Fans at Yas Links in Abu Dhabi will get their first up-close look at Jon Rahm during next month’s Abu Dhabi Championship.
Rahm has entered the DP World Tour event five days after announcing his departure from LIV Golf, with his attorney stating last week that the league’s restructured terms were “unacceptable” to the two-time major winner.
In addition to Rahm, Yas Links is set to host back-to-back Masters champ Rory McIlroy and reigning PGA Championship winner Aaron Rai when the Abu Dhabi Championship runs from Nov. 5-8.
Rai is the tournament’s defending champ after he bested Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff last year. Rahm has never played the event before.
While the two have been mostly playing on different tours for the last several seasons, they did share an overlapping moment in 2026.
Rai outlasted Rahm at Aronimink earlier this year, where the 31-year-old Englishman became the first person born in the U.K. to lift the Wanamaker Trophy in more than a century. Rahm finished in a tie for second with Alex Smalley, three shots off Rai’s winning score of 9 under.
The news that Rahm would be making a start at the DP World Tour’s penultimate event came hours after tour officials had announced it would not let players to compete on both LIV 2.0 and the European circuit next season.
Before announcing his departure from LIV, Rahm had used a conditional release to play on the DP World Tour to maintain his eligibility for the 2027 Ryder Cup.
It didn’t come without controversy though.
On Feb. 21, the DP World Tour extended conditional releases to eight players competing on LIV Golf. Rahm, who initially refused to pay outstanding fines, resolved the issue in a deal that was reached in early May.
Rahm captured LIV’s individual championship for a third straight year after winning in Hong Kong and Mexico City, as well as earning five runner-up finishes.
LIV Golf filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September after the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia withdrew support earlier in the year.
Race to Dubai, major exemptions
Rahm sits No. 46 in the Race to Dubai standings, with the top 70 available players set to compete in Abu Dhabi before the top 50 advance to the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai the following week.
He missed last week’s Open de España in Madrid to be at home with his wife, who’s pregnant with their fourth child. Rahm will also not compete in this week’s DP World India Championship or the Genesis Championship in Korea the following week.
PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said as recently as mid-September that he has no plans to reignite the Tour’s Returning Member Program, which Brooks Koepka utilized in January to make his way back from LIV. Rahm, along with Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau, was extended a similar opportunity but declined to take it.
Rahm’s PGA Tour future remains uncertain based on Rolapp’s most recent comments.
Through his 2023 Masters victory, Rahm is exempt into the four majors through 2028.