Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau Missing the U.S. Open Cut Does Not End the LIV Argument, but It Should End Some Lazy Ones

Image: Birdie Report

Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau both missed the cut at the 2026 U.S. Open on Friday, June 19.

That is real. That matters. It is also not the neat little anti-LIV morality play a lot of golf people are already trying to force it into.

According to AP’s June 19, 2026 U.S. Open report, both LIV stars were gone by the weekend, with Rahm collapsing to a second-round 78 while Wyndham Clark took a four-shot halfway lead at Shinnecock Hills. AP also noted that Joaquin Niemann still made the cut after an 11 in Round 1, which was already a useful reminder that this week was messy in more than one direction.

Update: Niemann later turned that mess into a T7 finish, and we broke down the full swing from penalty to top-10 here.

This column is based on that AP report published Friday, June 19, 2026. The opinion is mine. The cut-line reality is not. No pretending I had credentialed access to the range therapy sessions.

Yes, This Is a Bad LIV Week

Let’s not get stupid in the first paragraph.

If your league sells itself partly on the star power of Rahm and Bryson, then your two biggest headline guys bailing before the weekend at a major is obviously bad optics.

Especially here.

The U.S. Open is one of the few places where the split still gets tested against the same field, the same course, and the same pressure. So when the two LIV names casual fans recognize fastest are headed to the airport while the tournament keeps going without them, that is going to land.

It should.

No, It Does Not Prove LIV Guys Suddenly Cannot Play Real Golf

This is the part where everybody’s brain usually falls out.

One bad major week is not proof of a full theory.

Rahm is still one of the best players in the world. We just spent spring covering his Ryder Cup eligibility workaround because he matters too much for Europe to ignore. Bryson is still one of the most dangerous ceiling players in the sport when his game is organized. We have spent months writing about LIV as a structural mess, not a talent-free one, including our broader take that pro golf still does not have a real deal.

That still holds.

A Friday missed cut does not erase the fact that these guys can contend at majors. It means they did not do it this week.

That distinction matters.

The More Interesting Story Is That Majors Refuse Clean Propaganda

This is why the U.S. Open remains useful.

It keeps refusing to become a clean billboard for either side of golf’s civil war.

If Rahm and Bryson had both been in the top five Friday night, people would have used that to scream that LIV’s model is vindicated.

They missed the cut instead, so now a different group wants to act like the whole league has been exposed as fraudulent.

Both reactions are lazy.

Majors are better when they complicate whatever simple speech somebody wanted to give before the first tee shot. We already argued after Thursday that Wyndham Clark blowing up the Rory-Scottie-only script improved the championship. This is the same idea from a different angle.

The event is not here to validate your brand war. It is here to reveal who handled this course for 36 holes.

This week, Rahm and Bryson did not.

Shinnecock Was Testing Everybody, Not Just One League

That part matters too.

The Friday board was not some clean PGA Tour chest-thump, either.

The course had Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler sitting at even par, well behind Clark through 36 holes in the same AP report. It had Niemann recovering from an 11. It had the whole tournament feeling alive in a way that matched the warning signs we flagged before the week in our Shinnecock scouting piece and our column on letting the course be difficult without turning it into a setup tantrum.

This was not a normal venue asking for normal golf.

That does not excuse anybody. It does mean the right read is more specific than “league X good, league Y fake.”

My Take

The honest takeaway is pretty simple.

Rahm and DeChambeau missing the cut is:

• bad for LIV’s week
• bad for LIV’s optics
• not a final answer on LIV’s competitive legitimacy
• and definitely not proof that the broader men’s-golf mess has sorted itself out

If anything, the result underlines the thing this site keeps circling back to:

the sport still asks every major to carry way too much political symbolism.

Sometimes the answer is just that two great players had a bad two days at Shinnecock Hills while somebody else, in this case Wyndham Clark, handled the test better and earned the story instead.

That is not ducking the larger issue. That is refusing to flatten golf into propaganda every damn weekend.

Bottom Line

Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau missing the cut at the 2026 U.S. Open is a legitimate setback for LIV Golf’s headline power.

It is not a one-week verdict on the league’s talent, and it sure as hell is not a substitute for solving pro golf’s bigger structural split.

It just means that for 36 holes at Shinnecock, the major did what majors are supposed to do:

it exposed whoever did not have the right answers that week.