Jon Rahm will compete in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open this Thursday hosted by Rory McIlroy, European Tour tournament part of the Rolex Series, held on the Strand Course at the Portstewart Golf Club in Northern Ireland.
Two weeks in a row of competition in Europe for Rahm, after having made a remarkable top ten in the Open de France just three days ago. Now, he’ll start training specifically for the Royal Birkdale Open Championship held in two weeks. And the Irish Open will be hosted by a pure links course just at the foot of the Atlantic Ocean.
Rahm is a fanatic of the links, although at the same time he openly admits that he still needs to uncover some of the secrets of these types of courses in order to get a better score. He’s eager to have a good performance on the links and willing to take all the tips he can get. In other words, he’s on a mission.
It’s not Rahm’s first appearance in Portstewart. The young golfer from Barrika has already played on the course in the 2014 British Amateur. That tournament was held over two days (stroke phase play) on the Portrush and Portstewart courses. Jon played the first day on Portstewart and shot a 75, with three birdies, five bogeys and a double bogey.
It wasn’t the best experience in the world, although he knew how to keep his composure to make it to match play after shooting a 69 in Portrush. Be that as it may, as Jon says himself, his game from three years ago to now is like night and day.
Rahm will have a high stakes first couples of rounds in the Irish Open. He’ll play with Rory McIlroy and Hideki Matsuyama on Thursday and Friday, first day in the first session of the afternoon and the second day in the morning session. Keep in mind that the last two times he played with Matsuyama the first two rounds in a tournament, he missed the cut. It’s time to heal old wounds.