LIV made Jon Rahm rich, but it’s impoverishing his long-term legacy

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The early going at the 90th Masters offered evidence of what an unseen burden can do to professional golfers. On one side of the ledger, a jovial Rory McIlroy — finally liberated from a decade-plus of questions about “When?” and “Why not?” — began the second round atop the leaderboard. You had to scroll some, past 20-year-old amateur Ethan Fang in his Masters debut, beyond 60-year-old Jose Maria Olazabal in his 37th appearance, down to where 66-year-old Fred Couples landed in his 41st. Tied with him was Jon Rahm, a pre-tournament favorite but carrying a yoke of his own.

This is the third Masters since Rahm won in 2023, and the third at which he’s trudged down Magnolia Lane in the midst of a distracting narrative of his own making. In ’24, it was his first appearance in the broader golf ecosystem since jumping to LIV four months earlier, so he had to face questions about the about-face. A year later, he was coming off a lousy season in the major championships that fueled suggestions that LIV was diminishing him as a competitive force.

This time, it’s his ongoing disciplinary war with the DP World Tour, in which he refuses to accept the generous settlement terms that eight LIV colleagues hurdled him to take, refuses to pay fines that have been legally judged as fair and proportionate, and refuses to see sense — insisting there’s no difference between his past membership of the PGA Tour (a partner that financially underwrites the European circuit) and his current membership of LIV (a hostile enterprise that has taken sponsors, tournaments and venues from the Europeans).

If obtuse obstinacy were an Olympic sport, Rahm could sweep the medals himself.

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His recent performances inside the ropes do much to enhance his financial standing, but little for legacy building. He’s made five starts this season on LIV, finishing first, second three times and fifth. In 2025, 13 starts yielded a dozen top 10s and a tie for 11th. In his rookie year of ’24, he was 12-for-12 in top 10s. Which adds up to a top-10 finish percentage of around 97%. He’s indisputably the league’s top performer and warranted consideration as a serious contender at this Masters.

Yet he signed for a dismal first-round 78, with a Friday 70 leaving him teetering on the cut line as the afternoon wore on.

“I felt really good all year besides yesterday. Actually felt pretty good today as well,” he said at the first event of the year that actually matters. “Yesterday was just an anomaly where everything that could go wrong went wrong. Not that I shot myself out of the tournament but I'm going to need an absolute miracle starting today, and didn't quite do enough. I'm going to need a heck of a round tomorrow to give myself a chance and even then, might be a little too far away.”

Except that it’s not really an anomaly. Since he joined LIV, his performances against deeper fields in majors have been underwhelming. Only once has he been in contention, at last year’s PGA Championship, an effort that petered out in ugly fashion late on Sunday afternoon.

Apr 9, 2026; Augusta, Georgia, USA; Jon Rahm reacts after a putt on the 10th green during the first round of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Katie Goodale-Imagn Images

On Friday, he was asked if there was any adjustment coming from LIV to Augusta National. “Golf is golf,” he said dismissively.

But does it prepare you for this event?

“Same as any other golf tournament in the world,” he said.

His preparation is different, all the same. The 2023 Masters was his ninth start and fourth win of the year. He began in Hawaii, played three in California, one at home in Scottsdale, a couple in Florida and one in Texas. It wasn’t an onerous travel schedule. By comparison, the Masters is his sixth start of ’26, and one of the prior five was played at night under floodlights. The schedule took him to Saudi Arabia, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Africa. Fewer reps and a lot more miles on the body, even if he’s not flying in the arse end of a Spirit Airlines plane.

The distracting off-course questions and the disconnect between his play on LIV versus that in the majors, puts the Spaniard in the position of having to constantly defend his tour and his decision to join it. During the most important weeks of the year, he’s a full-time advocate for Yasir Al-Rumayyan’s folly — that the caliber of competition is stout, that the quality of venues is robust, that the tournament set-ups are demanding, that the preparation it all provides for majors is sufficient.

Apr 10, 2026; Augusta, Georgia, USA; General view as Jon Rahm plays his shot from the seventeenth tee during the second round of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

That isn’t a burden shared by those at the top of the leaderboard in Augusta. Not by McIlroy or Justin Rose, who never left the PGA Tour; not by Brooks Koepka, who returned to the Tour in January, or Patrick Reed, who will be rehabilitated in August; not even by his LIV teammate Tyrrell Hatton, whose stature in the sport has not yet risen to Rahm’s elite level.

Perhaps these two rounds at the Masters have just been a couple of off days. Maybe it's just a case of his swing being out of sync. Or a difficult golf course that harshly punishes marginal errors. All of that can be true. But is it true of all of the eight successive majors in which he’s underperformed since switching circuits? Statisticians can debate whether LIV has made him a worse golfer — he’s still obviously among the world’s very best — but it certainly doesn’t seem to be helping him deliver on the biggest occasions.

Both McIlroy and Rahm have jackets hanging upstairs in Augusta National’s champions locker room. That fact has freed one of them from a suffocating burden of expectation. For the other, it’s a reminder of the freedom he used to be able to play with.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Masters: LIV made Jon Rahm rich, but long-term legacy is slipping