Jon Rahm will play in the AT&T Bryon Nelson this week, PGA Tour tournament. It’s his first time participating in this tournament, held on TPC Craig Ranch course in Texas, also making its debut, as it is the first time it will be hosting this event.
Rahm will be going into the tournament with the always strange sensation of having missed the cut last week in the Wells Fargo Championship. And we say it’s strange because it has occurred very few times in his career. It’s important not to lose sight of these statistics. In the 118 tournaments valid for the world ranking that he has played up to this point in his career, he’s only missed the cut on 13 occasions. Just over 10 percent. In the past two years, he’s only missed the opportunity to play over the weekend four times. It’s very few and far between, and speaks to the Basque golfer’s consistency.
That being said, this week in Texas, it’s time to put last week behind him and, above all, to continue to fine tune his game and get back into the rhythm of competition before the PGA Championship, held next week on the Kiawah Island course in South Carolina. Precisely, in that sense, it comes to light that Jon will prepare for this Major in a very unhabitual way in his career. It will be the second time in five years that he’ll play in a Major in the third consecutive week of competition, in other words, the same as going into one of the four biggest events of the year on the PGA Tour calendar after having competed the two previous weeks. The only other time he’s done this was in the Masters at Augusta in 2017.
Rahm explained his decision. He assures that his body is more rested than in previous years, because throughout all last winter, he played in less tournaments than normal, and didn’t have a very stressful agenda this past spring either. In fact, he affirmed that before the Wells Fargo, he hadn’t picked up a club in eight days, and it’s possible that it could have taken a toll on him during the first round of the Quail Hollow.
Thus, Jon feels that he needs more competition before the PGA, and that’s the reasoning behind playing this week in the Byron Nelson, one of the most traditional events on the PGA Tour calendar. Additionally, he’ll be receiving a very special visit. It will be Kepa’s first live tournament, the youngest of the family. Motivation for Rahm is at an all time high.