joy in getting what he needs — the preservation of Jon Rahm as a Ryder Cup team-mate.
Rahm’s defection to Greg Norman’s circuit has set off another bomb blast in golf. It is doubtless a huge coup for LIV to land the reigning Masters champion, a bigger blow for the jilted PGA Tour, and above all another nine iron in the teeth for those who wish to see the best play the best in those weeks between majors.
The political ramifications of this switch are considerable at a point when the PGA Tour and LIV’s backers, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, are playing cat and mouse ahead of this month’s merger deadline. With the signing of Rahm for north of £400million, the Saudis have emphatically shown who is the cat in that dynamic.
But the loose end of far greater concern to diehard and casual fans of the sport is the matter of Rahm’s continued participation in the Ryder Cup. It can be taken as read that the week-to-week of Tour golf stands no comparison to the majors, which in turn take a distant back seat to the biennial showdown between Europe and the US.
Among the other contradictions of a switch that Rahm once insisted would never happen, the world No 3 has now jeopardised his place in future editions of the contest he has obsessed about since he first watched Seve Ballesteros as a child. It is immensely disheartening that he has taken the risk by making this decision to sell out.
Rory McIlroy would like Jon Rahm to remain as a Ryder Cup team-mate despite his LIV move
Rahm completed the move to LIV golf this week in a deal worth a minimum £400m to the star
The move raised doubts over his future after a number of high-profile players missed out on this year’s Ryder Cup
Rahm himself spoke about the ‘spirit of Seve’ during a giant performance for Europe in Rome two months ago, where he took three points from four, and he is precisely who they need if they are to win away in New York in 2025. That was the gist of McIlroy’s thinking in following the much-trailed news of the 29-year-old’s exit by immediately calling for a reform of the rules.
It is a stance sharply at odds with the no-LIV policy he previously adopted to the likes of Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Paul Casey and Graeme McDowell when they left.
The difference, to quote a McIlroy tweet, is ‘we didn’t need any of the others in Rome. We’d certainly miss and need Jon at Bethpage.’
He added in an interview with Sky Sports: ‘Because of this decision (by Rahm), the DP World Tour are going to have to rewrite the rules for the Ryder Cup eligibility, absolutely.
‘There’s no question about that — I certainly want Jon Rahm on the next Ryder Cup team.
McIlroy said Europe will ‘need Jon at Bethpage’ and called for a reform of the rules for players
McIlory had been critical of other players, adopting a no-LIV policy for this year’s Ryder Cup
‘Is it disappointing to me? Yes. But the landscape of golf changed on June 6, when the framework agreement (for a merger between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF) was announced and I think because of that it made the jump to LIV a little easier for guys.’
The argument to change rules based on stature doesn’t hold water — rules do not work that way. But McIlroy is right to point to June 6, because if anything was clarified by the PGA Tour’s astonishing climb into bed with their enemies, it is that nothing in golf is set in stone.
Permitting LIV players to compete from this next cycle and onwards, thereby allowing the best of Europe to face the best of the US, is a better way to maintain the Cup’s value than attaching too much weight to which tour they represent.
That would be a level of loyalty that neither the PGA Tour nor the DP World Tour deserve — they sold out before Rahm did.
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