Jon Rahm wants the European Ryder Cup team to be as strong as it can possibly be in 2023, which has led him to strike a moderate tone when it comes to those who defected to LIV Golf.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday ahead of the CJ Cup in South Carolina, the Spaniard said it¡¯s ¡°important¡± for Team Europe to have a welcoming stance toward its potential players to keep team chemistry in balance.
¡°So far the two Ryder Cups I¡¯ve been a part of, once you arrive and you¡¯re in that team environment, it¡¯s an unusual situation where everybody can be truly themselves with players that they maybe usually are not,¡± Rahm said. ¡°So you need to have that welcoming aspect. If there¡¯s some animosity between players, it¡¯s just not going to work out. Very few teams can succeed when players don¡¯t get along.¡±
However, he said, the good vibes can¡¯t be forced.
¡°I don¡¯t know if you can really make that happen,¡± he said. ¡°... Yeah, so I want the best players at the time and the best Ryder Cup players to be there, but if that includes having some bad blood and having some issues, I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s necessarily a (good) thing, right?¡±
Whereas Team Europe compatriot Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland has said old Ryder Cup bonds were broken when some of his former teammates went to LIV, Rahm has taken a different path. He¡¯s defended countryman Sergio Garcia, the player who¡¯s won the most points in Ryder Cup history, saying it ¡°bothered¡± him that his LIV allegiance could preclude him from future Ryder Cups.
And on Oct. 9, after he won the Spanish Open, Rahm took time to give a public shoutout to Spanish up-and-comer Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra for winning the LIV Golf Invitational Bangkok.
None of that means Rahm is necessarily sympathetic to LIV or is thinking about defecting, himself. He responded to Phil Mickelson¡¯s recent remark that the PGA Tour is ¡°trending downward¡± with some measure of incredulity.
¡°Man, I love Phil, but I don¡¯t know what he¡¯s talking about,¡± Rahm said. ¡°I really, I really don¡¯t know why he said that. There¡¯s been some changes being made, but it doesn¡¯t necessarily mean it¡¯s going down, right? I truly don¡¯t know why he said that.
¡°I think there¡¯s some great changes being made and great changes for the players on the Tour. I truly don¡¯t know what drove him to say something like that.¡±
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