The reason Jon Rahm was a ’shadow’ of his former self was not his LIV Golf move according to Padraig Harrington

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No player’s move to LIV Golf has sparked a stronger debate than Jon Rahm, with fans divided over whether the league has hurt his game.

LIV Golf has arguably not made a bigger statement than convincing Jon Rahm to sign in December 2023. At the time, the Spaniard was The Masters champion. Meanwhile, he had played a starring role in Europe’s Ryder Cup victory in Rome.

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It looked set to be the move which would force both sides to reach a deal that brought the game back together.

However, as 2026 looms, no deal is forthcoming. Meanwhile, Rahm has not exactly been vindicated for leaving the PGA Tour.

The reason for Jon Rahm’s downturn in form since leaving for LIV Golf

Rahm has not finished higher than seventh in a major since his move. And, while he has won the individual title in both seasons on LIV, 2025 marked the first time Rahm has gone an entire year without winning since turning professional.

LIV’s critics would argue that Rahm’s decision to jump ship has backfired. But it seems that there is another reason that he has not been at his best for a couple of years now.

Speaking on Skratch, Padraig Harrington suggested that Rahm’s desire to change his preferred shot shape shortly before his switch actually caused a lot of issues.

“If you can be one dimensional you’re really good. Dustin Johnson’s a better example, just didn’t hit it left off the tee. It’s a superpower. I see players and they’ll hit that fade and they go, ‘I’d love to hit a draw’. And I scream at them now, I say, ‘look, you have a superpower that the ball doesn’t go left and you stick with it’. You’ll get sucked in one day to think that another shot is nice, but that’s not true,” he said.

“You’ve got to know your superpower, that’s basically it. You don’t ruin your superpower.

“We didn’t quite get to see this because Jon Rahm went to LIV, but right at the start of that year that he went to LIV, he started trying to draw the ball. Remember him teeing it up six inches forward and high. I played with him at the PGA practice round, and he was a shadow of the player. And I watched a few of the LIV events and he had the lefts in him.

“His whole game was I can hit it as hard as I can down the left and it’s not going left. And for that six month period, he hit it left. And everyone was saying, ‘oh, it’s LIV’. No, now he’s getting it back to hammering it down the left and it not going left. But that was his superpower, but he was attracted to the extra 10, 15 yards of a draw and maybe for Augusta.”

Much brighter signs for Jon Rahm as the 2026 season looms

It does appear to be a matter of time before Rahm wins again. And it may well be that he adds to his tally of two major titles in 2026.

His strokes gained statistics in 2025 were incredibly impressive. Rahm was inside the top 10 on LIV in all four categories this past season, according to Data Golf.

And while the Ryder Cup is a completely different animal to every other event – as shown by Scottie Scheffler‘s struggles in the competition – it was notable that Rahm arguably hit the two best shots seen at Bethpage Black in September.

Of course, no one will ever know if he would have been better off staying put. Some have claimed that LIV’s 54-hole format did not suit Rahm. So perhaps the change to 72-hole tournaments will help him.

He is simply too good a player for this winless run to last too much longer. And crucially, Harrington does not believe that playing on LIV was the reason it began in the first place.