Rahm has been among the best players in the world for years and looks to be one of the greats of his generation.
Jon Rahm, the 2021 U.S. Open champion, has grown up right in front of our eyes.
A former No. 1 player in the world, Rahm has been a mainstay on Tour since his debut in 2016. Affectionately known as “Rahmbo,” the Spaniard is known for his fiery passion and flair for the dramatic.
With more than a dozen professional wins and a major championship under his belt, Rahm has been among the best players in the world for years and looks to be one of the greats of his generation.
In November of 2023, prior to his 29th birthday, Rahm, an 11-time winner on the PGA Tour and the Player of the Year in 2021, was removed from the TGL social media posts and the league’s website.
The news sent social media into a frenzy with rumors and claims that Rahm may be the next player to join LIV Golf, especially after Phil Mickelson and LIV officials said at the recent team championship that new talent would make the jump to LIV in 2024. Rahm was, at one point, managed by Phil’s brother, Tim, and both Rahm and Lefty are managed by the same agency, Sportfive.
The 2023 Masters champion was adamant that he wanted LIV Golf’s Sergio Garcia to be involved in the recent Ryder Cup, but he has also been outspoken in his support for the Tour over the last year.
Check out some of the best photos of Rahm throughout his amateur and professional career:
SAN DIEGO – Louis Oosthuizen was the bridesmaid yet again.
The South African, who began the final round as one of three co-leaders, shot even-par 71 at Torrey Pines’ South Course to finish at 5-under 279, one stroke behind winner Jon Rahm at the 121st U.S. Open. It was his sixth runner-up in a major since winning the 2010 British Open nearly 11 years ago, and second straight having finished two strokes behind Phil Mickelson last month at the PGA Championship.
“Look, it’s frustrating. It’s disappointing. I’m playing good golf, but it’s not – winning a major is not just going to happen. You need to go out and play good golf,” he said. “I played good today, but I didn’t play good enough.”
The 38-year-old Oosthuizen opened with rounds of 67-71-70 and canned a 30-foot eagle at 18 on Saturday to share the 54-hole lead. A bogey at the fifth hole on Sunday dropped him out of the lead, but Oosthuizen never panicked.
“This golf course, there’s a lot of things that can go sideways quickly,” he said. “So, you need to keep focus and play well, and be calm.”
Birdies at Nos. 9 and 10 built a two-stroke lead for Oosthuizen, but that would be his last circle on the card until it was too late. He made a bogey at No. 11 and poured in clutch par putts at Nos. 12 and 13 as Rahm emerged as his chief competitor. His birdie-birdie finish wrapped up a 4-under 67 and the clubhouse lead at 6-under.
Oosthuizen’s fate was sealed at the par-4 17th when the fader of the ball pulled his tee shot into the canyon and had to take a penalty stroke, leading to a bogey.
Louis Oosthuizen reacts after yelling fore on his tee shot from the 14th tee during the final round of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines Golf Course. (Photo: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports)
“I knew it was a crucial hole for me to take it on and give myself a birdie opportunity. I didn’t pull it off, but standing on that tee again, I’ll probably do the same thing, taking a driver and taking the shot on,” he said. “I feel like I had my shots, I went for it, and that’s what you have to do to win majors. Sometimes it goes your way, and other times it doesn’t.”
Falling to 4 under meant Oosthuizen needed an eagle at 18 to tie Rahm and his tee shot nestled in the right rough, forcing a layup and a hole out to tie. Oosthuizen made birdie, but it wasn’t enough to stall the engraving of Rahm’s name on the U.S. Open trophy.
“I played good. Just fell a little short again,” Oosthuizen said. “It was Jon played a great round of golf, 4-under today on that golf course is a really good score. I could see early on what was happening with the leaderboard at the end and knew that I need to push at the end to do something.”
Bryson DeChambeau carded his first bogey-free round in a major on Saturday using a strategy that has already won him one U.S. Open.
SAN DIEGO – Bryson DeChambeau isn’t giving up possession of his title as reigning U.S. Open champion without a fight.
