Several LIV Golf members were stranded in the Middle East this week due to the ongoing war, but thankfully Jon Rahm came to the rescue.
Golfweek reported that Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Sam Horsfield, Anirban Lahiri, Adrian Meronk, Tom McKibbin, Caleb Surratt and Lee Westwood were stuck in Dubai due to the airport closures. A similar situation left men's tennis players, including Daniil Medvedev, questioning when they'd get home.
Not only were these eight golfers able to escape any potential harm, they made it in time for the start of LIV Golf's latest event in Hong Kong. That's because Rahm chartered a private flight to Hong Kong for his peers. All he needed was for them to travel on the ground from Dubai to Oman.
"Rahm and his team arranged the flight via Rahm’s partnership with the private aviation company, VistaJet, the source said. The plan was officially set in motion when airspace opened in Muscat, Oman’s capital city, on Tuesday morning local time. (An eighth LIV player, Laurie Canter, also was in Dubai, but the source said Canter arranged his own plans to fly himself and his family out of Oman)," the report from GOLF.com states.
"Step one was getting out of the UAE, which required ground transport. The source said Lahiri, who lives in Dubai, took the lead on lining up a vehicle to get them to the UAE-Oman border."
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LIV Golf was beat to the punch.
According to this report, LIV Golf was exploring options to extract its players. At the end of the day though, it was Rahm who perfectly executed this safety mission.
"LIV did a great job in trying to get everybody out of there," a source told GOLF.com.
It's fair to say LIV Golf owes Rahm a massive thank you this week.
We're certainly glad all these members of LIV Golf are safe given the current state of things in the Middle East.