Before hitting a few balls in the range [campo de prácticas]to refine or reaffirm its swing For the weekend’s tournament, Jon Rahm came to the Valderrama Media Center to meet the media. Smiling, natural and friendly, he accepted a photo session with the Spanish jersey for the Olympic Games – he will participate with David Puig – and then took the microphone, happy, he said, to be in Valderrama. “Whenever I come and arrive at the tee English:from the 1st and I see how beautiful it is… I am excited and I am sorry that I did not play better on this course on other occasions,” said the player, eager to return to the path of triumph, since it has been 468 days since he lifted a trophy, then the green jacket of the Masters of Augusta. He may achieve it in the LIV Andalucía in Valderrama, because he feels like a child with new trainers, a rejuvenated Rahm who even goes around with his hair cut in a Mohawk style even though it is not covered by the cap, always on his head.
I’m sure you don’t have, in any case, the same nerves as on November 13, 2014, when around 8 in the morning, the speaker announced his name for the first time on the PGA Tour. Isolated applause from the relatives who accompanied him to Mayakoba (Mexico), much silence during the round because he was still anonymous, an amateur player, and his breakthrough was yet to come. Although at that time his character played tricks on him at times, irascible when the ball did not pay attention to him or, simply, he did not win because he knew he was one of the best as he demonstrated over time because in addition to the two big (he won the US Open in 2021) won nine PGA Tour tournaments and eight others on the DP World Tour. Ten years later he returned to Mayakoba but no longer wore his sponsors in polo – Banco Santander, Mercedes Benz or Blue Yonder -, only dressed in a pink lion because he was making his debut in the LIV as captain of his team, the Legion XIII. Now it’s Valderrama’s turn after playing in Nashville – he finished third – and being left out of the US Open before it started due to a foot infection.
Maybe I could have forced myself to play the majorbut he knew he wouldn’t be able to distill a good version of himself, and the doctors advised him to rest and air out his foot. “If you don’t play to win, you don’t play. It’s your flaw“I am not very happy with how I started, but you can have a good year and not win, and vice versa. Golf is so complicated that you can’t just sum it up by winning or not winning,” Rahm concluded. “I have spoiled you by playing very well at the beginning of the year and now I will do it at the end,” he added with conviction, because he considers that his golf is being good – except for the two weeks in which he played the majors, 45th in Augusta and without making the cut at the PGA Championship (first time in a major since 2019) – as evidenced by his second place in the LIV general classification (only with Niemann ahead of him), almost always in the top-10. There is no shortage of mental work.
He has been seeing a sports psychologist for years, sessions that help him focus and that have intensified in the last six months due to the change from the PGA to the LIV, because his decision raised a storm – “some players don’t look me in the face,” he confessed – and because he has had a lot of pressure from the American circuit, immersed in turmoil because the much-touted agreement with the Saudis has not been finalised. Those close to him explain, in any case, that it is something that could happen because it is not easy to assimilate all the changes, that the important thing is to remain calm and understand the nature of this sport. “I am not playing badly, 6th or 7th during the year. I am confident and in a moment everything can change. Mentally there are certain challenges because there have been changes; “I have to get used to certain things, but I am comfortable,” reflected Rahm, who denied that the differences between the PGA and the LIV have affected him, playing with background music, only three days and not a quarter, without a break… “The mental part is as important or more than the rest of the game. No one will ever talk about a sportsman who wins having poor mental strength. The good ones are well established,” he stressed. And he understands that Valderrama is the perfect occasion.
“This week I have felt a lot of joy, I come with that childish enthusiasm. Because of the change in my career, I come with much more energy, I am like a child. It is as if I were coming for the first time and I want to do well in front of the public because there is nothing more fun than doing well in front of your own people,” he said. He knows that just around the corner is The Open, another major, and then the Olympic Games. “With all due respect, a major is always superior to the rest. That claret jug and joining Severiano Ballesteros, being the first Spaniard to win three different majors…” said Rahm, a walking bible of golf, lucky or right because he won the Masters and, unlike many in the LIV, has a ticket to the majors until 2027. But that’s still the end of the road, and Rahm, rejuvenated, wants to win again.
A training measured to the letter
When they crossed paths in one of the corridors of the Valderrama club, Rahm pretended to punch DeChambeau in the stomach, shared laughter and a brief greeting because they were piling up commitments with the media and with the organizers, the two great stars of the circuit with permission from Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson. At that time, almost all the players were crowded on the practice field, even though the heat was not hitting hard. But DeChambeau and Rahm appeared later, alone on the course. range with their teams. The Spaniard, in any case, had something else on the table, a session measured to the detail.
It’s not that Rahm hit many shots in the half hour he was practicing – always from the club with the most open face to the most closed to finish off the woods and the drive-, because after each impact he chatted relaxedly with his coach Dave Phillips and with another of his staff technician. But he also constantly consulted a pair of small devices that he placed around him, one to the side and one behind. They were two meters: Fullswingwhich breaks down the stroke into 16 club and ball data, as well as being able to review high-resolution videos of its swing; and Foresightwhich allows you to read exact data on ball flight, flight distance, total distance traveled, zenith height of trajectory, ball takeoff angle, horizontal angle of departure, the rate of rotation of the clubface at the impact zone… After the session, Rahm collected the equipment and put it in his bag. DeChambeau stayed a while longer.
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