Jon Rahm knows exactly what he’d do with the $15 million first prize if he were to win the Tour Championship on Sunday and the FedEx Cup riches that go to the victor.
“Save it and invest it responsibly, unlike any other 27-year-old ever said,” Rahm, 27, laughed. “I said it before, we get this question every time. I’ve been very fortunate that at my young age I make more money than I ever thought I could make. I’ve never done this for the money, but obviously, it’s an amazing bonus and even already I can already afford a great life for my family and the future of my family.
“If I haven’t bought anything extravagant yet, like, yeah, we live in a very nice house and we have some nice cars, but nothing out of the very ordinary, I can’t really think of it, nothing that would like surprise anybody or raise any eyebrows, to be honest, nothing that’s that special.”
Spoken like a man who already has banked more than $7 million this season, tops on the PGA Tour, and will surpass $35 million in career earnings even if he finishes dead last at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta this week. Rahm, the World No. 1, is playing to win, to maintain the No. 1 rank – there is a scenario where if Dustin Johnson shoots the low 72-hole aggregate, he can regain the title – and to stake his claim to PGA Tour Player of the Year.
Rahm enters the week No. 4 in the FedEx Cup point standings. Despite a Tour-leading 14 top-10 finishes, including his U.S. Open win, Rahm will begin the tournament at -6, a stroke behind Bryson DeChambeau, two behind Tony Finau and four behind polesetter Patrick Cantlay, who won the BMW Championship on Sunday in a six-hole playoff. Rahm has overcome two positive COVID-19 tests this season to have a phenomenal season, so what’s spotting a few strokes to three players in the field?
“This is a ball striker’s golf course and my ball striking has been very, very good, and I’m only four shots back, so it’s only a one-shot difference each day, and we all know that four shots can be gone very, very quickly,” Rahm said. “If I get off to a fast start tomorrow, on Thursday, it will be a good start, get a couple birdies on, and we won’t be too far away. So I’m confident in what can be done. Obviously Patrick has to worry about his own game, but I feel like I’m doing the right things and I’m giving myself a really good chance.”
Rahm, who finished a career-best fourth at last year’s Tour Championship, already has made it clear during the Northern Trust two weeks ago that he’s not sold on the FedEx Cup playoff system. He didn’t back down on his belief but chose his words very carefully in doing so.
“I like it much better than the last one in the sense of that you know where you’re standing and you know what you have to do. I’m not going to say too much because I know my words are going to be possibly, let’s say, muddled to the extreme and almost make it sound about something different than what I feel, but I’m not the biggest supporter of the full format itself. What I do like is the fact that you understand what’s going on and what’s going to happen and who is on the lead and what you have to do to win, but I don’t agree with every part of the format this week.”
In other words, Rahm may not like the format but he isn’t going to complain too loudly. That same philosophy when he gets a bad break or doesn’t hit a good shot may help explain Rahm’s rise to U.S. Open champion and golf’s new alpha male, according to Tour veteran Stewart Cink.
“I think that we don’t see the complaining anymore on the golf course. Maybe it’s because we don’t see much to complain about on the golf course either,” Cink said. “But we don’t see Jon emotionally giving away energy by complaining about a result, a lip out, a bad bounce, or something like that, and I think that’s a huge sign of maturity. I don’t know if somebody got ahold of him or he just understood himself, but he just is on full go. I mean, he’s just, he’s rocketed, his potential was always there and he really never had a rough patch, but, man, he’s just all systems go at the moment.”
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