Heading into Wednesday’s start of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club in the Lone Star State, world No. 1 Jon Rahm has gone three PGA Tour starts without recording a top-10 finish.
The last time that happened? The Tour was coming out of its COVID-19, 13-week hibernation. In fact, since turning pro in 2015, the Spaniard hasn’t registered a top-10 result in three to five consecutive starts on the Tour just six times.
So Rahm is hardly worried when asked about his current form. In fact, he gets a touch irritated, especially if you bring up his putting.
“I’m kind of getting tired of answering the same question every single week,” Rahm said. “When you’re No. 1 off the tee and top 10 in strokes gained approach, my putting stats are not going to be top 20. It’s absolutely impossible unless I’m winning every single week by eight. Kind of how it goes.”
While the reigning U.S. Open champion ranks No. 1 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, No. 1 in Greens in Regulation (75.74 percent); and No. 4 in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, he’s No. 139 in SG: Putting.
“Is it as good as it could be? No, but I think it shows in the stats worse than it actually feels just because I’m hitting so many greens and hitting it so good,” Rahm said. “Again, I feel like I’ve said it a few times. It’s not as bad as it looks. It feels a lot better than it looks.
“Maybe I haven’t gotten the results yet, but I’m not worried about it.”
Why should he be? The last time he went three starts without a top 10 he won the Memorial in his next start. And he loves match play.
In 2020, he teamed with Ryan Palmer to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans featuring Foursome and Four-Ball play. In the Ryder Cup, he’s 4-3-1 in two contests, including a singles win over Tiger Woods in 2018.
And in four starts in the Dell Technologies Match Play, he lost in the final to Dustin Johnson in 2017 and lost to Scottie Scheffler in the quarterfinals in 2021.
“It’s a tournament I always look forward to,” Rahm said. “It’s a nice break in the thick of the season. When things are starting to get a little bit more intense, to have an event in which it’s match play, it’s fun, it’s a lot more exciting, at least for me.
“A little bit different vibe, where you can just play one-on-one golf and just take care of the guy in front of you instead of a four-day grind.”
Rahm, the No. 1 seed in the tournament, has to get through former U.S. Ryder Cup hero Patrick Reed, Cameron Young and Sebastian Munoz in pool play the first three days of the tournament. After that, the field, which features seven of the top-10 players in the world, including No. 2 Collin Morikawa, No. 3 Viktor Hovland, No. 4 Patrick Cantlay and No. 5 Scheffler, is whittled down to 16 players who will begin single-elimination play on Saturday.
His approach to match play is simple: never give up. Example No. 1: In the 2017 final, Rahm lost five of the first six holes to Johnson and was 4 down with six holes to play. But he won holes 13, 15 and 16 but Johnson held on.
“I know it sounds so cliche, but if you’re 5 down, six holes to play, try to win all six,” Rahm said. “It’s never over until it’s over, and momentum is a massive thing. One swing can change it all, and it can happen. You don’t need to play perfect.
“You don’t need to do anything special; you just need to play golf and beat the man in front of you. If you just keep that mindset of being aggressive and just fighting for every shot, you should probably do fine in match play.”
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