Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm have been successful Ryder Cup teammates, but the major champions hold differing opinions about how the latter has handled his ongoing frustrations with the DP World Tour. Amid becoming the only LIV Golf player out of nine offered a conditional release not to sign an agreement with the DP World Tour for the 2026 season, Rahm has put his Ryder Cup future in question — a move questioned by McIlroy ahead of this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational on the PGA Tour.
“In my opinion, it’s a really generous deal,” McIlroy said. “It’s a much softer deal than what Brooks [Koepka] took to come back and play on the PGA Tour.
“Look, the European Tour can only do so much to accommodate these guys. So, if you want to play on the Ryder Cup, you have to be a member of the DP World Tour. To be a member of the DP World Tour, you have to abide by the rules and regulations. And the rules and regulations were, ‘OK, if you break the media rights agreement and you go and play in a conflicting event, you don’t get a release, you’re subject to fines.’
“So, the guys didn’t want to pay these fines; that’s fine. So then, the European Tour said, ‘OK, let’s try to come up with some sort of solution where you don’t have to pay the fines, so that we can ease that burden on you, but still retain your membership.’
“And look, there’s a reason eight of the nine guys took that deal, right? I think it’s a really good deal. Obviously, Jon doesn’t think so, and he’s obviously well within his rights to think that way. But I just don’t see what more the European Tour can do to accommodate these guys to retain their membership.”
McIlroy and Rahm’s Ryder Cup teammate, Tyrrell Hatton, was one of eight LIV Golf members who agreed to the DP World Tour’s terms, which allow them to play without any additional fines and releases for this season. The deal also stipulates players must participate in six DP World Tour events. Typically, to retain membership, one must play in at least four tournaments. The two extra tournaments will come at the tour’s discretion, a move Rahm described as “extorting players.”
Rahm said he would “sign tonight” if the deal required the usual four-tournament minimum on the DP World Tour.
“[The two extra tournaments] isn’t a heavy lift,” McIlroy said. “I mean, to retain your membership is four events on the DP World Tour outside of the major championships. And that to me … yes, OK, maybe the European Tour gets to have a say in where those two events are, but I mean, I’m sure Jon doesn’t want to go to South Africa next week [with LIV Golf], but he’s going there.”
Rahm, a two-time major champion, is required to play 14 events on LIV Golf. He had appealed the fines levied against him for playing those conflicting events back in 2024. This allowed Rahm to retain his DP World Tour membership and thus play in the 2025 Ryder Cup, captained by Luke Donald, who was announced as the European’s captain for 2027 on Wednesday.
Whether Rahm is a member of the team for the 2027 Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in Ireland remains to be seen, but he will not be on that team if he does not resolve his issues with the DP World Tour, which operates the European portion of the event.
“The Ryder Cup is bigger than any one person. It’s bigger than all of us,” McIlroy said. “We come and go. Players pass through the system. It’s the platform that’s the big thing. We should all be grateful that we have a platform like the Ryder Cup that we can play on and that we can showcase our skills and be a part of something that’s obviously way bigger than ourselves. So, at the end of the day, it’s about the team, and no one player is bigger than the team.”