When Jon Rahm signed up for the LIV Golf League back in December, it was feared that fans in the UAE wouldn’t get a glimpse of the two-time Major winner at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship, a tournament the Spaniard has won a record three times.
The likes of Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia and Henrik Stenson have all missed the final event on the Race to Dubai schedule in recent years after resigning their membership from the Tour, meaning they are ineligible to participate at Jumeirah Golf Estates.
But unlike that quartet, Rahm, along with Tyrrell Hatton and Dubai resident Adrian Meronk, has not resigned his membership and has been picking up fines and one-week suspensions each time he plays a LIV event.
With the LIV Golf schedule featuring 14 events across the globe, it was assumed the likes of Rahm and Hatton would have to serve a 14-week ban following LIV’s final event of the season in September.
That would have made it almost impossible to retain DP World Tour membership, with members having to play a minimum of four tournaments per season.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case according to the DP World Tour’s new CEO, Guy Kinnings, who discovered defectors could serve their bans in the LIV rest weeks throughout the year, even if they had no intention of playing those events.
This means Rahm could serve some of his suspension at tournaments such as the Italian Open and BMW International Open, despite the events not crossing 29-year-old’s mind when planning his schedule for the season.
Once the LIV Golf season has finished and Rahm has served the remainder of his suspension, he is likely to play in his homeland event on the DP World Tour and has the likes of the French Open and Genesis Championship to contest as he looks to play his way into the Abu Dhabi Championship and DP World Tour Championship, which are open to the top 70 and 50 golfers on the Race to Dubai Rankings, respectively.
“It’s not a loophole, because that’s the rules that we’ve always had,” said Kinnings.
“And those are the rules we’re just going to continue to apply. They’ve been tested. I’ve got the guys who analyse this in detail, they’ve looked at it and said, ‘it’s up to him and his team’. We’ve spoken to them and they want to do it the right way.”
The clarification of the suspensions also opens the door for Rahm and Co to compete at next year’s Ryder Cup, which had initially looked unlikely given European players have to be DP World Tour members to compete.
If Rahm were to play four events this year and next, he could either play his way into Luke Donald’s team through the qualification process of earn a Captain’s Pick off the Englishman if needed.
