I’M NO CHEAT, INSISTS RAHM
Spaniard gets benefit of the doubt...again
EVEN before Lee Westwood’s 105yard pitch on the fifth had found the hole for an eagle, Jon Rahm’s hands were in the air waving the ball onwards and in. A moment later the two men were bumping fists like the best of friends.
Golf can be like that, especially in the early rounds of a tournament. You play together and, sometimes at least, you celebrate and commiserate together.
But the relationship between two Europeans — one 22 years younger than the other — had been tested a little the day before as Westwood suggested, quite legitimately, that his playing partner might have committed a rules breach on the 17th hole of round one.
Rahm had sought to move a twig that was still attached to the ground near his ball. In golf, that’s an act that will bring you a twoshot penalty and only after some post- round consultation with rules officials on Thursday was the sanction revoked.
The 22-year- old Spaniard had essentially been given the benefit of the doubt, just as he had been when replacing his ball marginally in the wrong place at the Irish Open he went on to win by six shots two weeks ago.
Currently world No 7, Rahm is a burgeoning talent, a handy combination of upper-body power and delicate touch. But cheating is never a good look and Rahm was forced to endure some uncomfortable questions after yesterday’s up-and-down round of 74.
‘I am an honest player,’ said Rahm. ‘This is one of the things that golf teaches you and we are all role models.
‘None of us are trying to cheat or gain strokes. It’s not the way I was raised and it’s not the way any Spanish player really plays.
‘If these two things had happened in the span of 10 years, nobody would remember. But if it happens two tournaments in a row then it seems like a bigger deal than it really is.’
Westwood is known in golf circles as a stickler for the finer points of what can, even to the pros, be over-complicated rules. Yesterday he watched intently as the American Patrick Reed was given a free drop from inside a bush at the back of the fourth green.
On the first tee an hour earlier, however, there seemed no hangover from what had occurred the night before. Rahm even clapped Westwood on to the tee.
‘We moved on,’ explained Rahm. ‘I told him, “Hey, you did what you had to do”. I’m not going to get mad at him. He was actually trying to help me out, to avoid me getting into trouble. I think he felt bad I had to go through it.’
Rahm began poorly with three straight bogeys yesterday after a 69 had left him in red numbers on day one. There was another run of trouble on the back nine — dropped shots at 11, 12, 13 and 14 — but birdies at 15 and 17 saw him under the cut mark.
His rise to prominence has been rapid and has prompted some lazy comparisons with Seve Ballesteros. He shouldn’t worry about that. Sergio Garcia has had the same for almost two decades.
Rahm, like Garcia, is his own man. He has a strange build and can get rattled easily. Twice on the front nine yesterday he threw his club — gently it must be said — after errant shots, while his golf bag felt the brunt of his sand wedge after a thinned bunker shot on the third.
There was to be another such shot on the par-three seventh but on that occasion his par was saved by a 40-foot putt from off the back of the green. That cameo summed up his day and perhaps even his short career. The line between hot and cold, calm and not calm, seems very fine indeed.
‘Sometimes you get mad when you miss a shot,’ he said.
‘ But then sometimes it’s funny and if you aren’t going to be happy when you make a 40-footer from off the green then there is something wrong with you.’