Jon Rahm remembers it as one of the most painful defeats of his career. He doesn’t hide it. He has almost every shot of that final round etched in his mind. It matters little that twelve years have passed, two Majors, three Ryder Cups, more than 20 victories between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and LIV Golf, a triumph in the Race to Dubai, or over 50 weeks as World Number One. It still stings…
Let’s go back in time. We travel to 27 February 2012, the eve of Andalusia Day. Rahm starts as co-leader of the Sotogrande Cup, also known as the European Nations Championship. It is held, of course, at the Real Club de Golf de Sotogrande. Jon is tied with the Irishman Reeve Whitson, leader after the first three days, and they have a one-shot lead over the Dutchman Robin Kind and two over the Portuguese Gonzalo Pinto.
Rahm starts the final day very well, asserting his authority from the beginning and pulling away in the standings. There comes a moment when no one doubts that the victory will be his, however, the round takes a turn for the worse in the final stretch. Some mistakes come, successes from Kind and, above all, from the Norwegian Kristoffer Ventura, who comes from behind like a rocket. Rahm loses his lead and ends up going to a three-way playoff with Kind and Ventura. Golf gives him a new chance to win the tournament, but he ends up falling. Victory for Kind. Tight jaws for Jon.
Twelve years later, the golfer from Barrika still remembers that episode with anger. Obviously, time has calmed the emotions, but the thorn remains. Life, golf, and, in this case, the DP World Tour and the Sotogrande course, offer him a new opportunity to silence those voices. It will be next week at the Estrella Damm Andalucía Masters. Same setting, twelve years later. There’s no better way to settle that score than a victory at the Andalusian event.
An extra incentive that Jon will surely use as fuel to feed his already very pronounced desire to win. Don’t doubt that he will use it. Rahm will play for the first time since turning professional in three tournaments in Spain in one year. He was at the LIV Golf de Valderrama, where he finished tenth, and at the Open de España, where he was second after losing the playoff to Ángel Hidalgo. We’ll see if the third time’s the charm and he adds his eleventh victory on the European Circuit, the first since last year’s Masters Tournament.
By the way, golf never ceases to throw curiosities in your face when you look back. The European Nations Championship is a tournament played in both individual and team formats. In the latter, Jon shared a ‘locker room’ with Mario Galiano, Juan Sarasti, and Javier Gallegos, the latter two have practically abandoned competition, while Galiano is playing those days in the Alps for his promotion to the Challenge Tour.
Precisely, who did leave competition definitively five years ago was Robin Kind himself. What a thing. He was a player who promised a lot. In 2010, at just 18 years old, he had already played a KLM Open. The following year he made the cut in that same tournament and in that same year 2012 he had also won the Baleares Cup, as can be seen in the photo attached to this report. He turned professional in 2014 and tried. He played on lower circuits like the German Professional Golf Tour, won a few tournaments, but the Challenge Tour was an insurmountable hurdle for him. In 2016 he played 19 tournaments and missed 18 cuts. He retired in 2019 after missing eight consecutive cuts on the aforementioned PFG Tour.
Another curiosity. Rahm will meet next week with other players who were also at that Sotogrande Cup, such as Marcel Schneider, Lukas Nemecz, Daan Huizing, or Matthias Schwab. Additionally, Joel Girrbach is currently third reserve.
Rahm couldn’t win that Sotogrande Cup, but there was a winner who today is a Major champion. In the women’s competition, a certain Celine Boutier triumphed…
