OAKMONT, Pa. — Jon Rahm has yet to win this year on the LIV Golf League, but the two-time major champion remains consistent. In fact, he's never finished outside the top 10 in any of his 20 LIV tournaments over two years.
Last year, he won twice and captured LIV Golf’s individual season crown. This year he is third in points behind Joaquin Niemann and defending U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau.
But Rahm admitted that all of the top 10s might be misleading when compared to bigger tournaments. LIV has a 54-player field each week.
“I would happily trade a bunch of them for more wins, that’s for sure, but I keep putting myself in good position,” Rahm said Tuesday at Oakmont Country Club, site of this week’s U.S. Open.
“Listen, I’m a realist in this case. I’ve been playing really good golf, yes, but I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t easier to have top 10s with a smaller field. That’s just the truth, right? Had I been playing full-field events, would I have top 10 every single week? No. But I’ve been playing good enough to say that I would most likely have been inside the top 30 every single time and maybe even top 25, which for (20) straight tournaments I’d say that's pretty good. I still would have had a lot of top 10s, that’s for sure.”
Rahm is coming off a tie for eighth at the LIV Golf Virginia event, where he shot a final-round 69 and finished five strokes back of Niemann, who won for the fourth time this year.
“There’s definitely some weeks, like last week for example, having a weaker Sunday than everybody else, I don’t think I would have top 10’d,” he said of in a bigger field. “I was able to finish eighth. I think winning is equally as hard, but you can take advantage of a smaller field to finish higher.
“As much as I want to give it credit personally for having that many top 10s, I wouldn’t always give it as the full amount just knowing that it’s a smaller field.”
Rahm, 30, who won the U.S. Open in 2021 at Torrey Pines and also captured the 2023 Masters, had a tie for eighth last month at the PGA Championship where he tied Scottie Scheffler for the lead through 11 holes of the final round before faltering over the closing holes.
Still, it was his best showing in five major championships since joining LIV Golf after a mostly frustrating 2024 that saw him withdraw from the U.S. Open with a foot injury.
“I was fully aware of the situation, what I was putting myself, and once I got to that point, as well, if anything, it was a true joy to put myself in that position again,” Rahm said. “I was very happy to be there and felt like I was in control. It was nice. It was unfortunate that—not even (hole) 16, just one bad swing on 17, which wasn’t even entirely that bad, it was just a very difficult hole—cost me as much as it did.”
Rahm was virtually unknown the last time the U.S. Open was at Oakmont. In 2016, he was the low amateur and tied for 23rd, an impressive showing on a difficult course.
He won on the PGA Tour for the first time two years later.
“At that point, it was getting the test of a U.S. Open,” Rahm said. “I think naively, not knowing what to expect, helped. I just thought, oh, this is what a U.S. Open is like. I didn’t know it was the top tier of difficulty of a U.S. Open. It’s just like this week to week. It was great.
“It helped to play really good that week, and even in the first round I had a double and triple and it cost me a lot; I think I shot 6 or 7 over in the first round. Having to go out Saturday morning after sitting out all day Friday and knowing I had to shoot a low score to make the cut and doing it and shooting 1 under was a huge deal. I know I got up and down on 18 to a short pin and from just past it on the right to make the cut.
“I think I was already in it even if I bogeyed, but to get in and just keep performing well. Those last three days, I believe I was somewhere between even and 2-over par. That was a huge deal. To finish that high was a massive confidence booster in many ways.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jon Rahm Admits Top-10 Streak Is ‘Easier’ on LIV Golf but Remains Confident.
