Jon Rahm: A Masters Champion We All Saw Coming

65

Jon Rahm, who is now a Masters champion, remembered something special that happened nearly 10 years ago. When he opened a fortune cookie from a Chinese restaurant, it said “Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded.” After reading this message, Jon tweeted his coach and said “I am gonna win the masters!”

The Masters tournament was finally decided when a 28-year-old Spanish player hit his Wedge shot to within 3 feet of the hole, allowing him to secure an impressive four-shot victory over Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson – who is also the brother of his college coach.

Jon Rahm was trying all this time to take the lead on Friday, but he couldn’t until Brooks Koepka started having problems with his swings and putting. After 42 holes, Rahm got in first place and held on tight thanks to even more mistakes from Koepka. He had a “brawler mentality” which means that did whatever it took to win the fight. Everyone already knew he had this attitude before he began playing.

Before Jon Rahm even won his first tournament in 2016, Phil Mickelson believed he was one of the 10 best players in the world. Bill Haas also thought highly of Rahm after losing to him in 2017 at the Match Play semifinals, saying that Rahm was super determined and would be a great winner going forward.

Rahm’s victories in the Masters and U.S Open recently made him number 1 in the world over Scottie Scheffler even though Rahm won seven titles overall in the last year. Everyone could already predict Rahm’s success, because he tied for fifth at the Phoenix Open back in 2015, while he was just a college junior.

It took him four attempts in tournaments on the PGA Tour to get his professional licence. Since then, he has won every year and now has a total of 20 victories around the world. Beyond that, within four years after arriving at Arizona State University (ASU), he was able to graduate with a degree in communications even though he didn’t know much English upon arrival.

I work hard to compete with the best players in the world. That’s why I’m known as a fighter. I can’t be happy unless I try my best at every shot. At the green jacket presentation, Rahm told a funny story about how his Masters started.

The golfer, Rahm, has become friends with Arizona Cardinals tight end Zach Ertz. He was riding in a cart from the practice range to the putting green right before his first round when he saw that Ertz had sent him a text message. The text said something along the lines of “That first green is looking like an easy task” which turned out to be very wrong as Rahm ended up four-putting. Rahm jokingly thanked Zach and asked him never to send him anything like that again!

When it was his turn, instead of making a good start, the player ended up shooting a really bad score – two shots over par – right at the beginning. That hasn’t happened to any Masters tournament winner since Sam Snead in 1952.

Rahm scored a 65 to match Koepka’s score, but Rahm played in the morning. When he came back to Augusta National in the afternoon, the weather was really bad. The temperature had dropped significantly and it started raining with strong winds that made things even worse. It was so cold and wet that Rahm couldn’t hit the green with a 4-iron – which he would have normally used an 8-iron for on Thursday.

It was very cold when Rahm and Koepka resumed their third round of golf on Sunday morning. Despite this difficult condition, Rahm stayed close to winning the game. After someone suggested that he may have been unlucky with his turn of the draw, Rahm replied jokingly by saying “Do you think I THINK I’m unlucky?”.

He persevered through any obstacles thrown at him this Sunday. It didn’t matter how many shots behind he was or the bad weather, he kept fighting and refused to give up. His style isn’t necessarily pretty but his determination is why he’s become a successful winner.

When someone told him that he was the first European to win both The Masters and the U.S. Open, he was very surprised. Finally, the conversation went on to talking about a career Grand Slam.

He said we shouldn’t get too excited yet, because he still has to win two more tournaments – a PGA Championship and a British Open. But, he’s really good at golf so it’s possible for him to win them both! You can learn more about golf from the AP website or their Twitter page.