During his quarantine in Scottsdale, Arizona following his positive COVID test, Jon Rahm had a lot of time to mentally prepare for the US Open at Torrey Pines. After being forced to withdraw with a 6 stroke lead at the Memorial after his 3rd round wrapped up, few would have faulted Rahm if he didn’t have the greatest showing on Father’s Day weekend. After all, there are maybe only a handful of athletes in the history of sport who could claim to have seen a victory slip away in a similar fashion like Jon did at Muirfield.
Instead, Rahm dialed in his focus through meditation, and mindfulness exercises and posted a 69-70-72-67 scorecard, good for -6 on the weekend. His four under par Sunday catapulted him to the top of the leaderboard on a day where more golfers were shooting themselves out of contention than into it.
Defending champion Bryson DeChambeau had just such a day as he struggled mightily throughout his 4th round, winding up with a +6 for the day and finishing 9 back of the lead. Instead it was South African Louis Oosthuizen who kept the drama alive down the back nine, remaining within striking distance of the Spaniard until a bogey on 17 effectively ended his bid to force a playoff.
Despite his ability to seemingly always be in contention in every tournament, Rahm had thus far been unsuccessful in his bid to win one of golf’s four major tournaments. His best finish until today had been a tie for 4th at the 2018 PGA Championship. Rahm entered the US Open as the world’s number 3 ranked golfer behind Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas, though his victory today could propel him to the top spot once more.
With all the talk heading into Sunday’s final round surrounding the usual cast of Bryson, Rory, and Koepka, there was very little chatter regarding Rahm’s chances of claiming one of the most elusive trophies in golf. Rahm and his caddie followed the action closely from a tablet on the practice range as player after player finished up their rounds outside of striking distance. While the crowd tried to create a buzz as Oosthuizen paced out his approach shot from the fairway on 18 for Eagle, it was a foregone conclusion that Spain would be crowning its first US Open winner in the tournament’s 121 year history.
Oosthuizen would go on to card a birdie to finish with a 5 under score, but will likely be replaying the 17th in his head as a “what if” moment for the next few days. There aren’t many ways to spin Rahm’s forced withdrawal from the Memorial two weeks ago as a positive. That being said, I’m sure if you asked Rahm today if he’d suffer that setback to win the US Open 14 days later, he’d likely make that trade 100 times out of 100. Making things even sweeter for the 26 year old, is that this Sunday marks his first Father’s Day as a proud new dad to a 2 month old son.