Rahm rage on the way to missing cut
In March this year, just weeks after his explosion of fury in the Wgcmexico Championship, Jon Rahm spoke movingly about how he has been working to get his hair-trigger temper under control. Whatever medicine he is taking, literal or metaphorical, it is not working.
Yesterday, the Spaniard was at it again. He smashed his club into the ground on the ninth after fearing that he had hit a second successive shot into a bunker in the midst of a run of triple bogey, bogey and double bogey.
After starting the day well placed at two under, and collecting two birdies in the first three holes, that disastrous series of holes just before the turn, plus further bogeys at two and 12 and a double bogey at 16, put one of the favourites in danger of an early exit. Despite a birdie at the 18th, he departed his third Open with a score of 78 to leave the fiery Basque at five over, the first time he has missed the Open cut.
The highly rated 23-year-old has form when it comes to tantrums. At last year’s US Open he followed some potty-mouthed exhortations by slamming his pitching wedge into the turf before kicking it and then launching it. For good measure he gave the rake a good kicking too and then punched a sign. A couple of holes later, according to ESPN’S Kevin van Valkenburg, he “tomahawked a seven-iron into the turf after a ‘meh’ approach shot”.
At least one man has cause to be happy at Rahm’s early departure, with the head greenkeeper at Carnoustie doubtless suspecting the course has had a narrow escape.