Jon Rahm played the hero for several LIV Golf players stranded in the Middle East. After airspace closures grounded flights, Rahm personally stepped up to get them to the Hong Kong event.

Jon Rahm arranged a private charter flight through his partnership with VistaJet. He sent the aircraft to Oman to pick up the stranded group and fly them to Hong Kong.

On March 7, Mike McAllister, the editorial director of LIV Golf, asked Rahm about his motivation.

“The way I see it is it's simply my duty. I was raised with certain values, that if you have the ability and capability of helping somebody, especially in a scenario like that where my main focus essentially was getting them out of there, not necessarily playing a tournament,” John Rahm explained.

The stranded group first traveled about 280 miles from Dubai to Oman by road. They then boarded the private jet to Hong Kong and arrived less than 24 hours before the LIV Golf event began.

Those on the flight included his Legion XIII teammates Caleb Surratt and Tom McKibbin, along with Thomas Detry, Adrian Meronk, Anirban Lahiri, Lee Westwood, and Sam Horsfield. Caddie Terry Mundy was also part of the group that traveled on the flight.

Jon Rahm Describes Backup Plan While Trying to Move LIV Golf Players to Hong Kong

The 31-year-old Jon Rahm said the situation remained uncertain at one stage as different travel options were being considered.

“For a second, at one point, if they went through a different extraction plan, they were going to go to Europe. I was trying to help people in Spain to get them set up to practice in Spain. It looked like coming here was going to be hard.”

With the travel plan finally working out, the group was able to reach Hong Kong in time for the LIV Golf Hong Kong tournament.

Jon Rahm himself competed alongside those he helped. In a poetic outcome, he also made it all the way to the finals, winning at 23 under par, defeating Belgium’s Thomas Detry.

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Written by

Aditi Singh

Edited by

Sagnik Bagchi