This one hurts the worst.

This one cuts to the PGA Tour’s core.

When Phil Mickelson jumped to LIV Golf and became the face of the upstart Saudi-backed tour, he was dismissed by the PGA Tour as a greedy contrarian gone rogue, out for whatever was best for Phil Mickelson.

When Dustin Johnson went to LIV, he was viewed as aloof and disengaged anyway, never a face of the PGA Tour.

When Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau joined LIV, they were both looked upon as lone wolves who were low on the PGA Tour popularity list and who were both battling injuries that pushed them to cash in on the guaranteed millions LIV was offering.

When Cam Smith joined LIV, he was No. 2 in the world and fresh off winning the 2021 British Open, but the Australian was never viewed by the PGA Tour as one of its charismatic faces.

Jon Rahm, though?

Ouch.

When news broke Thursday confirming weeks of rumors that the 29-year-old Spaniard, who’s ranked No. 3 in the world and has been one of the PGA Tour’s most ardent public supporters, was signing on with LIV for a reported sum that could reach $600 million, that shook the foundation of the PGA Tour’s shiny new headquarters in Ponte Vedra, Fla.

Rahm’s departure hurts the PGA Tour worse than any of the previous players going to LIV.

By a lot.

You can make the argument that other than Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, Rahm is the game’s most important player.

Woods, of course, is about to turn 48 and is well into the back nine of his playing career with his litany of injuries.

And McIlroy, who’s ranked No. 2 in the world, was the loudest mouthpiece for PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan until Monahan, behind his players’ backs, struck that “framework agreement’’ with the Saudi leaders of LIV Golf last June. But there’s been a significant amount of McIlroy fatigue among many because he’d gone too over the top in his public allegiance to the PGA Tour to the point that even McIlroy has backed off, resigning from the PGA Tour’s player board.

Rahm joining LIV is proof of this: Every player has his price.

Rahm has never been a LIV detractor publicly, always taking the high road and supporting those who made the move while professing his allegiance to the PGA Tour and Monahan. One of his common refrains when asked about the ungodly amounts of money the Saudis have paid its players to join has been that money has never been a motivator for him as a golfer.

This was Rahm at the 2022 U.S. Open: “I’ve never really played the game of golf for monetary reasons. I play for the love of the game, and I want to play against the best in the world. I have always been interested in history and legacy, and right now the PGA Tour has that.’’

This was Rahm on a Thursday night conference call after his move to LIV was made official when he was asked what role the money played in his decision: “It’s one of the reasons, I’m not going to sit here and lie to you. It’s one of the reasons.”

Rahm, too, has been one of the most outspoken European players about how he bleeds to play in the Ryder Cup, to follow his Spanish heroes, Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal and Sergio Garcia, who cemented their respective legacies in it.

This was Rahm on Thursday night’s call: “What they had to offer was worth the risk of maybe not playing a Ryder Cup.”

Rahm acquisition is LIV’s biggest and most significant going forward, particularly with the Dec. 31 deadline for the PGA Tour and LIV to consummate that “framework agreement’’ — whatever exactly that is.

Rahm has always been the perfect face of the franchise for the PGA Tour. He’s a self-made star. He came from Spain to play college golf at Arizona State having never spoken English before and now he speaks the language more eloquently and with more deep and keen perspective than most of us who are natives of the U.S.

He’s always deftly straddled the line between being one of the game’s most fiery competitors to being one of its most respectful representatives.

The five best players in the world right now are Scottie Scheffler, McIlroy, Rahm, Koepka and Smith. Three of those five players are with LIV Golf now. Even the most ardent LIV detractors cannot ignore this fact.

This one hurts the PGA Tour badly. It hurts the worst.