Jon Rahm finished in eleventh place in the Waste Management Phoenix Open, where he found himself fighting for the win on the last nine holes of the tournament, once again. Another big week for the Spanish golfer, although the final stretch wasn’t exactly what he had hoped for, and left him with a bit of a bad aftertaste in his mouth.
Rahm managed to play again in the star game on Sunday with Rickie Fowler and Chez Reavie. And that was even after the first three rounds weren’t exactly as smooth as silk. The golfer from Barrika showed an infinite amount of patience in the first round, when everything seemed to be going against him, including that incredible shot to the flag he made against Xander Schauffele which ended up eleven meters from the hole, when normally it would have landed right there.
Despite the difficulties, he shot a 67 to begin the climb up the rankings from the get-go. He also hung on tight in the second round, 68 shots, and finished with a stellar round on Saturday of 65 shots, enjoying himself, having finished the day with a magnificent sequence of birdies, which included one on the 16th hole, dolling out Rambo tapes among the crowd, wearing a Pat Tillman shirt, NFL hero from Arizona state.
The last round took a while to get going. He started off with a bogey, and it was an uphill battle from there. It’s true that in the first eleven holes, he always gave off the sensation that at any given moment, he was going to kick things into gear and work his way up to the victory. He wasn’t so far off. He saved a few magic pars, like on the 9th and the 11th, but he got stuck on the 12th and the 13th. He made a bogey on the first one and he couldn’t come through with a birdie on the second, a par 5 in which he had a great start, shooting to green in two.
From there on, Rahm refused to back down, he continued on the attack seeking out the leader, never giving up. But it didn’t turn out as he had hoped. On the 15th hole, the ball went to the water and he got a bogey, and ended up with a nice birdie on the 17th hole to finish just on the brink of the top ten.
It wasn’t the score he had strived for, but it doesn’t cancel out another great week of golf, fighting for the win up to the very end and proving that even when his game isn’t at its finest, it’s still enough to compete among the best.