Like many PGA Tour golfers, World No. 2 Jon Rahm said he was caught by surprise after the famed golf league merged with rival LIV Golf.
Rahm, the reigning Masters champion, opened up about his reaction to the surprising union ahead of this weekend's U.S. Open. And although the Spaniard says his faith in PGA Tour management hasn't completely evaporated, he can't say the same for all of his fellow tour members.
"It gets to a point where you wanna have faith in management," Rahm said during his U.S. Open news conference Tuesday. "I wanna have faith that this is the best case for us, but that's clearly not the consensus."
MORE: Why PGA Tour, LIV Golf joined forces to 'unify the game'
As news of the junction between the Tour, the DP World Tour and LIV surfaced, Rahm said he was tending to his children. It was a difficult pill to swallow.
"It's not easy as a player to wake up and see this bombshell," Rahm said.
Rahm admitted that some of his counterparts felt "a bit of betrayal" from higher-ups after last week's announcement. Numerous players forwent big salary bumps to stay with the PGA. For the organization to then accept a favorable deal for itself — and not the players who attract so much interest from fans and corporate sponsors alike — left a real sour taste in some members' mouths.
"I still hate LIV, I hate LIV, like, I hope it goes away," Rory McIlroy said last week.
Rahm was more diplomatic in his assessment of the alliance. He admitted that he felt the PGA Tour embraced player opinion at times. However, he acknowledged that things look much different after last week's agreement.
"I think, to an extent, they value player opinion," he said. "They've certainly heard us throughout the whole process on some of the issues.
"But we're certainly in a spot in time where there's a big question mark. Where we don't have the answers we would like. It's hard to say."
Rahm wasn't the only player left befuddled by the Tour's decision. A bevy of players has come out questioning the process by which the three golf leagues joined forces. Many felt blindsided by the move, hearing about it at the same time as the general public.
"We want to know the why," Collin Morikawa said. "I think there's so many different parties involved that there's too many answers to really put it into one underlying umbrella of the why.
MORE: LIV Golf-PGA Tour merger winners and losers
"There's a lot of parties involved. Everyone has had a kind of different answer and different reaction to all this."
LIV players shared a similar sentiment.
"I really know as much as you guys know, to be honest," reigning Open champion Cameron Smith said. "I haven't been told much at all. I'm just taking it as it goes along."
Professional golf is entering into a brave new world, one that looks slated to involve more money than ever before. It remains to be seen whether that's a good thing or not.
"I just hope we can get all the best players in the world playing at the same time in golf tournaments," Dustin Johnson said. "Obviously it's a little split right now."
