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STERLING, Va. -- Two-time major champion Jon Rahm said he has multiple years left on his contract with LIV Golf and doesn't see "many ways out," as the league attempts to find new financing after Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund announced it will pull its funding after this season.
During a news conference Tuesday ahead of this week's LIV Golf tournament at Trump National Golf Club, Rahm also revealed that he has settled his long dispute with the DP World Tour over his unpaid fines for playing in conflicting events without a release.
The settlement allows the former world No. 1 to regain his eligibility to compete for the European team in next year's Ryder Cup.
"Right now, I have several years in my contract left," Rahm said. "I'm pretty sure they did a pretty good job when they drafted that, so I don't see many ways out. Right now, I'm not really thinking about it because we still have a season to play and majors to compete for. It's not something I want to think about just yet."
Rahm, 31, is a two-time defending LIV Golf individual champion and leads the league in points this season with two victories and three runner-up finishes. The PIF announced last Thursday that it won't fund LIV Golf beyond this season.
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Rahm said Tuesday that LIV golfers had been told that there would be PIF funding for "many years."
"Honestly, I think the initial news and the rumors over there in Mexico, since we're in a tournament week, I almost just tried to act as if it was just rumors," he said. "Because we're competing, I didn't want to waste any energy on an already demanding week thinking about it.
"For me, the reality kind of came afterwards. I would say, like everybody, [I was] surprised. Obviously, [it was] unexpected. We did hear the news that there would be funding for many years. But then as the future of the league goes, I think that's obviously a question for the businesspeople."
Earlier Tuesday, LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neil told reporters that the league is in the process of developing a business plan, securing golfers and then taking the league to market.
O'Neil replaced former LIV Golf CEO and commissioner Greg Norman in January 2025.
The league lured star golfers away from the PGA Tour with guaranteed contracts worth more than $100 million -- Rahm reportedly received $300 million over multiple years -- and purses that have now reached $30 million.
The PIF has invested more than $5 billion into the breakaway circuit since its inception in 2022, and that number will grow to more than $6 billion by season's end.
"I knew very quickly that we were going to have to right-size this business, and now we find ourselves in that spot," O'Neil said.
O'Neil said he received about a dozen calls from potential investors this past weekend, including private-equity firms and other high-worth individuals.
"It's still early," O'Neil said. "We haven't gotten to market yet. We haven't finalized our business plan. We still are like picking and prodding, but we have a good sense at this point, you know, 10 days in. We know where we're going, and now we're just going to tighten the screws."
Regardless of what happens, O'Neil said LIV Golf will not move away from its focus on team golf, which has differentiated it from other professional golf leagues around the world. He believes selling shares of LIV teams such as the Legion XIII, Crushers GC and RangeGoats GC will create the most value.
"If you ask me where the value of this business is, it's in the teams," O'Neil said. "If you're looking for direction, we believe that teams will have extraordinary value. We believe that once we set the business in the right direction, with the right trajectory, with the right revenue base and cost base, which we're well on our way to doing, that these teams will have extraordinary value."
England's Tyrrell Hatton, another member of Rahm's Legion XIII team, also said he has multiple years left on his LIV Golf contract.
"We want to be here," Rahm said. "It's been a lot of fun. I want to keep competing. I want to keep sharing some time with [my teammates], but time will tell. Obviously, I think Scott and his team have a lot of hard work to do."
O'Neil said it was too early to say whether LIV Golf will have to move forward with reduced purses and fewer tournaments each season to reduce costs.
"I think captains and team owners and players that are involved in the league need to, in essence, have a large majority to agree for it to work," Rahm said. "I do believe that for the business plan to change, whatever they come up with, there will need to be some concessions on their part."
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