The winner of the national championship at New York’s Winged Foot Golf Club in September is proving that his bomb-and-gouge brand of golf works from coast to coast. In his 67th major-championship round, DeChambeau posted his first bogey-free round in a major on Saturday at Torrey Pines’ South Course.
DeChambeau carded a 3-under 68 to climb within two strokes of the lead at the 121st U.S. Open, and vault into a tie for fourth place with Rory McIlroy (67). Only Louis Oosthuizen (70), Russell Henley (71) and Mackenzie Hughes (67), who share the lead at 5-under 208, are ahead of him.
DeChambeau continued to bash driver on nearly every hole – leading the field in driving distance – and it didn’t seem to matter that he hit only five of 14 fairways in the third round as he led the field in greens in regulation.
“Normally, you would say that he has to do better than that tomorrow,” said NBC’s Paul Azinger. “But I’m not sure he does. He’s had a zillion chances for birdie today.”
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Fellow NBC commentator John Wood agreed: “I think half of the ones that he missed were tactical. I don’t think he was trying to hit the fairway on those.”
DeChambeau got away with missing the first fairway, hoisting an iron from the right fairway bunker that peppered the flag and he opened with birdie. He got his next birdie after crushing a drive at the 534-yard sixth hole and wedging to 6 feet. One hole later, his erratic driver cost him a stroke as he drove right into a penalty area, but he dropped on a hardpan lie and managed to save par with a brilliant recovery to 6 feet. He had to scramble for par at Nos. 14 and 18, too, and used his length to his advantage in making his last birdie of the day at the par-5 13th.
“That’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to be really patient out here at these majors. It’s something that is not easy to do,” he said. “My first few goes at majors, I was not successful or anywhere near successful, and I feel like I’m starting to understand major championship golf and how to play it and how to go about managing my game, my attitude and just my patience level. If I can continue to do that tomorrow, I think I’ll have a good chance.”
That’s what DeChambeau was hoping for after struggling to 73 on Thursday, but he claimed he found something in his swing while he was sleeping and has improved his score each day – shooting 69 and 68 since his swing tweak. He said he’ll be ready for whatever challenge the course presents.
“If they make it hard and tuck pins, it’s going to be a very difficult championship. It’s going to be hold on to your horses. If they make some of the pins accessible and move the tees up like they did (today), you’re going to have to go at it,” he explained. “You just have to recognize the golf course in the moment, in the conditions at hand because if there’s no wind tomorrow or if there’s a lot of wind, that’s going to change a lot of factors, too. It’s about adapting on the spot.”
On Moving Day at the 121st U.S. Open, DeChambeau was on the mark.
Phil Mickelson, who turned 51 the day before the first round, got off to an inauspicious start in the U.S. Open in his hometown.
SAN DIEGO – “Gosh, darn it, Phil.”
That was a common refrain uttered by Phil Mickelson during the first round of the 121st U.S. Open at Torrey Pines Golf Course.
One day after celebrating his 51st birthday, Mickelson got off to a sluggish start, shooting 4-over 75 in his bid to win the one major championship that has eluded him and would complete the career Grand Slam. The reigning PGA Championship winner battled hard but had a few too many loose shots that did him in.
“Two-over would have been a pretty good round and I ended up at 4,” Mickelson said, “so, I’m a little disappointed about that.”
After a 90-minute fog delay to the start of the round, the marine layer broke and sunshine bathed the fairways. Mickelson got off to an inauspicious start at No. 10, short-siding himself in the right greenside bunker after backing off his second shot to reset and his 10-foot par putt horseshoed out.
Mickelson was locked in last month at Kiawah Island en route to hoisting the Wanamaker Trophy and becoming the oldest major championship winner. That meant he didn’t require the special exemption that the USGA had extended to him and he already had accepted. His confidence was high and he spent the last two weeks at home prepping for a course where he’s won twice earlier in his career, but has struggled with ever since architect Rees Jones took a scalpel to one of Mickelson’s boyhood tracks. His former caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay, suggested that Mickelson would be riding a wave of momentum into this week with a chance to put an end to his unrequited love – a record six runner-ups in the U.S. Opens – with his national championship.
“I don’t care if they’re playing on the moon,” Mackay said, “he’s going to come in feeling very bulletproof.”
