It wasn’t the best week. No, no it wasn’t the dream debut in the WGC HSBC Champions for Jon Rahm. First visit to Shanghai, at the Shenzhen International, and more problems and difficulties with his game than pure enjoyment. Nevertheless, despite being at odds with the wind, despite the complications with his swing, Rahm still pulled it together enough to compete. Although he never really had a chance to fight for the win, he was battling it out for the top ten up until the last nine holes. And having made it that far with the stats he had from tee to green is quite noteworthy in itself.
Jon finished his first appearance in China with a score of PAR, after shooting a 72, 74, 69 and 73. He never quite managed to reign in his long game enough for a course like that, but he did what he could, and pushed his short game to the max, leaned on the putt and came back from difficult situations to stay afloat in the tournament. The stats say it all. He caught 24 out of 56 fairways, less than fifty percent, and 43 out of 72 greens, far from Jon’s usual standards. Friday was a tough day indeed. He practically couldn’t have even made one shot less. He caught two fairways and eight greens. One big headache.
Thus, Jon fought it out and with just nine holes to go, he was within arm’s length of the top ten, although he needed a grand finale to pull it off. That ending never came, and thus, he finished in 36th place, in tact, not having lost the battle against a course that didn’t exactly make things easy on him. Another learning experience under his belt as a professional golfer.
Jon will take a break for a few weeks now, and will be back in action in the DP Dubai World Tour Championship, the Race to Dubai Final, tournament which will mark the end to a passionate, enthralling, long and tremendously exciting season.