It’s no secret that things didn’t go well for Jon Rahm in the first two Majors of the year. At the Masters, where he was defending his title, he finished far behind and at the PGA Championship he missed the cut, the first since 2019. It has been his worst sequence in majors since he chained two missed cuts at the PGA and US Open in 2018. At the end of the tournament in Valhalla, with very little hope of making it into the weekend, something that was confirmed hours later, the one from Barrika, without dramas but with forcefulness, explained that it was time to analyse what had happened, find out where the problem was hiding and look for solutions. In short, without hurry but he was getting down to work.
Rahm analysed what happened with his entire team and has made some adjustments. The most evident was seen this Monday, precisely in Pinehurst. The Spanish player, along with Phil Mickelson, was on the II course of the immense North Carolina club, home of the US Open, to start preparing for the tournament. He played 18 holes and studied in depth the strategy to follow with someone who knows the course very well as he was already there in 2014, the last edition that was played in that same scenario. Rahm, on the other hand, had not yet reached the elite.
In general terms, Jon has not been very fond of playing the courses the weeks before the Majors, among other things because he believes that the conditions can change a lot in a matter of days, whether it rains or not, because it is windy, hot, etc… Without going any further, he played Valhalla for the first time the same Monday prior to the start of the tournament.
It was a first contact to see lines from the tee and analyse, above all, the areas around the green, the recoveries, an area in which the Biscayan has not been particularly accurate in the last two Majors. It is valuable prior information, taken with more tranquillity, as practice rounds in the weeks of majors tend to be very long and complicated.
Does this mean that Jon is going to play much better in the US Open? Obviously, this is not cause-effect, but at least he approaches the tournament in a different way, with more information, and it is not exactly that he was caught off guard. From Arizona he went to Charlotte and from there he went back to Houston to play this week’s LIV tournament. We will see if this specific adjustment helps Rahm to regain his best level in the Majors.
By the way, Tiger Woods has done the same as Rahm and Mickelson, although a day later. He was inspecting the terrain in Pinehurst first hand this Tuesday. The drums of the Major are already sounding. The third of the season is just around the corner.
