Of all the successes of Spanish athletes abroad, few are more buried than those of Jon Rahm, the golfer from Bilbao, champion of the last US Open and number one in the world for the last thirty-one weeks in the full splendor of American golf. The merit is enormous. It is true that golf is not as well-known a sport in Spain as tennis or cycling - football or basketball, we are not even talking anymore - but it continues to surprise how Rahm's feat goes unnoticed.
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To put into perspective the merit of his 38 (cumulative) weeks as number one in the world, suffice it to say that only eleven players have more weeks at the top since the ranking began (1986). If he lasts another thirty-three weeks, he will reach neither more nor less than the legendary Severiano Ballesteros... although it is fair to say that a good part of Seve's best golf was seen before 1986. In any case, it is strange that there is not more hype to Rahm when it was given at the time to figure skating or badminton champions, disciplines much more unknown in media terms than golf.
How has Rahm managed to remain the best in the world since July 18 if he has only won a "major" along the way? With amazing regularity. The problem that the Basque has, and it must be recognized, is that he does not earn much. Throughout his career, he has won twelve tournaments, which, of course, many would already sign him, but they fall short if we take into account that he competes for victory in almost every championship he disputes, something tremendously unlikely in a world of ups and downs like golf.
If we discount the Spanish adventure last October, when the necessary public relations exercise left us with a tired and unfocused golfer on the course, Rahm has finished in the top ten in six of the ten tournaments on the American circuit played since his retirement from the Memorial , when he was just one lap away from victory and a positive for coronavirus was crossed. In two of the other four, he finished in the top ten. Since May 2019 - almost three years - he has only missed the cut three times on the PGA. For those who are not very used to sport, simply say that it is outrageous.
Of all the successes of Spanish athletes abroad, few are more buried than those of Jon Rahm, the golfer from Bilbao, champion of the last US Open and number one in the world for the last thirty-one weeks in the full splendor of American golf. The merit is enormous. It is true that golf is not as well-known a sport in Spain as tennis or cycling - football or basketball, we are not even talking anymore - but it continues to surprise how Rahm's feat goes unnoticed.
To put into perspective the merit of his 38 (cumulative) weeks as number one in the world, suffice it to say that only eleven players have more weeks at the top since the ranking began (1986). If he lasts another thirty-three weeks, he will reach neither more nor less than the legendary Severiano Ballesteros... although it is fair to say that a good part of Seve's best golf was seen before 1986. In any case, it is strange that there is not more hype to Rahm when it was given at the time to figure skating or badminton champions, disciplines much more unknown in media terms than golf.
How has Rahm managed to remain the best in the world since July 18 if he has only won a "major" along the way? With amazing regularity. The problem that the Basque has, and it must be recognized, is that he does not earn much. Throughout his career, he has won twelve tournaments, which, of course, many would already sign him, but they fall short if we take into account that he competes for victory in almost every championship he disputes, something tremendously unlikely in a world of ups and downs like golf.
If we discount the Spanish adventure last October, when the necessary public relations exercise left us with a tired and unfocused golfer on the course, Rahm has finished in the top ten in six of the ten tournaments on the American circuit played since his retirement from the Memorial , when he was just one lap away from victory and a positive for coronavirus was crossed. In two of the other four, he finished in the top ten. Since May 2019 - almost three years - he has only missed the cut three times on the PGA. For those who are not very used to sport, simply say that it is outrageous.
All in all, this is not Rahm's most spectacular data nor the one that best reflects his regularity. Since July 20, the first day of the British Open, the Basque has not done a lap above par. We are talking, I insist, about the American circuit, which is where he usually plays because he trained as a golfer there, at Arizona State University. Not a single lap over par. Not a single bad day in the United States - in Valderrama he did have a couple of horrible ones - in seven months, practically the ones he has been number one. And, in fact, that British Open finished him third, so he knew how to recover perfectly.
There are already 33 consecutive rounds without raising the par of the field. Of course, he tops the list of active players, just ahead of 2022 sensation Patrick Bentley. The third, Si Woo Kim, has already 21. And the fourth, surprisingly, is Sergio García, with 19. It must be remembered that, in the midst of all this, there is the Ryder Cup that the two Spaniards scored, which, being in match-play mode it does not count for these statistics. The outright record is, of course, held by Tiger Woods with 52, set in 2001, but Rahm is five rounds away from equaling Fred Funk's second place.
Ahead of him, in the next two months, he has the prestigious Genesis Invitational, the even more prestigious The Players Championships, considered by many to be the fifth big one, and the Dell Technology, also in the Match Play mode. All of this won't make much sense if we don't see a rare version of Rahm in the Augusta field starting April 7th. If tennis measures its champions by big wins, golf is even more extreme in that sense and Rahm knows it. Augusta, where Seve and Olazábal won twice and where Sergio García prevailed in 2017, is a course that the Basque is good at: he has played the Masters five times... and on four he has finished among the four first.
What it lacks, as we said above, is to finish. Few people play from tee to green like Rahm. In fact, probably no one can compare. Now, the putter goes in streaks and spoils many turns. When the stars side with him and he manages to sink two or three long-distance decisive putts, Rahm is directly unapproachable. At 27 years old, he has a lot of golf ahead of him to fill his track record. We all want him to start as soon as possible.
