The golf world keeps offering reminders that a lot can change in just a few weeks. The latest change? Jon Rahm’s status with the DP World Tour, who are, importantly, part-owners of the Ryder Cup.

After a months-long stalemate, wherein Rahm was one of the only LIV players from Europe who didn’t reach an agreement to settle fines with the European tour, the two sides have finally reached a deal. Rahm will play five DPWT events this season and will settle fines for three LIV events played in 2026 that conflicted with the DPWT schedule.

As a result, he is now considered a “member in good standing” and will not have his Ryder Cup status impacted ahead of 2027, which was a growing concern. 

“There’s no longer a standoff,” Rahm said from this week’s LIV event in Virginia. “We were able to reach an agreement. There was some concessions on both sides. I offered some; they extended an olive branch. Obviously we’ve reached an agreement. That will not be a stress anymore.”

While he wasn’t keen to share details Tuesday, Rahm has been teasing out his hopes for 2026 over the last few months. He apparently told the DPWT in the beginning of the season that if the tour lowered its proposed minimum to four events, he’d sign on the spot. He remained adamant on that point for months, but is now set to play five events. The four events he was ready to sign for months ago were the Spanish Open, the Irish Open, the BMW PGA Championship and the Dunhill Links — all in a five-week stretch during the fall. It appears he’s added one more to that list. 

As he’d previously described it, the issue wasn’t just events, though — Rahm was also adamant against paying fines, particularly for the event that conflicted with DPWT tournaments he would never have considered playing to begin with. (Think: the Hainan Classic, played in China while LIV was in Johannesburg.) While he won’t be paying the full lot of fines accrued since his LIV career began in early 2024, he will be paying three tournaments’-worth, which would likely be around $375,000. LIV was on the hook to pay the fines Rahm received through 2025.

Rahm’s Ryder Cup status was in doubt because in order to compete in 2027, all players and captains need to be a member of the DPWT. In order to start 2027 as a member, he’d have to be a “member in good standing” in 2026 and play the required minimum events. The golf world has come to understand these event minimums well, as Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton reached minimums in 2024 in order to compete in 2025.

That smooth journey to the Ryder Cup changed in 2026 when LIV Golf stopped paying the fines for players. Suddenly the sanctions players received were going to hit their own pocketbooks. Hatton was among eight players who struck a deal with the DPWT, playing a specific number of DPWT events (littered around the LIV schedule) and resolving any fines as part of a conditional release of their media rights. That meant they could keep playing LIV events and not accrue more fines, so long as they showed up where they agreed to on the DPWT. Some players agreed to play eight events, others seven events and others just six. Rahm fought with the DPWT for months on this topic and appeared ready to stand his ground into next season, risking his assumed placement on next year’s European Ryder Cup team.

Then the landscape shifted again. LIV Golf’s owner, the Saudi PIF, announced it would not be funding the league beyond the 2026 season, calling the league’s prospects into doubt. It’s not clear how this affected Rahm’s decision, but it would have felt odd for Rahm to miss the 2027 Ryder Cup because of a league with an uncertain future. As for his projected future with LIV, which still has him under contract for multiple years?

“I’ll say I’m also not a lawyer. I have no idea. I couldn’t tell you. I have very few talents in my life, and reading a contract or business are not two of them,” Rahm said. “As of right now, I have several years on my contract left, and I’m pretty sure they did a pretty good job when they drafted that. So I don’t see many ways out, and as of right now, I’m not really thinking about it since we still have a season to play and majors to compete for. So it’s not something I want to think about just yet.”

Questions remain. But Rahm’s Ryder Cup future seems resolved — even as the rest of the golf world waits for further answers.

Jon Rahm should pay the fines levied against him by the DP World Tour in order to play in the Ryder Cup, Justin Rose says. 

But Rahm “may have a point,” Rose said, in the tour making Rahm and other tour members play additional tour events as part of a settlement for participating in LIV Golf events. 

Rose’s comments came Tuesday at the Players Championship, and they follow a DP World Tour announcement on Feb. 21 that said eight of its members had been given conditional releases to play in LIV events this year, in exchange for payment of fines for playing in past LIV events, participation in “additional” tour events and withdrawal of appeals. Previously, DP World Tour pros who played in conflicting events were fined and suspended — and the announcement cleared the way for participation on next year’s European Ryder Cup team, as tour membership is required.   

But Rahm was not among the eight. (Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Tyrrell Hatton, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, David Puig and Elvis Smylie were the LIV pros who were named.) As for his reason, Rahm said last week it came down to the additional events requirement — for a pro to hold DP World Tour membership, he must play four events, but Rahm said he was being asked to play six, including two that the tour will “dictate.”

“Now, I did tell them, funny enough, lower that to four events, like the minimum says, and I’ll sign tonight,” Rahm said. “They haven’t agreed to that. I just refuse to play six events. I don’t want to, and that’s not what the rules say.”

Rahm’s participation in next year’s Ryder Cup event now appears to hinge on an appeal of the DP World Tour’s punishment for playing in LIV events. On Tuesday, the situation led a reporter to ask Rose what he’d like to see his three-time Ryder Cup teammate do — and Rose started his answer by noting that the eight other LIV pros had agreed to the deal. 

“So I mean, there’s pretty decent precedent that the deal wasn’t outrageous that they were proposing,” Rose said. 

“But at the same time, I would like to see Jon pay his fines, for sure, and be a part of the Ryder Cup. For me, obviously playing on LIV was a decision that he made and wanted to make, and fair play to him for making it and good for him. He’s playing good golf out there. He’s winning. He’s making a lot of money, and he’s — you know, you can’t argue, can’t knock what he’s been able to achieve out there.

“So I would just see it as a cost of doing business for Jon. Like for me, being in the Ryder Cup is more than about money.”

But, Rose said, Rahm “may have a point” in his frustration over playing six events. 

“So maybe there’s some middle ground,” Rose said, “where he’d do his best to support the Tour as and when, but not necessarily have that hung over his head, but paying his fines is obviously step No. 1.”

Rose’s comments also follow those of Rory McIlroy, another European Ryder Cup team member, who said last week that the DP World Tour deal was “generous” and that ”the European Tour can only do so much to accommodate these guys.”

Whether Rahm’s status will be resolved remains unclear. Last week, he won a LIV Golf tournament, and this week, he’s playing in one in Singapore, where he was asked how he has succeeded “with all of the distractions,” and, as part of his response, he said this:

“I think, like anybody else in their job, you just need to learn how to compartmentalize. Kind of put things in the back of your mind and take care of what you can take care of. There’s some things that I can’t control. If I can’t control them, I really shouldn’t be worrying about it. What I can control is what I do on the golf course, my routines, how I prep, how committed I am to every step of the way.

“In essence, it’s kind of like a freeing feeling that I get when there’s a lot going on off the course that you get on the course and the only thing that matters is that so you can let things go. …

“All the other stuff, it’s what it is. I don’t know how to say this except truly, without sounding rude, it’s first-world problems. It’s what it is. There’s real problems in the world, and whether I have an agreement or disagreement with the DP World Tour, it shouldn’t be one of them.

“While we continue to discuss what the future might be, it’s not something to overly worry about when there’s real tragedy happening worldwide.”