ORLANDO, Fla. – Luke Donald’s first act as Europe’s Ryder Cup captain was to address Jon Rahm’s decision to forgo a deal that would have made him eligible for next year’s matches and allow him to play LIV Golf without fear of fines.
It was no surprise the Englishman, who led the Continent to victory in 2023 and ’25, navigated that landscape with a deft touch. Rory McIlroy was a bit more straightforward when asked about Rahm’s decision to sidestep the deal that would have granted him conditional releases to compete on both the DP World Tour and LIV Golf.
“It’s a really generous deal. Like it’s a much softer deal than what Brooks [Koepka] took to come back and play on the PGA Tour,” McIlroy said on the eve of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “The European tour can only do so much to accommodate these guys. If you want to play on the Ryder Cup you have to be a member of the DP World Tour. You have to abide by the rules and regulations.”
The European circuit announced last month that eight members had agreed to the conditional release, which required the players pay any outstanding fines and participate in six DP World Tour non-major events, which is two more than the current minimum required for membership.
Rahm didn’t agree to the European tour’s conditions and this week at the LIV event in Hong Kong he said the deal was “extorting players.”
“[Two extra events] isn’t a heavy lift. I mean, to retain your membership is four events on the DP World Tour outside of the major championships,” McIlroy said. “Maybe the European tour gets to have a say in where those two events are, but I mean, I’m sure Jon doesn’t want to go to South Africa next week [for a LIV event], but he’s going there.”
Rahm has been a big part of the European team’s success in recent matches paired with Tyrrell Hatton, who was one of the eight LIV Golf players who agreed to the European tour’s conditional release, but McIlroy didn’t appear to be in favor of bending the rules to assure the Spaniard plays next year’s Ryder Cup.
“Look, the Ryder Cup is bigger than any one person. It’s bigger than all of us. We come and go. We pass through the system,” McIlroy said. “It’s the platform that’s the big thing. I think we should all be grateful that we have a platform like the Ryder Cup that we can play on and that we can showcase our skills and be a part of something that’s obviously way bigger than ourselves.
“At the end of the day it’s about the team and no one player is bigger than the team.”