Golf, But Fractured

There's been tremendous handwringing and pearl-clutching and far too much gut rot in the golf community ever since the dastardly idea of LIV Golf was cooked up in a dark, cynical lair. But a funny thing happened minutes ago when the bombshell news of Jon Rahm fleeing the PGA Tour for the Saudi-backed endeavor broke via the Wall Street Journal. Instead of a visceral reaction fueled by frustration or anger or the plain hypocrisy of the move given Rahm's past comments on LIV, an overwhelming sense of calm and serenity washed over my body, which is self-admittedly entirely in the tank for the senior circuit.

Because the state of play has changed. LIV, barring an 11th Hour snag, will add the reigning Masters champion to its roster to stand next to giants like Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau. Rahm is perhaps their biggest draw of all, considering his unquestioned status atop the game and non-stop entertainment on the course. It's not even worth litigating how he's essentially pulled a 180 into the arms of Scrooge McDuck-type money because one, it's not entirely interesting and two, it'd be stupid to expect anything else at this point.

What is more compelling is how this latest salvo feels different than the ones that came when the Tour and LIV were in a cold — and sometimes hot — war. The stakes are entirely different. Those who left in the past were essentially putting their careers on the line because at the beginning a pathway back to the good-graces Kumbaya for defectors was unclean. Now, with a deal in place that we're assuming will actually get done at some point, the news doesn't have the same oomph.

When Koepka won his fifth major last summer as a member of the upstart league, the Earth didn't stop spinning. In fact, it was a remarkably subtle part of the storyline. Fans, even though they can be fanatical, adapt. Those of us who don't particularly like LIV have hopefully learned that it's not an existential threat. Not to golf and more importantly, not to us as individuals.

We'll continue to proceed as we've been proceeding. We'll follow the PGA Tour and not pay a lick of attention to LIV. Honestly, it's more of a bandwith issue at this point than a moral one for most people. Sucks to say but that's the truth. Spun more positively: the best golfers in the world have a choice but so does the singular fan. They can pick and choose from two products and consume what they like.

There's been a lot of existential grappling with the future of the Tour and golf as a whole in recent months. Which is totally understandable yet also a bit dramatic. My take is that there will always been a next-man-up pipeline to keep the PGA offering rich and vibrant. There are great tragedies in life and being forced to learn more about Adam Hadwin or Adam Schenk as their portfolio grows is not one of them.

Make no mistake. It will be rough to not see Rahm out there on a regular basis. But trust me when I say that whatever hole is felt will quickly be filled in because golf's greatest gift is overstimulation with great storylines and an seemingly endless march of new talent. Then four times a year we'll get to be reintroduced to one of the brightest stars on the biggest of stages.

Maybe it's just cope in disguise but I feel like I've made my peace with the situation and most others have as well. Is it ideal that the best players in the world are not competing with each other every single weekend? Of course not. But man, that's just how it's going to be and realizing you have agency as a fan is really important.

I sincerely hope Rahm gets what he wants out of this. That doesn't mean I'm going to watch him or particularly miss him outside of the fleeting moment here and there. And that's perfectly fine. The sky is only falling if you really want to believe it is.