Jon Rahm has carded a 72 today, one over par on the first day of the Open de España. It’s clear that the possibility of securing his fourth victory in this tournament is now in serious doubt after this result. The question is, considering this player: Can Jon still win the Open de España? The answer, at this stage, is that it’s already very difficult. Surely his chances depend on an epic Friday.
The great champion from Barrika has gone from strength to weakness in his first appearance after the success at Bethpage. Nothing to be alarmed about: Beside him, Ryder hero Shane Lowry (+4) was struggling at a Club de Campo that proved to be much more challenging than it seemed. In fact, fewer than thirty players managed to score under seventy on the Madrid course. No, it’s unlikely that Jon can repeat his victories on this course and in this tournament, let’s not kid ourselves, although with this player, you can always expect a great champion’s reaction…
An eagle on the 14th hole, a par 5, holing out from the sand to the delight of the fans (he had started on the 10th), propelled him towards the top of the leaderboard. And another textbook birdie on the 15th once again put Jon where he has almost always been, if not always, in the Spanish Open… However, from that moment everything was about to change. Especially because on his second nine, there were more problems than clear birdie opportunities. It’s not easy to find a simple explanation for this, although certainly Jon was not very accurate today in reading the wind (it didn’t blow too much, but enough to be misleading).
“There are four days. If you have one bad day, it’s okay. I didn’t play that badly. I felt good, made some very good swings and I hope it gets a little better each day,” explained Jon immediately after signing his first card. It’s very difficult for him, but at least we’ll have to wait until Friday to see if he can still be considered for Sunday.
