PGA Tour winner threatens Jon Rahm ‘I want to wring your neck’ in furious rant | Golf | Sport
Former PGA Tour winner Arron Oberhalser has launched a scathing attack on Jon Rahm and threatened to ‘wring his neck’ over comments he made ahead of this week’s PGA Championship. Rahm will be hoping to complete his third leg of a potential career Grand Slam by claiming the spoils at Valhalla Golf Club.
Rahm is currently serving a ban from the PGA Tour after penning a multi-million-pound deal with LIV Golf, the controversial breakaway tour funded by Saudi Arabia, in December. Speaking to the media ahead of the PGA Championship, he insisted that he still considers himself a PGA Tour member in spite of his defection to LIV.
“You guys keep saying ‘the other side’ but I’m still a PGA Tour member, whether I’m suspended or not,” said Rahm. “I still want to support the PGA Tour and I think that’s an important distinction to make. I don’t feel like I’m on the other side. I’m just not playing there.”
Rahm’s comments did not go down well with Oberhalser, who refused to pull any punches as he exploded into a furious rant on the Golf Channel.
Oberhalser fumed: “He [Rahm] doesn’t get it. To this day, he doesn’t get it. This is a guy who wanted a position, or wanted to be heard, from what I understand, either a board position, policy board.
“He wanted to be heard on this whole thing before he went to LIV and I feel like he wasn’t as heard as much as he probably should have been. And now I’m glad he wasn’t in that position because he doesn’t get it.
“As a PGA Tour player and as a PGA Tour member, still a card-carrying PGA Tour member and someone who supports the PGA Tour, I’m not happy with what’s going on right now obviously, I’m incensed by the level of naivety, that you don’t get it, you still don’t get it.
“You’re going to sit there and tell me you still feel like a PGA Tour member. I mean, I wanted to wring his neck through the television. I’m that mad right now. I’m that mad, and every player in that locker room, if they watched that, should be absolutely incensed with him.”
Players signed to LIV Golf are still permitted to compete in the majors, with Rahm hoping to challenge in Kentucky this week after a disappointing defence of his green jacket at The Masters. He will play the opening two rounds of the PGA Championship, which is set to begin on Thursday, alongside Rickie Fowler and Cameron Young.
