Rahm takes the tourney, the season, the works

Writing from Bolingbrook, Illinois

Sunday, September 15, 2024

If there were moments over the first six months of the year when Jon Rahm regretted jumping from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf, those moments are long gone.

He’s battled back from a mid-season foot injury that kept him out of the U.S. Open to place seventh in the British Open, fifth at the Paris Olympics after being in medal contention late, and pile up top three finishes in the four of the last five LIV tournaments, capped by this finish: first in the United Kingdom, second at The Greenbrier, and, on a furnace-like Sunday, first at Bolingbrook Golf Club in the final individual LIV weekend of the season.

Those sterling results earned him the individual LIV season championship, and an additional $18 million on top of the $4 million for three days of labor here. In the age of silly money in golf, Rahm’s $34,754,821 this calendar year trails only Scottie Scheffler’s $53.2 million in PGA Tour earnings and bonuses. Nice work if you can get it.

But Rahm, who signed with LIV for a reported $300 million last December, didn’t talk about the money after scoring his three-stroke victory over Joaquin Niemann and Sergio Garcia. He spoke of the season’s struggle to find his form – even though he hasn’t been out of the top 10 in any LIV start this season – the ring that didn’t quite fit on any of his fingers, and the pressure of the day.

“It was definitely a stressful day, but that pressure (for the season title) was a privilege only two of us had,” he said, speaking of himself and Niemann, who would have taken the season title had he beaten Rahm this week. “That’s why I focused on winning the tournament. If I did that, everything would take care of itself.”

It did, as it turned out. His closing 4-under-par 66 for a 54-hole total of 11-under 199 outdistanced all comers, including Niemann and Garcia, who tied for second at 8-under 202 after final rounds of 66 and 68, respectively. They also finished second and third in the season standings. Niemann picked up $10 million for that, Garcia $4 million, his prize won by parring the last two holes to stay ahead of fast-closing Tyrrell Hatton, who closed with a 5-under 65 for 7-under 203.

Rahm’s form was there all week. On a course that featured hard greens and fairways where you needed ice skates in places, Rahm made only one bogey, on the 16th hole on Friday.

“Towards the back nine the wind picked up, it got difficult,” Rahm said. “I thought it played to my advantage because that made birdies more difficult, and I was hitting it so well that I felt like I could make pars and even give myself birdie chances. Little did I know that 11 through 13 was going to get a little iffy; a couple wind gusts, shots that I didn't feel like they were that bad and ended up in difficult situations. I made three great par saves, and off I went towards the end of the round.”

The clinching blow came at the par-4 17th. Leading Garcia and Niemann by two, Rahm rolled on a 15-foot left-to-right birdie putt to move to 11-under to the delight of many in the gallery of about 12,000.

“I knew I had to do something great, and I felt like I did,” Niemann said. “I played amazing golf. But yeah, I feel like to beat someone like Jon Rahm, you've got to do things better, and yeah, it's a good way to push myself. I want to be in that position. I want to keep improving. Yeah, it's a good way to show myself that I can be there, and just a few shots behind, which is pretty close.

“I'm pretty happy. I was telling my caddie that I don't feel any disappointment. I feel like I gave it everything that I had. It didn't feel like I gave a shot away the whole season. Yeah, that for me is a win.”

Garcia was of a like mind.

“Look, I fought hard, and I didn't feel as smooth as I've been feeling the last few weeks,” Garcia said. “I didn't feel bad, but I wasn't quite there most of the first day. Then I got better as the week went on. It was a good fight. Obviously I would have loved to get the W this week, and it would have been extra special. Still, Jon played great, and he also missed a couple of putts here and there that he usually doesn't miss. At the end of the day, I probably needed to shoot 6- or 7-under, and it's not that easy on this golf course the way it was playing.”

The ring, a typically-oversized deal with diamonds, gold plating and even a scannable QR code to watch highlights of his round online, reminded Rahm of another ring from his days at Arizona State.

“I have had a ring before for winning the Pac-12 championship, and that was special,” Rahm recalled. “For some reason, to think of the ring rather than a trophy, in a weird way it makes it a little bit more, maybe because I associate it to football and basketball and U.S. events. I feel like I'm that Americanized at this point.

