Jon Rahm finished on the brink of the top ten in the Open Championship at Royal Portrush and, in reality, he couldn’t have created the opportunity to fight for the win on Sunday.
A double bogey right off the bat, and most of all, an outstanding performance by Shane Lowry, tournament champion, meant that he, along with the rest of the golfers, didn’t stand a chance.
In any event, it was a positive week for Jon. He finished with three rounds under par on a very demanding links course, and he only lost the battle on Sunday in very extreme playing conditions in which, without butting heads too much with the course, he was able to hang in there quite well. In fact, Jon himself acknowledged that he had never played on such a turbulent day as far as wind and rain.
Thus, his eleventh place in the Open is another step forward, seeing as how it’s his best score yet in the British, and it proves that he’s prepared to take things to the next level. His stats in the Majors this year are very good. Apart from the missed cut in the PGA Championship at Bethpage, Jon came in ninth in the Masters, third in the US Open and eleventh in the Open. In his last eight ‘Majors’, he’s made four top tens and has placed five times within the top eleven.