Jon Rahm (+5) has today bent fate to his will. Once again. Nothing was going well in his round. He did not feel comfortable with his swing, the conditions due to the wind were terrifying and his round was slowly bleeding away. The defending champion was fading.
Jon’s round today has been a torment, a relentless battle against the elements. From start to finish. At hole 1 he was already crashing his drive against the trees on the left, although the ball returned to the fairway after a fortunate bounce. At 2 he sent his drive to the bunker and at 3, again a crash against the trees. Jon looked to the sky for comfort. He knew it was going to be a very tough day. And it was.
Everything went awry. He made a bogey at 3 after sending his birdie putt off the green. He added another at 6 with a three-putt and added a third at 11 with another three-putt, this one clearly caused by the wind. The ball was about to move on the green and Jon lost concentration. All very cruel and quite unheard of. In the end, everything was as it was being like the day in Augusta. Like a horror movie.
Rahm was on the ropes with a double bogey at 14. Another three-putt. Suddenly, he was at +6, outside the cut. But it was then that his champion’s mettle shone through. He knows how to suffer to win. He knows how to suffer to finish in the top 10. And he also knows how to suffer when it’s time to make a cut. That’s how the great winners are. He made birdie at 15 and 16, this one with an extraordinary putt from about twenty meters. Impressive.
It seemed that the scare had passed, but the day was not for easy capitulations. At 17 another bogey fell, again with a three-putt, the fourth of the day. He was at +5 and needed par at 18 to secure the cut. It finally was +6, but at that moment it was not safe.
Jon did it and ended the torture. He returned from the depths to take his impressive streak of consecutive cuts made in the majors to 18. He hasn’t missed a weekend since the PGA Championship in 2019 at Bethpage. It’s the best active streak in world golf. However, he is still far from the 131 achieved by Jack Nicklaus which remains an unapproachable record.
In addition, it is the second time that a Spanish Masters winner makes the cut in his year as defending champion. José María Olazábal did it in 1995. Jon’s challenge now is to try to improve the fourteenth place that the sensational player from Guipúzcoa achieved that year.
To do this, however, he will need to find something that allows him to be more comfortable with his swing. On Thursday after the first round he went straight to the practice range, but it didn’t solve anything. Today he has opted for a very different tactic. “A good dinner and a good night and go out tomorrow with nothing to lose. I need to do things very well this Saturday to give myself a chance on Sunday,” he explained.
