Spanish golf star Jon Rahm gives up £75 million to leave LIV Golf

Spanish golf star Jon Rahm is giving up about £75 million ($100 million) still owed to him by LIV Golf under a deal that ends his ties with the bankrupt Saudi-backed league and frees him to play wherever he wants.

Rahm, a two-time major champion, will release LIV from all monetary and economic claims under a separation agreement filed late on Oct. 14 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey, where the league is going through Chapter 11 proceedings. Judge Michael B. Kaplan is due to consider the agreement at a hearing on Nov. 5.

The money he is leaving behind is what remained of the contract he signed when he quit the PGA Tour for LIV in December 2023, a deal reported at the time to be worth more than $300 million. Some estimates of the amount still due ran as high as $150 million.

Court filings list the 31-year-old as LIV's largest unsecured creditor. He was owed about $7.5 million in unpaid fees for the 2026 season when the league filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 8, after Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund said it would stop funding the circuit after this year. That claim is also covered by the release.

What Rahm gets in return

The agreement states that Rahm "owes no further service or performance obligations under any contract" and can join any tour, league or sponsor "without notice to or consent from LIV." He regains exclusive rights to his name, image and likeness, and LIV will hand over the "Rahmbo" trademark and the rights to the Legion XIII name, the team he captained.

There are limits. Rahm gives up his 25% ownership stake in Legion XIII, and he cannot use the team's name or marks in connection with TGL, the indoor golf league founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. LIV keeps ownership of past footage and other content featuring him.

The deal follows a hearing on Oct. 7 at which Rahm's attorney told the court that the terms on offer for LIV 2.0, the league's proposed relaunch, were "unacceptable" to him and that he would not take part. LIV has lined up as much as $300 million in financing from BC Partners Credit for the relaunch, under a plan that would give players 52.5% of the league. Players have until Oct. 25 to commit.

Rahm had said in September that he was ready to see out his original agreement. "I still have a contract with LIV 1.0 that I'm more than willing to fulfill," he said at the time.

Where he plays next

Rahm's first event since leaving LIV will be the DP World Tour's Abu Dhabi Championship on Nov. 5 to Nov. 8. In May he settled a long dispute with the European circuit, paying about £2.21 million ($2.9 million) in fines, which kept his membership in place and his eligibility for the 2027 Ryder Cup in Ireland.

A return to the PGA Tour is less certain. The U.S. tour has said it will not talk to players who still have contractual obligations to LIV, a hurdle the separation agreement removes. Earlier this year it brought back Brooks Koepka through a returning member program that carried financial conditions, but Rahm turned down a similar offer, and the tour has indicated it will not revive the program. Players who leave LIV normally face a one-year ban from the PGA Tour after their last LIV event, which could keep Rahm on the DP World Tour in 2027 and put a return in 2028.

Earnings at LIV

Rahm did well out of LIV even without the rest of his contract. He won the league's season-long individual title in 2024, 2025 and 2026 and earned nearly $107 million in prize and bonus money over three seasons. His LIV signing fee and winnings lifted his total earnings to an estimated $218 million in 2024, more than any athlete that year except Cristiano Ronaldo.

Born in Barrika, in Spain's Basque Country, Rahm won the U.S. Open in 2021 and the Masters in April 2023, eight months before he left for LIV. He was ranked No. 3 in the world when he made the switch.

Several other players have left the league in recent weeks, including David Puig, Abraham Ancer, Adrian Meronk and former British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen. LIV also won court approval to reject the contracts of 19 other golfers, among them Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson, as it prepares to decide by the end of October whether to relaunch or wind down.