Hugo Costa
Updated Wednesday, January 31, 2024-20:55
In
Mayakoba
, a Mexican resort, on November 13, 2014, when it was just a few minutes before 8:00, a speaker pronounced
Jon Rahm
's name for the first time on the PGA Tour. Some timid and isolated applause was heard. Counting the
family
, there were no more than a dozen people on that first hole. Along with the Spaniard, the Americans
Hudson Swafford
and
Zac Blair
. Silence accompanied the first round of the Spanish player in his entire career on the PGA Tour, still as an amateur player, three days after turning 20. No one would have prophesied that,
10 years later
, Rahm would return to Mayakoba. Although today he does it in a very different way.
He arrives as
number three in the world
, with two
majors
and twenty professional wins, and as the highest paid athlete in history. The influence of that quiet boy from
Barrika
has reached such a point that he has been one of the hinges that will force the
imminent agreement between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf
.
No sponsors
This Wednesday, after that decade, Jon arrived at the same practice field to the rhythm of the catchiest reggaeton and as leader of the new team of the
Saudi League (LIV), the Legion XIII
, with which starting tomorrow he begins his Saudi adventure playing the first circuit tournament here in Mexico. “He wanted to go with the mythology of the
warrior spirit
for the team name,” says Rahm, dressed in Bermuda shorts and a black polo with the team logo, a pink lion, on the chest.
Of course, the pink lion is only on his chest. The usual logos of brands such as
Mercedes Benz, Banco Santander or Blue Yonder
have disappeared, and none of the companies contacted by this newspaper wanted to clarify what their contractual relationship with the Spanish star is like. An unwritten or unregulated rule prevented brands or companies in relation to the PGA Tour from reaching
agreements with the LIV
. One of the exceptions announced just a few hours ago is
Movistar
's agreement
with the Saudis to broadcast the LIV tournaments live for the next two seasons, where in addition to Jon Rahm there are
Sergio García, David Puig and Eugenio López-Chacarra
as Spaniards, all integrated into the Fourballs team led by Sergio García.
The format
In addition to money, it is precisely this
team game
formula that initially attracts players the most as an argument to take the leap. However, it seems that at the moment it has not finished coming together. In each LIV tournament, players compete individually and in parallel in a team tournament. The format used in each of the tournaments is as follows: the
sum of the two best results
of each squad during the first two days of competition are added to, on the last day, validate the three best results, discarding one.
Rahm's new lions (
Tyrel Hatton, Caleb Surrat, Kieran Vincent
) were already practicing early in the morning at the El Camaleón facilities. The Englishman Hatton was the latest signing announced yesterday: "I'm looking forward to this new chapter, joining Jon Rahm and the rest of the team this week in Mexico," he said. The young amateur Caleb Surrat will now play in Mayakoba as a professional, after having made the leap to the new category these days. The third of the members is Kieran Vincent, one of the three players who got the card in the qualification school.
Each team functions as a kind of
franchise
and
only the captains have a guaranteed place
and a percentage in the commercial exploitation of their teams. If a player finishes top-24 at the end of the season in the LIV Golf rankings, the team has the obligation to keep him or her, unless both parties agree to another option. Players who finish beyond
24th place
will enter the so-called transfer window, where captains could sign golfers from rival teams. We have experienced the example this year with the agreed departure of the Mexican Carlos Ortiz from Sergio García's Fireballs and the subsequent signing by the Spanish team of David Puig, who was free in the Torque GC despite having contributed in 2023 to achieving four team victories.