RAHM MISSING WOODS FACTOR
JON RAHM admits the best of the best battling it out at Torrey Pines just doesn’t feel right without Tiger Woods. Fifteen-time Major champ Woods is on the mend after shattering his leg in a dramatic car crash four months ago and was pictured last week out and about on crutches.
He faces a long journey back if he is to compete again but Rahm admitted the 45-year-old superstar’s presence has been a big miss at the US Open.
Torrey Pines was the scene of one of Tiger’s greatest triumphs – when he won the same event on one leg in 2008 as he limped his way to a play-off win against Rocco Mediate.
Rahm, 26, is in the frame to follow in his footsteps today but he said: “You feel it.tiger was the last champion here.
“Every time Tiger is on the premises, whether he’s playing or not, you can feel it’s a little bit different – the energy and the atmosphere of the spectators, especially if he’s playing.
“The impact Tiger’s had on the game, it’s been
massive.very few athletes get to have an impact on the game the way he did in golf and we owe a lot of things to him.
“I feel like whoever’s not a pro playing right now owes the state of the game to him because we have so many great players out right now thanks to what Tiger Woods did.”
Rahm admitted he was blown away when he was a kid watching the sensational win in 2008 and he hailed Tiger for revolutionising the game.
He said: “I was 13 back then. In my case, a lot has changed. I feel like now you have a whole lot of generations that grew up watching Tiger play, and I think we all had those goals in mind of playing golf the way he did.
“Tiger changed the narrative of golfers to think of ourselves more as athletes, and I think everybody is just bigger and stronger.”
Rahm is hoping the golfing gods do him a turn today after Covid cost him a cool $2m recently when he was forced out of the Memorial Tournament when he had a six-shot lead.
The Spanish star said: “What happened a couple weeks ago is something I can’t control. But what I can do is control what I do every time. I’m thinking the right things out there on the golf course.
“So far I’ve done a great job, and hopefully I can keep going.”