Jon Rahm's vaccine choice costly as he's roasted, defended on Twitter

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Golf and business have always gone hand-in-hand, with hammered drives sharing workspace with handshake deals. 

So let’s speak the language of corporate attorneys and CEO consultants: Jon Rahm made a bad business decision.

If Rahm had been vaccinated ASAP after his home state of Arizona opened eligibility to all adults on March 24, the 26-year-old Spaniard almost certainly would have avoided testing positive for COVID-19 Saturday at the Memorial Tournament.

And had he not tested positive, he would not have withdrawn from the Memorial, which he led by six shots with 18 left to play.

And if he had not withdrawn, Rahm stood a strong chance of leaving Muirfield Village Golf Club with a crystal trophy and $1.675 million.   

It does not take a Fortune 500 company accountant to connect those dots. Get a tiny prick in the arm, avoid the huge hole in the pocket that allowed a cool million-and-a-half to slip through.

“(Getting vaccinated) is a business decision in many ways,” said Jack Nicklaus, CEO of Golden Bear Enterprises who I hear was pretty good at golf. “There’s no hassle to it after you get it.”

There’s also little hassle to getting it in the first place. Tour player apologists will point out that traveling pros are too busy to fit a vaccine appointment into their schedules. Bunk. The tour offers vaccinations on Fridays to players missing the cut and on Sundays after their rounds. If you want it, you can get it. 

We don’t know if Rahm wanted it, or if he had received the vaccine but had not yet reached the typical two-week “all-clear” period. What is certain is that he was not fully vaccinated, or the tour would not have tested him all week after learning on Monday that he had recently come into close contact with someone who was COVID-19 positive.

In other words, losing out on a probable hefty payday was avoidable. That’s being objective, even if it makes you squirm. The point is not to sound unsympathetic or to shame the anti-vax crowd, but simply to illustrate that actions — or in this case inaction — have consequences.

Beyond that, what happened to Rahm reminds us that COVID-19 will always try to get the last laugh. It’s not enough for the pandemic to kill and injure. It also creates an us-against-them political culture that turns brother against brother. The COVID-19 Civil War. 

Twitter was on fire immediately after Rahm’s forced withdrawal, with one side defending him by criticizing tour rules — and by extension the CDC — as overly strict and ultimately pointless. They reasoned, “Why can’t Rahm play the final round by himself?” 

Answers:

1. Making an exception for Rahm would be unfair to the other three tour players who were forced to withdraw after testing positive during an event since the tour returned to competition one year ago.

“Jon is a big boy and understands we have rules, and unfortunately rules are something you may not like but they are the rules we have right now and you have to abide by them,” Nicklaus said, adding that tour commissioner Jay Monahan feels the same way. “Whether he would have shot 64 (Saturday) or 74, the same result would have come out for him.”

2. Competitive equity. Sending Rahm out as a single would create advantages not available to other players participating as twosomes. 

Rahm also had his Twitter haters who ripped him personally, their attacks based on the player’s vaccine decision-making.

Lost in the social media cacophony is that compassion and accountability are not mutually exclusive. One can sympathize with Rahm even while admonishing him. It is both/and, not either/or. 

Case in point: Only a hardened heart would take pleasure in watching Rahm double over in anguish just off the 18th green upon learning from a tour official immediately after completing his Saturday round that he had tested positive and would need to withdraw. 

But it’s also OK to point out that Rahm knew that testing positive was a possibility after, as Nicklaus put it, “He put himself into a position to get exposed. How, I don’t know.” 

But Nicklaus was both careful and correct not to unload on the defending Memorial champion. Both/And.

“He knew all week, was monitored all week,” Nicklaus said, referring to Rahm having been subject to contact-tracing protocols.

Rahm tested negative every day until Saturday, when a test he took after his weather-delayed round on Friday came back positive at 4:20 p.m. Saturday.

“He never went into the clubhouse and stayed away from everybody, because he knew he was exposed," Nicklaus said. "Then when he tested (positive) … everybody here is devastated. Just a terrible thing to have happen.”

Actually, Rahm didn’t stay away from everybody. About nine hours before receiving news of the positive test, he spent a few minutes answering questions, unmasked, two feet from my fully-vaccinated face. Didn’t bother me, but I also did not know he would soon test positive. I’m still not that bothered, but it makes you think. 

Being a business, it also has to make unvaccinated tour players rethink about getting the shot.

“Maybe so, yeah,” Nicklaus agreed.

Andy Levinson, the tour’s senior vice president of tournament administration, said the percentage of tour players fully vaccinated is “north of 50 percent.” 

Expect that number to jump in the coming weeks. After all, it’s not personal. It’s business.

Follow Rob Oller on Twitter @rollerCD