Do we like them?

Do we like Jon Rahm?

Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent record and a clear anti-racism stand, held back by the Saudi-backed LIV years and a prickly streak over money.

Jon Rahm is the Spanish golfer who went from Basque Country to the top of world golf and a US Open title. Our search didn't turn up a solid retelling of his upbringing, so we'll stick to what the reporting we read actually shows. In 2020 he said he'd copped dirty looks for speaking Spanish in public as a Hispanic immigrant in the US.

On the harm check, nothing turned up from Rahm on LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or climate, so we can't say more than that. What is on record is good: in June 2020 he posted in English and Spanish in support of “getting rid of hate, bigotry and racism”, and said he'd had some bad experiences himself. His one real mark is where he took his career: he joined Saudi-backed LIV Golf, which plenty of people see as sportswashing. Where you land depends on whether you read that as a business decision or as taking the money.

The LIV chapter is now ending messily. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is pulling funding after 2026, LIV filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and court files showed it owed Rahm $7.5 million. A separation agreement frees him to join any other tour or sponsor, and his lawyer told the court he wouldn't play LIV in 2027. The PGA Tour has said it won't talk to LIV players still under contract.

The good stuff is real. In 2023 he helped fund and open a golf garden for seriously ill children at Madrid's Niño Jesús Hospital, backed by his Golf 4 Kids foundation. He said the young patients are “always the happiest kids I know”. That's the sort of thing that counts for more than trophies.

Over a beer, we'd say he's a fierce competitor who fights hard about money and contracts, not a bloke who punches down. He passes on being a decent person, and his harm test comes with an asterisk for the Saudi-funded years. Nothing we found suggests a slide into grievance or conspiracy theories, and he told one outlet in 2024 he was happy with his LIV decision, so the Saudi link is a choice he stood by.