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Jon Rahm and the Status of his Ryder Cup Relationship: It’s Getting Complicated

What is the difference between Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton? A look at their ambitions and chances of making the Ryder Cup team.

Photo: Getty
Photo: Getty

What’s the difference between Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton? No, it’s not the fact that one looks like a Basque bear, while the other – albeit English – looks like an Irish leprechaun in a tall hat under his baseball cap and all too often behaves like one. Like on Saturday at the Dubai Desert Classic, when Hatton smashed a tee marker in anger.

Rather, what is meant is the loudly proclaimed claim of both to be called up for Bethpage Black, for the European Ryder Cup team’s away match on Long Island in September.

Hatton Strengthens Ryder Cup Bid, While Rahm Faces Struggles

While Hatton underlined his claim again yesterday with victory in Dubai after winning the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in October, his eighth title in his 200th start on the DP World Tour, Rahm lacks precisely such successes. Instead, the Spanish LIV star made a false start to the 2025 golf year, firing an underground 77 after an opening 69 on Friday and missing the weekend – also because he lost out in the battle with a bush.

Now, of all times, the supposed Ryder Cup top performer has missed his first cut at a Rolex Series event and his third in more than four years. Now, of course, it is premature and completely inappropriate to pass the sporting baton on the 30-year-old. Team boss Luke Donald will hardly be able to avoid giving Rahm the wild card for his fourth continental competition anyway; after all, he finished second and sixth in his two Spanish home appearances in autumn 2024. Nevertheless, the status of the relationship with regard to the Ryder Cup is likely to remain unchanged: It’s going to be complicated.

Rahm’s Ryder Cup Chances Clouded by Legal Issues

After all, Rahm is virtually operating in a legal vacuum and is speculating that he will ā€˜surviveā€™ in it until September. That does have a certain flavour. As a reminder, the Spaniard – like Hatton – has lodged an appeal against the multi-million fine imposed by the DP World Tour for the unauthorised switch to the LIV League, is playing under a temporary injunction and is counting on the expected judgement against him not being passed until after the Ryder Cup. The competent appeals court has already legitimised the Tour’s sanctions in other cases, and should a decision be made in Rahm’s case before September, he would have to pay in order to actually be able to play in the USA.

Anyone who doubts that Rahm would also pay without hesitation if, as hoped, the fine is not due until after Bethpage Black. The man to whom the Saudis are paying a guaranteed fee of 450 million dollars for four years and who was already worth over 50 million dollars beforehand has a family of four to feed, so you have to keep your pennies together. Irony off again. Instead, it would be desirable for Rahm to do the same as Hatton – not in terms of tea markers, but to mask the stale odour of his tactics with the fragrance of sporting success. The Englishman also plays with the proviso of a revision. But at least he wins. And gets a lot of encouragement for it: