🔴As Jon Rahm is suspended by PGA Tour, these three players see critical changes to their statuses 🔴

As Jon Rahm is suspended by PGA Tour, these three players see critical changes to their statuses for 2024

Jon Rahm left for LIV Golf last Thursday. On Monday, the PGA Tour officially suspended him, which bars him from defending his title at the season-opening Sentry as well as two other Tour stops in 2024.

The Tour sent a memo to players alerting them of the move, which was not unexpected, “due to his association with a series of unauthorized tournaments.”

And with that, Rahm is removed from the FedEx Cup standings, where he finished 18th after playing in what turned out to be his final PGA Tour event, the 2023 Tour Championship at East Lake.

But one man’s change of golf leagues is three others’ massive improvement in status for 2024.

As Associated Press golf writer Doug Ferguson pointed out, Mackenzie Hughes just got a gold ticket into each of the signature events next year, Alex Smalley gets into a pair of them and Carl Yuan gets his card.

The writing had been on the wall for weeks concerning Rahm’s decision as he backed out of the TGL – the new tech-infused league led by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy – before the league was postponed until 2025. He also wasn’t listed in the field for the PGA Tour’s upcoming American Express next month, where he’s the defending champion.

Fenway Sports, the owners of Liverpool FC, have moved a step closer to becoming significant partners in golf’s new world order having been chosen as the investors Tiger Woods and the rest of the PGA Tour policy board wish to negotiate with from now on.

The announcement from the Tour came in the wake of Jon Rahm’s £450 million move to LIV last week. Inevitably, the timing made many wonder if the Saudi sovereign wealth fund was preparing to be cut loose by the Tour in merger negotiations.

But sources insist that the choice of Fenway is positive news for harmony in the game. The Strategic Sports Group – a consortium of American financiers led by Anfield owners John Henry and Tom Werner – has close ties with the Middle East. SSG also already has connections in Saudi Arabia.

The fact the Tour’s policy board, which has been riven by stories of player unrest, were so quick to release the news of its favoured American private equity investors suggests that a pathway is being opened to allow meaningful and substantive discussion between Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the Public Investment Fund governor and LIV chairman, later this week.

“We also anticipate advancing our negotiations with PIF in the