RAHM: ‘I HAVE A SICKNESS … A DISEASE FOR GOLF’
▶ Spaniard speaks to John McAuley about how the late Seve Ballesteros indirectly inspired him and how hiphop helped him improve his English
Jon Rahm turns serious. “I have a sickness… I have a disease for golf,” he says, leaning forward in his chair, eyes wide, voice only a little playful. “My girlfriend hates it. She’s hated it since we were dating. We’d be trying to sleep at 10pm or 11pm and I’ll be watching YouTube videos, watching every golf video there is.”
Rahm need not really worry, though. As far as afflictions go, it hardly classifies as lifethreatening.
He would most probably argue life-changing, in fact, and with considerable merit, too.
At 23, Rahm is ranked the world’s fourth best golfer; the game’s lead European, ahead of Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia and Henrik Stenson.
The Spaniard may have only one full season as a professional under his belt, but has won five times already.
On Sunday, Rahm captured the Open de Espana, his national championship, describing it the most difficult and therefore most pleasing title he has secured to date.
Two years on from sitting in his classroom at Arizona State University, he was perched atop another leaderboard, nestling ever more nicely into his position as one of golf’s most exciting young talents.
That “sickness”, that “disease”, those hours spent whiling away the nights and testing his girlfriend’s patience at the North Scottsdale house they now share, have contributed to lifting him to where he is now.
Personal bliss has at times been sacrificed for professional gain, but Rahm, relaxing in a hospitality suite emblazoned with Rolex insignia, the company he serves as a Rolex Testimonee, has made the trade-off work.
“I just like the game,” he says. “I like studying the game. I feel like the more you like something, the more you study it, the better you understand it and the better you get at it.
“That’s the way I see it.” All Rahm has seen has been rapid progress. His rise has been meteoric and seems set to maintain.
Built like a bull, he has a magnetic presence, good company and an even better golfer, tipped for multiple majors and an enduring impact on the Ryder Cup.
In 45 worldwide starts as a professional, Rahm has five victories and 17 top-5 finishes. He has won three times in his past 10 events.
Sunday’s triumph made him the fifth player to have three titles on the European Tour and two on the PGA Tour before turning 24. The other four? Tiger Woods, Garcia, McIlroy and Jordan Spieth.
He is precocious, prodigious and, at times, prone to outbursts on the course that threaten to upset his quest for prizes and plaudits, muddy his route to the summit. But it is also what makes Rahm who he is.
The fire in his belly drives him.
“It comes from my competitiveness,” he says. “My dad is into free-rock climbing, free-skiing, hiking, parasailing.
“Out of my brother and
I, I inherited my dad’s competitiveness. He hates losing. His brothers and his sister have told me that. He doesn’t take it well. And that’s the perfect mirror of me. I hate losing and I don’t take it well.”
Seve Ballesteros had a similar tenacity. Inadvertently, it was the Spanish great that helped set Rahm on the road to pro golf. Following Ballesteros’ captaincy at the 1997 Ryder Cup, Rahm’s father, Edorta, took up the game and, bitten by the bug, he passed it down to his son.
Soon Rahm consumed everything he could about Ballesteros, devouring clipson YouTube, trawling written accounts of what made him great.
Rahm has watched online “probably a million times” a 45-minute video of Ballesteros en route to winning his first Open Championship, at Royal Lytham, in 1979. Presumably, girlfriend Kelley can attest to that.
“Out of those million, around 950,000 were before I met her,” Rahm says, smiling. “She doesn’t like it because afterwards I’m like ‘do you remember this video?’ and ask random trivia out of nowhere.”
Few would be able to pick out Rahm’s place of birth, a modest town in Basque Country called Barrika. Edorta works in the fuel industry; mum Angela spent 30 years as a midwife. Brother Eriz, six years Rahm’s senior, is always encouraging, forever supportive.
A keen athlete as a kid, Rahm loved football and still does. He is an avid Athletic Bilbao fan. By 14, though, golf had overtaken as his prime pursuit. Within a year, he was the Spanish Junior Boys champion.
Rahm’s regional prowess eventually found its way to Tim Mickelson, Phil’s younger brother and a coach at Arizona State University. Offered a scholarship, Rahm moved Stateside, armed with only his considerable talent and very little English.
He ranks the transition to college as his greatest test. For the first month, he couldn’t communicate well, barely understanding anything in class. Majoring in communications, it took Rahm a year to get jokes, and twice as long to tell them.
“That’s got to be the hardest challenge I’ve faced in life,” he says now, with merely the slightest hint of an accent.
Somewhat surprisingly, hip-hop helped. Rahm memorised the words, rapping the rhymes to grasp better his pronunciation, obsessed with the breakneck sections of each song. Can he still spit?
“I can, I really can. But…” Rahm says, his voice trailing off. “I do love Eminem: he and Kendrick Lemar are the two that I stick to. I’ve been asked to do it, but I can’t do it without the foul language yet, I’m not that good. I just have it memorised.”
Now he is focused on making memorable moments in the game.
Obvious objectives include landing a first major – last
I do love Eminem: he and Kendrick Lemar are the two that I stick to. I’ve been asked to do it, but I can’t do it without the foul language yet JON RAHM On listening to hip-hop to improve his English
week, Rahm finished fourth at the Masters, his best result at that level – and representing Europe at the Ryder
Cup, which is practically guaranteed. He is a lock for France later this year, when Europe attempt to reclaim the trophy they lost to the United States at Hazeltine 18 months ago.
The significance of participating in the biennial battle is not lost on Rahm, especially sitting now with a picture staring back at him of Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal, from Kiawah Island in 1991. Not far from that, on the Rolex banner boasting some of golf’s more iconic moments, is an image of Rahm’s reaction to eagle on the final hole at Torrey Pines last year, when he sank a 65-footer to clinch his first pro tournament.
“Ryder Cup is up there for every golfer,” Rahm says. “It’s definitely something I want to do, especially for Spanish people just because of what those two represented.
“I want to be part of that. I love being in a team, I love representing my country. I did it for a long time and I had a lot of fun. So I really can’t wait. I’ve heard a lot of people say ‘I dream of playing in the Ryder Cup’. I dream of winning the Ryder Cup.
“I’m a rather explosive person, as you can see. I think I can bring that factor. And I do love match play. I’m never going to give up. I’m always going to think there’s a chance to win, especially in match play. Until the last shot is holed on the last hole, nothing’s lost.”
A replica Samuel Ryder trophy would sit well among the growing collection of professional spoils in his office at home in Scottsdale. It is where Rahm and Kelley came to an agreement that he stores all his golf stuff, the titles and trinkets, the golf gloves and other souvenirs of this sickness, of this disease.
“There’s moments,” Rahm says, trying to pinpoint the personal highs brought about by his phenomenal introduction to the pro game. “When I bought and moved into my first house. As a 22 year-old, it’s always going to be special.
“What I’ve done on the golf course has allowed me to have a house that’s much higher standards for a person my age. Like I said many times, it’s not a point where I thought I was going to be in my life. Yeah, I’m a little ahead on the life game right now.”