Twelve tournaments. It only took Jon Rahm twelve tournaments to take home his first trophy as champion of the PGA Tour. The golfer from Barrika started to make history in world golf yesterday with an extraordinary victory in the Farmers Insurance Open.
A stratospheric final round of 65 shots, with two eagles on the last six holes, opened the doors to the golf Olympus at just 22 years old. Rahm is now the fourth Spanish golfer in history to win in the American tour. And that is among some of the most legendary Spanish golfers: Severiano Ballesteros, José María Olazábal and Sergio García.
Rahm pulled off a sensational win, with the best round on Sunday and matching the best results of the week made by Justin Rose. However, the British golfer got that score on the North course, considerably more accessible than the South. Jon took the lead with a fantastic eagle on the 18th hole. Not so much because of the distance, which was more than respectable, but more so because of the putt itself. It was a downward slope with various areas that dropped off. The ball had to be hit with a certain type of finesse, but at the same time with conviction. It was the perfect putt. Astonishing. Of those which go down in the books for the history of the tournament.
It’s even more incredulous if we keep in mind that when Rahm played the 18th hole, there was still a lot of game left to play. In other words, he didn’t know what he had to get to win and had to go all in on every hole. He didn’t hold back one bit. He celebrated landing the putt for the eagle as champion, but still had to proceed with certain caution until the rest finished. It was almost an hour of an anxious, exciting and celebratory wait.
Rahm has achieved a lot with this victory. He is now among the top fifty in the world ranking and has earned a fixed spot in the Masters at Augusta. It will be the third major of his career, the second as a professional. And he managed to win at one of the PGA Tour sanctuaries, Torrey Pines, quite possibly Tiger Woods’s favorite place and where the best players in history have won. But it’s always been sort of forbidden grounds for non-American players. The only foreigners who have won there were José María Olazábal, Gary Player, Jason Day and now Rahm. A spectacular lineup. And the legend is only just beginning.