Jon Rahm (+5) has carded a 73 in the third round of the Masters de Augusta. Grey day. Poor. Insipid. Bad. It’s the moving day and the course is set up to attack. There is no drama here, no tragedies. The hoses are working harder than at San Mamés in Clemente’s era and the greens remain receptive and at a good speed. There are birdies. Many. And you have to make them to get up the leaderboard. The 73 leaves him where he was, that is, well down the leaderboard.
Jon began the round remarkably. He produced a great birdie at hole 1. He played textbook. At 2 he missed the bunker and left himself a long birdie chance, but at 3, again, two huge shots and another splendid birdie. The start he needed on a Saturday at the Masters. Things were looking good.
Moreover, to top it off, a great shot at hole 4, although afterwards he admitted he had missed it a little and had been lucky, and had a one-and-a-half-metre birdie chance. He missed the birdie putt, “the easiest he could have on that hole”, and suddenly everything changed. He hit a poor tee shot at 5, the second wasn’t good either and he finished with a bogey. A halt and the possibility of a great moving day, consigned into limbo.
Nothing is coming together for Jon at this Masters and for the first time in his career he finds himself in limbo, yes, like his moving day, a place he had never been. It’s not easy at all to hear the lion of Barrika admit he doesn’t know what’s happening. That’s not like him. On the contrary, if Jon is known for anything it’s for projecting confidence and conviction about what he’s doing and what’s happening. Not this week. It’s a different feeling and that’s how he’s conveyed it.
“I don’t know what’s happening. I also don’t think the swing is bad. I don’t know. To be honest I couldn’t say. I’m quite frustrated overall. I don’t know if it’s the swing, I don’t know if it’s the process, I don’t know if it’s… I’ll have to think about it later, when I eat something, because I’m a bit… not lost, but yes frustrated. Frustrated because I don’t feel like I’m playing so badly as to be hitting it the way I am. And there have been some very bad shots”, he said bluntly.
Jon referred to the shot at hole 5, the second shot at 8, the second shot at 11, the tee shot at 14, the tee shot at 13, the one at 18… Many. Too many. It’s not normal. The Biscayan golfer acknowledged that even in the practice days the feel hadn’t been good. By the way, on hole 11 he commented that the ball had a bit of mud after his tee shot, bad luck, especially with such dry conditions, although it is also a demonstration of how the irrigation is working this week. Later, at 14 the ball ended up inside a tree and he had to hit as best he could between low branches to get it out about 20 metres. He couldn’t even drop it because it would have ended up in a hedge.
In short, nothing is going Jon’s way this week. He’s trailing. The icing on this poisoned cake is his performance on the par 5s. In three days, twelve holes, he has a cumulative par score, far from what a tournament like Augusta requires. He has made a double bogey and two birdies, the second today at 15, his best hole of the day, putting for eagle from about seven metres.
Now it’s a matter of finding a way out of limbo, the muddle, the gibberish his golf is in right now, at least this week at the Masters de Augusta.
