Sometimes the best player wins, sometimes he doesn’t. Life on the PGA Tour is like that and Sunday at the Stadium Course was no different.
It was basically Jon Rahm vs. about a half-dozen contenders at the CareerBuilder Challenge, he started his day a shot back of 54-hole leader Austin Cook and anyone who knows anything about golf totally expected Rahm to come out of it all with his second PGA Tour victory.
He did but how it all came down was so very unexpected.
And it took more than 18 holes for the winner to emerge.
The man they call Rahm-bo came into the week as the world’s third-ranked player, found himself tied at 22-under par with the world’s 184th ranked player — Andrew Landry. Landry holed a clutch 11-footer on the 72nd hole to earn a playoff with Rahm. Rahm closed with 67, Landry 68.
The two went at it hard, taking turns missing putts that would have delivered victory. Rahm missed a would-be winner from nine feet on the first trip down the par four 18th. he then watched as Landry looked to put it away from eight feet the second time on the hole but his effort was weak and the birdie putt fell off to the low side. Both made regulation pars at the 10th then made their way back to the 18th with darkness ready to end the playoff and force a Monday showdown if no one won.
“Once we got back to 18 , I was really aware that it was going to be probably the last hole that we were going to play today,” Rahm said, “and I did not want to come back the next day and play it.”
Rahm stuffed his approach from the right light rough to 12 feet while Landry was a foot inside him. Finally Rahm found the bottom of the cup then watched nervously as Landry’s effort ran past the hole.
Say hello to the new world’s No. 2.
“You dream of doing those things, you want to do them, you believe in yourself,” said Rahm, who will pass Jordan Spieth this week when the Official World Golf Rankings come out ,“but to get to where only Seve (Ballesteros), Ollie (Jose Maria Olazabal) and Sergio (Garcia) have gotten, coming out of Spain, and now me, at the age of 23, to me it’s beyond belief.”
“To be No. 2 ahead of Jordan, he’s a three-time major champion — it’s unbelievable.”
Despite the shot at his first victory, Landry was upbeat about his week and should have been, considering he made only one bogey out of the 76 holes he played.
“I’ve been playing well all year, had a great season last year and I’m rolling it over right into this, into the fall and now starting the year out,” he said after scoring his third top 10 this season. “So second place finish, we’ll take it and move on next week.”
