Jon Rahm withdrew from the U.S. Open on Tuesday, citing an infection in his left foot.
It’s the latest disappointment in a year bereft of accomplishments—and that has the former top-ranked player in the world struggling to keep pace with Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and others of the game’s best.
Rahm arrived to Pinehurst sporting one flip-flop to keep his foot dry. A lesion had developed between his pinky and ring toe, causing an infection. The injury led him to withdraw from LIV Houston last week despite receiving a pain-killing injection during the tournament.
The issue didn’t improve much at Pinehurst so Rahm called it quits well in advance of Round One. He announced the decision via Twitter on Tuesday afternoon.
“The pain was high,” he said. “The infection was the worrisome part. The infection is now controlled, but there’s still swelling and there’s still pain.”
Nobody can fault Rahm for an infection on his foot but it is another setback in a forgettable 2024 campaign.
Rahm bolted for LIV in December 2023—just six months ago, though it feels a lot longer than that—and has already seemed to slide slightly in the hierarchy of pro golf’s elite.
The 29-year-old is on a streak of seven consecutive years finishing in the top six players of the Official World Golf Ranking but that streak seems destined to be broken. He is No. 8 in the OWGR, his worst mark since the summer of 2019, and LIV doesn’t receive world ranking points.
Data Golf, which does include LIV performance, has Rahm down to No. 7, his worst ranking since briefly falling to No. 8 in 2022.
According to Data Golf, Scheffler is gaining 3.11 strokes per round relative to the average PGA Tour field. Schauffele is No. 2 in that metric at 2.53. Rahm is at 1.63, nearly a full shot worse per round compared to Schauffele.
There is no doubt Rahm is still a premier talent and the best player to flee for LIV but it’s also fair to say he looks a little off, so far in 2024.
A T45 Masters finish (among just 89 players) and missing the cut at the PGA Championship are the only data points we have for majors and now he is a no-show for the U.S. Open. Rahm will need a standout Open Championship at Royal Troon to salvage a major championship season where we barely noticed he was playing.
In terms of LIV events, it’s somewhat concerning Rahm hasn’t won in eight starts. We’re talking about someone who has spent prolonged stretches as the No. 1 player in the world over the past four years.
Although he has seven top-10 finishes throughout this LIV season, he’s going up against a top-heavy field with only 53 other guys to beat. Rahm’s C+ game should take care of more than half the guys in the field. He should be performing better than zero top-two finishes in eight starts. He’s supposed to be the guy on LIV.
Rahm doesn’t see it that way. He’s staying optimistic.
“It’s not like I’ve been playing bad, even though a lot of you make it sound like I’m playing bad,” Rahm told media before withdrawing. “I had two bad weeks. I’ve been top 10 and had a chance to win in most of the tournaments I’ve played and then unfortunately Augusta and PGA weren’t my best showings. It hasn’t been the best first half of the year but there’s been many times where I haven’t had a great start but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a great finish.”
What frustrates me with Rahm is that he is a fiery competitor—maybe the most intense in golf over the past five years—who now seems neutered by his situation.
He is playing events like LIV Houston and LIV Nashville in front of sparse crowds rather than being at Memorial and the Travelers Championship those two weeks. Those Tour events have the majority of top players and tremendous fan support. Rahm won the Memorial in 2020 and would have won it again in 2021 if not for testing positive with COVID-19 (he had a six-shot lead at the time).
It’s a shame we don’t get to see him at the Memorial. At the same time, would he even have played last week if he wasn’t mandated to compete on LIV? The fact he had to push himself in Houston—while it ridiculously hot and humid—might have kicked away his opportunity to play at Pinehurst.
The TV ratings for both the Tour and LIV continue to struggle, but LIV is particularly abysmal. Last Sunday, 2.85 million watched the Memorial. LIV had 148,000 viewers. Those numbers don’t include streaming for either circuit but I think we get the picture here.
Everything about Rahm’s personality seems to suggest he should be at the Memorial and Travelers, competing against Scheffler, Schauffele, McIlroy and others rather than taking part in an exhibition cash-grab alongside Wade Ormsby, Ben Campbell and Kalle Samooja.
Rahm is built for big moments and meaningful tournaments. He’s won 11 times on Tour and seven of those were majors, signature events or featured strong fields.
We know him by critical made putts on the 72nd hole at Torrey Pines. Or cashing in a long birdie putt on the final hole of the 2020 BMW Championship en route to beating Dustin Johnson. Or showing steely resolve in running away with the 2023 Masters.
I’m afraid those moments will go away over time. I’m afraid Rahm, a guy built on intensity and an innate love of competition, has lost a bit of an edge with this move to LIV. And I’m afraid that his press conferences have turned more sterile and guarded, muting one of the best sound bites in all of golf.
These are the prime years of Rahm’s career. He is a key figure in the game, a world-class ballstriker who should be relatively immune to large dips in play. We should hold him in higher regard than a Jordan Spieth or Justin Thomas. He’s in the upper-most tier for elite golfers in the world. Someone who, when he’s on, is in Scheffler’s Zip Code.
Right now, Rahm isn’t even in the same hemisphere as Scheffler.
Where is he? Come back strong, Jon. I want to be wrong. The golf world needs you.
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