But Mickelson couldn’t find his major mojo on Thursday.
At the par-5 13th hole, Mickelson found the fairway and pulled a fairway wood, trying to launch one into a greenside bunker and avoid a wedge shot for his third from a layup zone that he’s always found tricky. But his state of Zen was interrupted, not once, not twice, but three times. He backed off the shot and asked for quiet. On the third occasion, with more than a tinge of anger in his voice, he said, “Seriously, can someone help him?”
Mickelson fanned his shot left into a bush and he had to take a penalty stroke for an unplayable lie and made his second bogey of the day.
“It’s the video ding. They just kept going off,” Mickelson said. “I don’t understand why you just can’t turn that little button on the side into silent. I probably didn’t deal with it internally as well as I could have or as well as I need to. It’s part of playing the game out here at this level. Certainly, I didn’t do the best job of dealing with it.”
Phil Mickelson talks with his caddie Tim Mickelson on the 14th tee during the first round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Torrey Pines Golf Course. (Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports)
Mickelson’s tee shot at 15 was another “gosh, darn it,” moment. He pushed this one into the spinach and could barely advance his second shot 100 yards en route to a third bogey in his first five holes.
“It was covered over the top,” said Mickelson, who chopped away with a 7-wood. “It glides rather than digs, and it just pops the ball up a lot quicker, even quicker than a wedge.”
He had a chance to right the ship late on the first nine. Mickelson wedged to 8 feet at the 17th and carded his lone birdie of the day, but he had a chance to make another at the par-5 18th. Unfortunately, he took three putts from 60 feet for a demoralizing par and turned in 2 over.
Still, Mickelson kept doling out thumbs up to his faithful fans, who serenaded him with happy birthday despite the fact that they were a day late.
“They wished him a happy birthday on just about every hole, every 50 yards,” Xander Schauffele said. “I don’t know if he enjoyed that, but I’m sure he felt the love from the fans.”
He also had the support of his biggest fans – parents Phil Sr. and Mary – who yelled to son Tim, on Phil’s bag, and gave him a thumbs up.
“We’re so happy to be out here. We weren’t sure it was going to work out with COVID. It’s so much more nerve-wracking to watch at home on TV,” she said. (Phil took care of the tickets for this week.)
Mary had watched her son win the PGA at home while texting with her only daughter, Tina, who posted this classic message from Momma Mickelson: “Tina, text Philip and tell him just to par in. Don’t hit bombs or activate calves. Just pars. They will have to catch him. He won’t listen to his mother.”
When his father was stopped by a journalist on the second hole and asked if he was enjoying watching his son play, Phil Sr. said, “I’m not seeing as many good shots as I want.”
He would have to witness a few more stinkers. Phil’s tee shot at the par-3, third hole drew yet another “gosh, darn it,” as he slapped his right leg for slapping his tee shot into the front-left greenside bunker. He saved par in typical Mickelson fashion and again at the fifth, after another “gosh, darn it,” tee shot sailed left.
Mickelson was avoiding big numbers and minimizing mistakes, but then he short-sided himself at the sixth and missed a curler on the right edge and made the most painful miscue of the day at 7, where he hammered a 25-foot birdie putt 6 feet past the hole and missed the comebacker.
“To let two bogeys slide on 6 and 7 when I really shouldn’t have – like they weren’t that hard of pars – you probably saw the disappointment there,” Mickelson said.
Images of golf equipment being used by players like Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
SAN DIEGO, Calif. — If the USGA wanted to play rough, it can stretch the par-71 South Course at Torrey Pines, site of this week’s U.S. Open, to a massive 7,652 yards. Two of the three par 5s, the 9th and 13th holes, are over 600 yards in length and there is thick, juicy rough surrounding the fairways and the green complexes.
From an equipment perspective, Torrey Pines in June presents challenges because golfers want distance to handle the course’s length, but they need accuracy to avoid the rough and to get approach shots close. They also need a dependable putter.
Here are some images of golf equipment spotted in the practice area this week at Torrey Pines.
The former World No. 1’s five-year U.S. Open exemption from winning the 2015 PGA Championship has run out.
Jason Day finds himself in an unfamiliar position.
