Tiger Woods' stance on LIV stars returning to PGA Tour after ghosting Jon Rahm
Jon Rahm will be pleased to know Tiger Woods and the PGA Tour are in discussions over a route back for LIV Golf stars, after the Spaniard was blanked over text message by the golfing great.
Last December, Rahm became arguably LIV's biggest signing yet from the PGA Tour, penning a record-breaking deal worth a reported £450 million. The Spaniard opened up on his decision to make the switch ahead of this week's event in Jeddah, revealing that he reached out to both Rory McIlroy and Woods after signing on the dotted line.
His Ryder Cup teammate McIlroy was surprisingly supportive of the decision in public having previously been one of LIV's biggest critics. The same can not be said for 15-time major champion Woods, though.
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“Well I mean, Rory has been supportive publicly of my decision and he was privately as well,” Rahm told ESPN. "Tiger? No, not really [had a response]. I texted him and the people that tried to reach out throughout the process when I signed and I just let him know, ‘Hey, this is a personal decision, I have nothing against anybody’."
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The opinion of Woods for any golfer is an important one, with the 82-time PGA Tour winner the biggest name in the sport. And whilst Rahm may well have been concerned by the American star's lack of reply, he will have been happy to know that he and the PGA Tour's leadership are working on a deal with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF) that will allow members of the breakaway league to return to their former tour.
“We're looking into all the different models for pathways back,” Woods said at this month's Genesis Invitational. “What that looks like, what the impact is for the players who have stayed and who have not left and how we make our product better going forward, there is no answer to that right now.
Tiger Woods revealed the PGA Tour's plans to potentially welcome LIV players back (Getty)"We're looking at a very different - varying degrees of ideas and what that looks like in the short term, we don't know. We don't even know in the longer term what that looks like. Trust me, there's daily, weekly emails and talks about this and what this looks like for our tour going forward.”
On the back of his move at the end of 2023, Masters champion Rahm revealed he was hoping to be able to compete across all three of LIV Golf, the PGA Tour and DP World Tour despite the ongoing differences between the three tours. I do want to maintain my PGA Tour and DP Word Tour status I will not give that up," he said just days before being banned from the American-based circuit.
"Hopefully with the freedom LIV gives me I can play both those tours. There are certain PGA Tour events I want to play as long as my schedule allows. If possible, I want to make that happen.”
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