Jon Rahm: Certain LIV Golf players "don't care" about BMW PGA Championship

Former World No.1 Jon Rahm was frustrated that LIV Golf players who rarely support the DP World Tour are able to tee it up at the BMW PGA Championship this week.

Speaking to the media at Wentworth on Tuesday, Rahm spoke of his friend Alfredo Garcia-Heredia, a DP World Tour player who has played throughout 2022 but was denied a spot in the flagship event this week.

The Spaniard said these players "don't care" about the event or the tour. As Billy Horschel also said, Rahm believes the players who have been suspended from the PGA Tour are in Surrey only to gain world ranking points.

The world rankings of LIV Golf Tour players are set to tumble as the controversial new tour can't offer OWGR points just yet. The DP World Tour is a way for them to subsidise their schedules despite claiming to want to play less golf.

Horschel named the suspects Abraham Ancer, Talor Gooch and Jason Kokrak. Rahm didn't go this far, but it was fairly easy to read between the former US Open champion's words.

"It doesn't hurt me but it does bug me that somebody who has played - it's 20 DP World events this year, cannot be given the opportunity to play a flagship event because some people that earned it, to an extent, are being given an opportunity when they couldn't care any less about the event," Rahm said.

"They don't know. They don't care. They don't know the history of this event. They are only here because they are trying to get world ranking points and trying to finish in the top 50, and that's clear as day. So to me, there's a difference.

"The likes of Sergio and Westy and Poulter have spent 20-plus years on the European Tour. I don't necessarily think that denying them entry to some events is a bad thing, but there are some players, I'm not going to name anybody, but there are some of them that have never shown any interest. Like I said they are here for a different motive than supporting European Tour.

"I've seen them and I don't speak to them. I don't say - the only people asking about my opinion are mainly players that have been part of the Ryder Cup with me or people I'm close with or we're friends.

"I've made my stance on things very clear. I don't know what else to say. I'm not going to hate anybody. I'm not going to - to an extent, maybe right now I did judge too many people for the decisions they make. They are adults and they make their own decisions."

Rahm's stance has always been clear indeed. However, he did suffer some confusion as to how many events he is expected to play on the PGA Tour next year with the Ryder Cup on his mind.

At the end of August, the 27-year-old wasn't aware that the 'top players' on the PGA Tour have to play 20 times from January until August. As he needs to play four times on the DP World Tour too to be eligible for the 2023 Ryder Cup, he assumed the rules would be changed.