The appearance of Jon Rahm in the press room this Thursday, after the first round of the LIV Golf tournament in Mexico, was undoubtedly one of the most anticipated. Both because of his great performance in the first 18 holes at the Club de Golf de Chapultepec, with a six-under-par card that places him second in the standings, and to hear his view on everything that has been emerging in recent days about the future of the Saudi tour, of which, alongside Bryson DeChambeau, he is one of the main stars
But the man from Barrika largely glossed over the matter: “Until the people in charge said whether the rumours were valid or not, it made no sense for me to think about it or waste time thinking about it. We were here, we knew we were going to play, so the idea was to prepare for a tournament. And that’s it. As everything came out suddenly, so quickly, I wasn’t very worried in that sense because normally before the rumours arrive we know something. There’s always someone inside the league who knows something, it was so fast that honestly I didn’t worry in that sense”
The viability of LIV Golf, if the backing of the PIF is withdrawn, is in doubt. But it doesn’t seem to cause Rahm any headaches, at least outwardly. Likewise, he did not wish to go into much detail or reveal what, in his view, had been the mistakes made last week at the Masters at Augusta, where he produced a modest performance, always far from the fight for the Green Jacket and making the cut by a miracle
The Basque golfer began by saying he was grateful to be playing again just four days after saying goodbye to Augusta National: “Honestly, sometimes after having a bad week and understanding a bit what I did wrong, I almost prefer to have a tournament the following week to get back to it as soon as possible and prove to myself that I was wrong or right, however you want to see it. I was happy we were playing this week, for sure, and that’s it. On Sunday I played a very good round, I had good feelings. So I wanted to try to maintain that, and I’m glad I did”
But when asked about the things he thought he had done wrong at the Masters, he lowered the barrier: “It’s honestly so personal to each one… It’s not a single thing. There are many things I could have done better. It would be too complicated an answer to give, the truth”. That said, he assured he is applying corrections “100%” to what, in his view, prevented him from fighting for his second Green Jacket in the first major of the season
As for the Mexico tournament itself, the highlight of his remarks came when he addressed the issues caused by altitude. Something that, in his view, changes massively compared with events like Riyadh or South Africa: “Riyadh is very similar to Phoenix in terms of altitude. I play there as I would in Phoenix, more or less depending on temperature. This is a completely different ‘animal’, even compared with South Africa”
“The distances you play here are so absurd that I learned quickly to tell Adam not to give me the original distance unless we’re really close to the green because, if you start doing the maths… I think hole 1 is 330… or hole 2 here plays 10 yards down, then you apply the 15%, I’m hitting a 5-wood to the green into the wind. You can’t get hung up on that. So he gives me the real distance and we play from there. Otherwise, there have been times when I’ve said to him: it’s 240 yards, I can’t hit a 7-iron. You hit a 6-iron and you carry over the green”, he detailed
“I learned that pretty quickly and I try not to obsess too much over how far the ball is actually going. In fact, if I had to tell you the length of the holes, it would be completely distorted because I never know the real distance. A perfect example is the 12th, 620 yards into the wind, and I hit a driver, 5-iron. Simply because it’s actually playing, what, 90 yards less. It’s crazy…”, Jon concluded, who is trying to get back on track after a disappointing Masters and with the continuity of LIV Golf increasingly up in the air