“I feel like in a weird sense, you're part of a select group that get to have a championship ring, which is not a possibility in other sports. In itself, I think it's just being able to wear what it represents. I think seeing it firsthand right away as soon as we finished what this means is very special.”

Rahm earned the bauble by setting a target score the other contenders couldn’t match. Niemann opened with birdies on two of the first three holes, then stalled. Garcia rolled in an 18-foot birdie putt on the par-3 sixth to move to 7-under, a stroke back, but Rahm answered immediately with a 16-footer as Gacia watched a minute later to move to 9-under and all but close the door on his rivals.

Rahm completed the mythical Chicago Slam by adding the LIV title to the BMW Championship he won at Olympia Fields in 2020. He, like several notables before him – guys like Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Bryon Nelson – knows where the winner’s circle is around here.

“I have a pretty good track record in Chicago, so I'm always going to be happy to come back,” Rahm said. “I've played Olympia Fields twice, won once; played at Medinah, I think I finished top 5; played at Conway Farms, definitely top 10, I don't know if it was top 5 or not; and came here and won. Yeah, I would encourage to come back to Chicago because I definitely like coming here and playing golf in this city.”

Rahm has a great memory. He tied for fifth in the BMW at Conway Farms in 2017 and tied for fifth in the BMW at Medinah in 2019, along with the dramatic playoff win at Olympia in 2020, when he rolled in a 66-foot, 5-inch putt to beat Dustin Johnson on the first hole of sudden death.

In his mind, Rahm, who missed the U.S. Open with an injured foot, turned his season around with changing the shaft of his driver.

“There was a lot of weeks where I would make a good swing and the ball would start left and not cut,” Rahm said. “That was the issue. I thought it was my swing. Finally I talked to somebody at Callaway, and Adam and my swing coach Dave, and they all thought maybe we should reconsider a new driver shaft.”

Rahm traveled to Callaway in Carlsbad, Calif., and found the magic wand.

"The second I hit this one, it was instantly, okay, this is different, this is better,” Rahm said. “That's kind of where I got back to not manipulating the shot to make it fade and see the ball start on a certain line and trajectory. While I was compensating my swing to try to hit fairways, it was bleeding into the rest of my game.

“It was getting to a point where I was making other good swings and still feeling like they were good swings and they were going straight left, which is very unusual for me, and that slowly started to come back with that shaft, and that was -- Nashville I saw a big difference. Not perfect but a big difference, and that's when I thought towards the rest of the season, okay, this is more familiar territory, more to how I usually hit it. Almost not really thought it, but almost thought that it was basically a matter of time until I was going to give myself a good chance to win.”

Adding in the British Open and Paris Olympics, his finishes beginning at Nashville are 3-10-T7-T5-1-2-1. That’ll work.

“The driver is the best club in my bag,” Rahm beamed.

Just what the rest of the LIV field doesn’t want to hear.

The unkindest cut of all

The tournament within a tournament involved trying to lock in a spot for next year and avoiding getting bounced from the LIV roster in 2025. Among the six players losing their LIV card next year are Bubba Watson, a team captain who can appeal to retain his place, and Kalle Samooja, whose last four holes are a trail of tears: bogey, par, bogey, double-bogey.

The last dropped him out of the top 48, meaning he’ll probably be chasing status on the Asian Tour next year with an eye toward getting back on the LIV gravy train in 2026. Pat Perez appeared headed for a similar fate, but Samooja’s pratfall moved Perez back inside the favored circle.

Around Bolingbrook

The Crushers, captained by two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, took the team title and lead that championship going into next week’s match-play championship in Dallas, where they will defend their season crown. But DeChambeau spoke highly of Bolingbrook, calling it “close to a major-championship test. There were some shots just like a jumper in the U.S. Open would play. The greens that firm with the rough all around it, it was pretty difficult. I’d love to see s come back here and have more of this type of golf because I truly do love it.” … Bolingbrook reopens to the public on Wednesday, though the only tee times left are at 5:30 and 5:40 p.m., so players would only get a few holes in before sunset just before 7 p.m.

– Tim Cronin