Jon Rahm survived a day of pure mayhem Sunday and became the world’s No. 1 player despite a series of back nine disasters at The Memorial.
The 25-year-old Rahm became the first Spanish golfer since Seve Ballesteros to claim the top spot in the golf world. He won Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament but not in a manner he might have envisioned.
Rahm started the afternoon at Muirfield Village with a four shot lead over Ryan Palmer and the course playing as difficult as a U.S. Open setup. Rahm parred his first four holes and was in the fairway at the par five fifth when inclement weather halted play. After nearly an hour, played resumed and Rahm immediately birdied the fifth. That increased his lead over Palmer to five shots and Rahm was looking quite comfortable.
He stretched that advantage to a whopping eight shots at the turn. He shot two-under par on a course that was mangling the rest of the field. His 34 got him to 14-under to Palmer’s six-under as Palmer’s 38 seemingly left him struggling for second.
“He understands what he has to do and he’s doing it — it’s fantastic,” said host Jack Nicklaus as he watched Rahm build what looked like an insurmountable lead.
But then the mayhem began.
Rahm missed the fairway at 10, was forced to lay up and made his first bogey of the day. No worries, he still had a seven shot lead. But at the 11th things got more serious when his tee shot sailed into the creek in the left rough. Rahm slammed his driver on the tee then proceeded to make double-bogey seven. The seven-shot lead was now down to five.
Palmer birdied the par three 12th and cut the lead to four shots. He had carved four off Rahm’s lead in just three holes.
More mayhem arose at 14 where Rahm missed a five-footer for par and saw his lead shrink to just three with four holes to play — could it be Justin Thomas all over again?
Both Rahm and Palmer parred the 15th, a gettable par five and they headed for the par three 16th — toughest par three on the PGA Tour this year.
Palmer pulled his tee shot but it cleared the bunker, barely, leaving him just 12 feet on the fringe from the difficult far left pin placement. Rahm’s shot sailed long, leaving him one very, very tough shot. He was staring at losing yet another stroke from his lead, possibly two.
More mayhem, but good mayhem for Rahm. From a tough lie, he grounded his club behind the ball, looked to his line, made his swing and watched the ball barely land on the green then head for the hole. It went in a-la Tiger Woods back in 2012. Rahm rejoiced with a huge fist pump then got a low-five from Palmer. The birdie moved him to 11-under — four shots better than Palmer with two to play.
More mayhem. The television cameras, on a close-up replay of Rahm’s shot, showed that his ball moved, just barely, when he grounded his club behind the ball in the thick grass. It was played over and over on the CBS broadcast and cast an air of uncertainty over Rahm’s amazing two — a shot Nicklaus called “fantastic.”
Rahm played 17 and 18 with a five-shot advantage over Palmer. He was 11-under, one-over for the day. Palmer was at six-under with a firm grasp on second. Rahm finished par-par to Palmer’s bogey-par. Seventy-three for Rahm, Seventy-four for Palmer. Rahm finished at 11-under, Palmer six-under. Or so it seemed.
CBS interviewer Amanda Balionis was the first to tell Rahm of the possible rules violation. Rahm grew wide-eyed but realized it wouldn’t matter, given his five-shot victory margin.
“I did not see or feel anything,” Rahm said when informed that cameras showed the ball moved from its original position. “If it did, it’s not going to take anything away from the shot. It was exactly what I needed. It was unbelievable for that to go in.”
Rahm was right, it wouldn’t take anything away from him but two shots and a nine-under winning total versus 11 and a closing 75 instead of 73.
He will still be the number one player in the world this week. He still got a winner’s fist-bump from both Jack and Barbara Nicklaus.
“It might hit me in a couple of days or a couple of weeks,” Rahm said of his win and ascent to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings.
What he will remember is that he came through the mayhem of The Memorial and that he’s followed in the footsteps of his idol, Seve Ballesteros, all the way from the No. 1 amateur in the world back in 2016 to the No. 1 professional in July of 2020.
10 Comments
Neunan
Thought they discontinued using high def video to call penalties on players? Have the broadcasters become the new viewers calling in penalties? This is like Anna Nordqvist moving 3 grains of sand in that bunker!
Tom Edrington
True, Brandel Chamblee agrees, it should be the “naked eye” test, Rahm wasn’t aware but unfortunately, modern technology provides those closeups and once on the air, well the Genie is out of the bottle….
baxter cepeda
The tour actually pointed out the situation to television, which may be history for pga tour officials actually catching a penalty in their own nationally televised coverage. So congrats to them on that.
While it sucks to penalize for barely doing something, the best thing for the sport is to penalize that.
This new the gray area of interpretation is fallacious to say the least, and Rahms penalty proves it.
Rahm, as he said, should get the penalty because the ball moved. But the fact some players could be forgiven for similar infractions despite clear video evidence — because of this bs rule against clear video evidence — is just ridiculous and sure to cause problems from inconsistent interpretations. This new rule actually took a lot longer to become an issue than I thought, but here it is. I think it’s only the beginning. But kudos to the tour for making the right call, as easy as the situation may have been to make it. It did come way too late after the fact. Regardless of the situation and even if the player doesn’t want to know, the player should be notified immediately. That alone makes it look like officials are deciding what to do based on the final result. Even the usga had the guts to eventually walk up to DJ on the course and say something.
I am incredibly impressed with Rahms behavior of sorts, except for that smashed driver on 10 Sunday. But otherwise he has come a really long way, and as we can see Change for the better can also help on the wins column, at least not hurt.
We know who should take note of Rahm.
Tom Edrington
Thanks Baxter, actually Jon slammed his driver on 11 tee because he knew it was headed for the creek.
Jackg34
If it takes several viewings of a close-up in slow motion to determine that the ball may have moved a tiny bit, the ruling should be there is no violation. It would not have been a violation when Jack or Arnold or Sam played and should not be today. If someone wants that, then every shot by every player needs to be caught on camera and examined in the same way. When are we going to get past something like this?
Tom Edrington
Jack: Your point is a valid one….Jon will now be aware of how easy it is to cause a ball to move when it’s in a nest, he got awful close to it and that’s why it moved and it did move….your point is good, there were probably a bunch of instances where the same thing happened to guys who were shooting 77, 78, 79, 80 or higher but there was no camera on them at all……
baxter cepeda
Again it’s frustrating, but the ball moved. As Tom said your points are valid.
But When you are in the final group, these issues are more likely to come up. Unless they change the rule to say a ball can move like that, the ball moved. The tour caught it themselves and informed the television people. even Rahm agreed.
Again the bigger issue is some weeks rules official will interpret this completely different and not penalize the player either because of the tech rule or whatever. Clearly This rule is very open for interpretation now, which is a big problem moving forward.
TomD
To avoid controversy, the ‘naked eye’ rule was established. The slow-motion, high definition, close-up camera view on its own is not allowed to establish a violation. Therefore, the PGA Tour violated its own rule.
Tom Edrington
We’re addressing that as I read this, check for the new post on PGA Tour News, not sure it’s a hard-fast “rule” rather than a “guideline”….the Tour operates under the Rules Of Golf as established by the USGA and the R&A.
baxter cepeda
As Tom said, these are not the pga tours rules. The usga and rna make them. The new rules have more problems than the old. And it really wasn’t simplified much to begin with, if anything made more complicated because people whom knew the rules now are no longer so sure of things.