Jon Rahm is rolling into the FedEx Cup playoffs on a fine run — a green jacket earlier this year, four total wins on Tour this season, the No. 1 regular-season ranking heading into the three-tournament playoffs. He also remains one of the most quotable players on Tour, connected and thoughtful about matters both important and … well, not so much.
Prior to the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Rahm held forth on a few topics of note, primarily the fate of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. The fate of Monahan, one of the architects of the Tour’s surprising June agreement with LIV Golf’s Saudi backers, has been an open question over the last two months, with many players angrily calling for his job after the agreement was announced.
A players’ meeting with Monahan was scheduled for Tuesday evening, and in advance of that meeting, Rahm expressed support for keeping Monahan in office.
“I think he should have the opportunity right now to finish this off the way he did,” Rahm said. “I think we’re quickly forgetting how well he managed a lot of things. He did an amazing job in COVID and kept a lot of people employed. We were the first major sport to come back. I know UFC was doing fights, but we were the major sport to come back. A lot of players were able to earn their cards and keep competing thanks to that. I think we shouldn’t forget that that quickly.”
Rahm did take issue with a new element of the 2024 PGA Tour schedule: the sponsors’ exemptions for the eight “Signature Events” that will have increased purses next year. Those events — the Sentry, AT&T Pebble Beach, Genesis, Arnold Palmer Invitational, RBC Heritage, Wells Fargo, The Memorial and Travelers — will each have four sponsors’ exemptions which Rahm hopes will go to deserving players and not to better-known names or friends of the tournament.
“I’m hoping those events realize the position they’re in and give it to people that truly, truly can do something out of it,” Rahm said. “There is a way for players not into those events to somehow qualify into those events, so I’m hoping they use some of those to people who were close and didn’t quite make it, players that have earned it throughout their play in the past. Just hope they use them in a way that it can be meaningful for somebody for the year or their career in golf.”
Finally, Rahm weighed in on an issue of substantial concern for him: the opportunity for immediate on-course relief.
“I know this is going to sound very stupid, but as simple as having a freaking Port-a-Potty on every hole,” he said. “I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t choose when I have to go to the bathroom. I’ve told the Tour this many times, as simple as that.”
No word yet on whether Rahm will get his wish this week at Memphis. But it sure would beat having to find a convenient off-camera tree.
