Rahm eager to coast it after setting up his camp in Portstewart
JON Rahm is hoping an accommodation switch can lead to a reversal of fortunes in The Open Championship at Royal Portrush.
Rahm stayed in Portrush when he won the Irish Open at nearby Portstewart two years ago but will make the opposite journey this week as he looks to improve on his poor record in the final Major of the year.
“Last time we stayed in Portrush, actually on Kerr Street, but this year it’s a little bit busier than two years ago,” the World No.8 said.
“I’m kind of switching it. We stayed in Portrush, playing in Portstewart. This year we’re staying in Portstewart (below), playing in Portrush.
“When we were here two years ago, we went to the Harbour Bistro six out of seven nights. I did go there on Sunday, but it was just too busy of an area. I do know the owner, Matt, and I know we can get a table, it’s just a little bit too busy for my liking on tournament week.”
Rahm won his second Irish Open title in the space of three years at Lahinch 11 days ago and has recorded top-fives in The Masters, US Open and US PGA, but he has a best finish of 44th in his three Open appearances to date.
“I can’t tell you (why), honestly,” the 24-year-old Spaniard said. “I think for the most part, the last few Opens I just technically wasn’t feeling great with my swing. It’s as simple as that. It just happened to be weeks where I wasn’t playing well.
“Andwhenitcomestothefirst year of winning the Irish Open, I remember saying in the (preview) press conference that I had never played well in links golf. And sure enough I win that week.
“I think that just gave me a confidence boost when it comes to that event and that’s why I’ve been able to do it the last few years.
“But the weather also hasn’t been the same. The three Irish Opens I played the weather has been kind of mild. This past Irish Open, the first two days we had some kind of wind and rain but towards the weekend it was pretty soft.
“The final round, the last four holes there was no wind whatsoever and the weather in The Opens has been a little bit more severe than those, so I think that has something to do with it, too.” Rahm spent part of last week watching his friend Rafael Nadal competing at Wimbledon and came in for some light-hearted criticism from fellow player Thomas Pieters for his somewhat unorthodox outfit.
“The shirt I wanted to wear didn’t come from the dry cleaners in time,” Rahm explained. “I’d rather not go to a Royal Box with a starred shirt but it’s what I had.
“I got compliments in the Royal Box. As far as I’m concerned, it was a good day.” “MY mind is racing,” Bubba Watson says sharply. “Always running.” Perched on the edge of a sofa in the clubhouse at Royal Portrush after an afternoon practice round, Watson’s longtime caddie and close friend, Ted Scott, hands him a chocolate muffin as an antidote. “Well, who could possibly say no to that?” Watson chimes.
The two-time Major champion is electric in conversation, skipping from one topic to the next, switching from disarming honesty to dry jokes, from introvert to expressionist, with a coin flip. “I’m happy now,” he says.
After a period of illness and a flickering love for the professional game that almost led to him taking a break two years ago, those three words speak volumes about Watson’s search for the right state of mind.
“You get bogged down sometimes about what people say at you,” he says, joking that we’ve now entered the ‘therapy session’.
“It hurts sometimes when people yell at you. As a grown man, I’m not ashamed or afraid to tell you I cry. Why try and hide and be this tough guy? I’ve got feelings too. It hurts. It’s not easy coming out here, with people calling you names; I can’t bring my kids out to watch me because of it. That can make it hard to have fun.”
Watson has been making a concentrated effort to detach himself from being “just a golfer”. While he’s speaking, he drifts subconsciously back to his wife and two adopted children, wondering what they are doing now, rounding off his own answers by asking himself what type of father he is. “I’m always learning to be a better dad, a better husband,” he says.
He’s bought a Minor League baseball team, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, 20 miles from where he grew up, owns a driving range, a Chevrolet dealership and a sweet shop. He’s set his sights on one day becoming mayor of the town.
As he’s become older — “and wiser,” he leaps to interject — he’s learned the art of taking time out. When his schedule becomes too overbearing, too segmented into meals, practice and tee-times, he’ll take a day out to sit and watch his baseball team play, bringing back the memories of his father, Gerry, who always dreamed Bubba would become a Yankee.
“Over the last 10 years, my life has changed,” he says. “Your name is out there, you see people write bad things about you, true or not. I don’t watch TV, the news, I don’t watch golf because I don’t want any more negativity.
“If you say I’m a golfer, you’re limiting who you are as a person. People think because I play golf for a living life is perfect but I know how hard my life can be. Life doesn’t stop just because you’re inside those ropes.”
A few years ago, Watson was stricken with an undisclosed illness and lost 28lb from his already wiry 6ft 3in frame. And, after making a gradual recovery, he went on to win three times on the PGA Tour last year, secured a spot on the Ryder Cup team, and ended the season as World No.16.
It was at The Masters in 2012 that Watson was propelled into stardom by way of one of the most preposterous golf shots of the last decade. On Augusta’s 10th hole, in a play-off against Louis Oosthuizen, he had thrashed his drive deep into the trees to the right of the fairway. Left with no clear sight of the green, he scythed a blind hook 40 yards around the corner of a Carolina Cherry Tree, a Magnolia Tree and a TV stanchion, before the ball pitched 15ft from the hole.
It was the type of ludicrous shot only Watson, with his whirling self-taught home-run swing, could execute. And at 33, it launched him onto a quirky and reluctant pedestal.
“We’re talking about a guy from Bagdad, Florida who didn’t have much money growing up, never had a lesson, taught himself… and my name is Bubba,” he laughs. “Why did I win? I didn’t feel like I deserved it.”
For months, Watson locked the Green Jacket away in his closet. He didn’t look at it. “I almost felt embarrassed, scared,” he continues. “I wanted to hide. I just wanted to be Bubba again.”
When he returned to Florida, Watson’s phone was suddenly littered with messages from onetime acquaintances. At events, he felt the eyes of fans and spectators on his back, the pens foisted in his direction at every opportunity for autographs, the hoots and the heckles, people rushing to pat him on the shoulder and, for a while, he hated it.
Once, when driving back from hosting a charity event, he and his wife, Angie, were followed by a stranger for over half an hour, causing them to sell their house and move to a gated community. The following day, when he refused an autograph, a man began shouting at him, calling him “a liar” and a “terrible person”.
“If I run into you for 30 seconds, in those 30 seconds you’re going to decide if I’m a good or bad person,” Watson says. “If I just made a triple bogey and you say, ‘Bubba, can you sign this?’ and I say no, you’re going to say, ‘I don’t like Bubba Watson’.
“If I’m at dinner with my wife and you say, ‘Do you mind taking a picture?’ and I say, ‘No, I’m on a date,’ that guy is going to go, ‘Bubba Watson’s a bad person’.
“There’s a lot of positives to fame but there’s a lot of stuff that comes with it. It’s what you have to learn. When I was 12 dreaming about winning The Masters, you don’t know that people will love you, make fun of you, write nice messages to you, and hurtful ones too.”