The former World No. 1’s five-year U.S. Open exemption from winning the 2015 PGA Championship has run out and he’s slipped to No. 62 in the Official World Golf Ranking, which means he’s running out of time to climb inside the top 60 and receive an automatic invite.
Otherwise, he’ll have to join the great unwashed at one of several 36-hole sectional qualifying sites across the country. Except Day told members of the press via a pre-tournament Teams conference call ahead of the AT&T Byron Nelson that he wouldn’t attempt to qualify because of – wait for it – a previously scheduled commitment with NetJets.
“To be honest, if I don’t get in I’m not qualifying. I’ve got a scheduled event for NetJets that I’ve got on Monday after the Memorial, so I’m planning on doing that instead of going to qualify,” he explained. “I got to do it the other way around, which I got to play well or win a tournament in the next two weeks.”
It wasn’t that long ago that Day was one of the favorites to win the U.S. Open, and this year’s venue, Torrey Pines, is the site of two of his PGA Tour victories at the annual Farmers Insurance Open. Day, who outdueled Jordan Spieth at Whistling Straits for his lone major, sounded like a man who no longer was obsessed with winning the big ones. (Clearly, he scheduled the corporate day assuming he would be exempt, but one would think he’d try to re-schedule it to give himself one last chance at earning a spot at Torrey, no?)
When Day was asked to clarify if the majors were still important to him, he said, “I just feel like if I do it that way that in my mind my mindset will say, ‘Okay, it’s fine. You can just go qualify next year,’ and I’ll get used to qualifying instead of going, ‘No, I’m not going to qualify. I got to earn my way into that spot.’ ”
He continued: “It’s just that in my mind I’ve got to earn it. It’s like I never wanted to go and play Augusta before earning a spot there. I had plenty of opportunities, but I never wanted to go and play Augusta until I earned my spot, and I ended up earning it back in 2011.”
So, the pressure is on Day to perform and, so far this season, that hasn’t been a good thing for the 33-year-old Australian, who’s in the midst of a crisis of confidence.
“When you have no confidence in your game it’s just really difficult to even think about winning,” Day said.
He explained that at the start of the year his game felt lost. He’s battled a myriad of injuries and began working with instructor Chris Como to make swing changes to prevent injuries and hopefully extend his playing career.
“I was trying to change my swing and putting hadn’t been the same and I got too technical with the putting,” he said. “It’s crazy because I feel like in my good putting days I was the best putter in the world. For me, putting was the middle of my universe, the sun for me. To be able to not have that killed a lot of my confidence.”
As his world ranking plummeted, Day said he had trouble sleeping and stressed over his lackluster results.
“My big thing was I can’t fall outside of top 50. I can’t do that. If it’s not enjoyable for me, I may as well retire. I can’t play the way that I’m doing and beat my head against a wall essentially. But, then on the other hand I’m like, ‘No, you can’t quit. You got to keep pushing, stay persistent, stay positive, patient, keep moving forward, and it’ll come back.’ So right now I’m trying to do that.”
As if Day doesn’t have enough to stress about, he and wife Ellie are about to become parents for a fourth time. He knows he could get a call any day now and no matter how he’s doing in a tournament he will withdraw and head home to witness the birth.
“She’s full term on Friday, so, yeah, I’m on call waiting for her to – we have people staying with her obviously because she is not looking after three kids by herself, so we want to make sure that – I want to make sure that I can get back. That’s the biggest thing,” he said. “It might be a good little time away if the baby does come early or if the baby comes on time, you know, that I get to spend at home with Ellie and the newborn and obviously the family.”
Until then, Day said he’s begun to see some positives. He enters the Byron Nelson having missed the cut at his two previous starts, but he’s reunited with performance coach Jason Goldsmith, who previously worked with Day during his peak years, and he’s pushing on in his quest to qualify for the U.S. Open.
“Majors are very, very important,” he said. “They’re more important when I feel like my game is in a position to win. Right now I’m like feel like my game is in position to win if I get lucky. But that’s kind of before last week. What I’ve worked on this week, I don’t know how I’m going to play this week, but for the first time in a long time I feel really good about where my game is at.”
Confidence is knowing your best golf is still to come.
