Thanks to the LIV Tour, golf tycoon Jon Rahm can stop fretting over his financial future
In case you weren’t following the International Monetary Fund last week, it was a good time to be a 29-year-old international sports superstar.
Masters champion Jon Rahm signed with the LIV Tour for somewhere between $300 million and $600 million, then hitter/pitcher/dog lover Shohei Ohtani got a $700 million deal from the Dodgers.
Ohtani, as usual, had little to say about his payday. Rahm, who’d long sworn allegiance to the PGA Tour, won the Latrell Sprewell Award for comments.
Sprewell is perhaps best remembered for choking his coach when he played for Golden State. But he’s also notable for turning down a three-year, $21 million contract extension from Minnesota.
“I’ve got a lot of risk here,” he said. “I’ve got a family to feed.”
Rahm wasn’t nearly as churlish, but he couldn’t resist channeling a little Spree.
“I play for the love of the game and for the love of golf,” he said. “But, as a husband, as a father and as a family man I have a duty to my family to give them the best opportunities and the most amount of resources possible.”
Hey, I’d do the same thing. I just hope when a Saudi sportswashing prince offers me $300 million to write glowing press releases about his golf tour, I don’t justify it by saying I just want to keep food on the table.
Rahm was concerned despite banking $77.2 million before the LIV called. He apparently bet it all on the Panthers to win the Super Bowl, or his two kids have incredible appetites.
Note: $300 million will buy 77,286,842 Happy Meals. So there’s no doubt that Rahm has given family members the resources to not only eat but to quickly develop Type 2 diabetes.
Again, good for him. Unless Rahm fathers another 1.2 million or so children, he can now truly just play for the love of the game …
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For winning the Heisman Trophy despite playing for a three-loss team.
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R.I.P. Norman Lear
The TV producer who gave us Archie Bunker and all his bumbling observations. Among them: “They got the greatest country in the world right here. The highest standard of living. The grossest national product." …
Speaking of gross national product, the combined value of Rahm’s and Ohtani’s new deals is more than the annual GDPs of Samoa, Grenada and at least 10 other countries. Then again, Dominica has never hit 46 home runs in a season …
Florida hired a design firm last week for the renovation of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Crawford Architects said there is no completion date for the rebuilding project. But in hopes of finishing before 2038, it promised not to employ anyone who helped design Florida’s special teams …
Update: We noted last week that UF running back Trevor Etienne might transfer. Sure enough, he entered the transfer portal Thursday and is reportedly considering offers from Georgia, Clemson, the Dodgers and the LIV Tour …
In case you were wondering, the man with the most mouths to feed in history was Sultan Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif, the emperor of Morocco from 1672-1727. Known as “The Sultan of Schwing,” he fathered 868 children. That far eclipses the modern-day totals of reality TV star Jim Bob Duggar (19) and retired NFL/FSU cornerback Antonio Cromartie (14) …
Lindberg Baby: The publicity-averse Ohtani has no children to worry about keeping fed. He does have a dog, which sat with him when he was awarded the MVP last month. Ohtani’s camp refused to tell reporters the dog’s name, apparently fearing it might be kidnapped and held for $700 million ransom …
Update II: We reported last week that a soccer game in the Saudi Pro League had an attendance of 447 fans. Since then, a game between Al-Riyadh and Al-Hazm drew 264 fans. In hopes of producing more fans, Al-Hazm has reportedly signed Jim Bob Duggar to play goalie for the next five years …
A FIFA study released Monday showed this year’s Women’s World Cup generated 5.1 million social media posts, of which 7,085 were deemed abusive or threatening. Geez, that’s how many Billy Napier was getting after every game in November …
Final Bunkerism: “The only thing that holds a marriage together is the husband being big enough to step back and see where the wife is wrong.”
That’s about all the space we have for this week’s Whitley’s Believe It or Not. We’ll try again next week unless my wife reads the preceding quote and tells me to pack my bags and move in with the Duggar family.
David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidEWhitley
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Jon Rahm can finally not worry about feeding his family
