Playing in the final group, Jon Rahm held a four-shot lead over Tommy Fleetwood as he teed off No. 11. He’d just made birdie at 10, and it seemed as if Rahm was set to cruise to gold. The odds of him finishing off the podium would have been absurdly long. But Rahm proceeded to bogey 11 and 12, compounding those missteps with a disastrous double at the par-5 15th. Even then, he looked set for a potential medal-saving push after a birdie at 16, but a bogey at 17 knocked him back out of that race. Rahm bogeyed 18 for good measure, coming in with a 39. After, Rahm offered his thoughts on the defeat, and sounded very much like a player who’s searching: “I not only feel like I let myself down but to just not get it done for the whole country of Spain, it’s a lot more painful than I would like it to be.”

Rahm’s collapse, overall season, and general demeanor has sent many folks down the “Rahm is miserable with LIV and his game won’t be as good” path. Is all of that true? Maybe! Or maybe he just had some issues down the stretch in key moments, and he’ll come back next year and win a major or two. Brooks and Bryson have demonstrated that’s still possible to do while competing on the LIV circuit, and while Rahm certainly didn’t have the year he’d have hoped for, he also wasn’t all that bad, it’s just that there are so few benchmark opportunities to demonstrate form when you play on a tour that makes it very hard to contextualize form and/or achievement. It’s too soon to write him off, but his disaffection (which, to be clear, he brought on himself here, he knew what he was doing taking the LIV money when he did) is certainly worth monitoring.

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