Golf

Jon Rahm sitting pretty on top of the world as he lets clubs do the talking yet again

Spaniard has had his issues with the world rankings but there’s no argument after three wins in five starts

Jon Rahm celebrates his win at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club with his wife Kelley and their two boys Eneko and Kepa. Photograph: Michael Owens/Getty Images
Jon Rahm celebrates his win at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club with his wife Kelley and their two boys Eneko and Kepa. Photograph: Michael Owens/Getty Images
Philip Reid
Mon Feb 20 2023 - 15:59

It’s true what they say, patience truly is a virtue. Jon Rahm’s frustration with the bizarre mechanics of the official world rankings – where his on-course dominance wasn’t reflected in the actual standings – was only headed one way, and his return to world number one was simply a case of the numbers eventually adding up.

With three wins in five starts on the PGA Tour this year – 1st-3rd-7th-1st-1st – in a hot streak of form for the Spaniard, Rahm’s bemusement at his lack of upward trending on the rankings in recent weeks and months didn’t affect his play in any way and, finally, he got the chance to let his clubs do the talking (again!) in claiming the top spot in the world rankings for a fifth time in his career.

Rahm’s win in the Genesis Invitational, to go with his American Express Championship and Sentry Tournament of Champions successes, brought its own form of deliverance and some justification for the frustration experienced in seemingly standing still, and even slipping backwards, at times when he was beating all comers.

Rahm didn’t see his eventual return to number one as any sort of validation. As he put it: “I’ve won five out of my last nine starts (going back to the Spanish Open last October). I haven’t finished worse than top seven and I’ve won three tournaments already [this year]. I don’t need a ranking to tell me, to validate anything, right? I’m having the best season of my life and hopefully I can keep it going.

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“I said it before, for the ranking to be accurate, we’re going to have to wait about a year and a half for all those points to kind of, I don’t know if recycle is the right word, but for the people that earned points before they changed the system for everything to even out.

“I’m also right on what I said earlier on in the year. I mean, I’m the third player to be number one in the world in, what, just over a month and a half (following Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler). You know, it’s the beauty of the year that we’re living right now, it’s exciting for us to play and exciting for the golf fans because things like this can happen.”

Rahm’s consistently stellar play has finally brought with it the rewards – not just financial but of accumulating the Ws – and there is little sign of any slowdown any time soon.

“I’ve been extremely disciplined my whole career but right now I’m seeing the dividends of a lot of the hard work over the years,” said Rahm in underpinning the reason why, at 28, he is already on a career path that could even eclipse that of his boyhood hero, Seve Ballesteros.

Rahm has just one career Major as yet – the 2021 US Open – but his annexing of the Genesis brought his total of PGA Tour wins to 10, one more than Ballesteros. And, in terms of holding down the world number one position, Ballesteros did so for a total of 61 weeks in his career. Rahm’s return to that position (for a fifth time) means he has now reached a total of 44 weeks and potentially headed into a prolonged period of dominance.

And, in winning a tournament hosted by Tiger Woods, who was world number one for a career total of 683 weeks, Rahm used the occasion of his win to emphasise how remarkable Woods’s achievements were and how he was inspired by him.

“I’m very thankful to be doing this for the first time [winning three times in a year]. How many times had he done this at the age of 28? It’s absolutely incredible. I think he was able to win three in a row 14 times if I’m correct. He had how many seasons with five-plus wins. Between ‘99 and 2000 he had I think it was, what was it, 17 wins, four Majors. That is alone better than 99.9 per cent of any professional’s career ever.

“I mean, it’s pretty incredible. I’ve been able to match a very small aspect of it and hopefully I can keep doing a lot of great things this year to put my name up there to one of his years, but the fact that he was able to do it year after year after year including swing changes and golf style changes, it’s pretty remarkable.

“Again, I’ve been able to appreciate Tiger for a very long time and admire him, but it’s taken me six years as a professional to get to this point to see that he did it so quickly and so many times is really remarkable!”

Rahm is not playing in this week’s Honda Classic at The Champions in Palm Beach Gardens, where there are two Irish players in the field. Pádraig Harrington, who finished runner-up behind Bernhard Langer in the Chubb Classic on the Champions Tour last weekend, returns to the PGA Tour for a two-week stint that will also take in next week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational and Shane Lowry, on the back of a tied-14th in the Genesis, is also playing.

On the DP World Tour, both Gary Hurley and John Murphy are in the field for the Hero Indian Open in New Delhi while Paul Dunne, Conor Purcell and Ruaidhrí McGee are in the field for the Nelson Mandela Bay Championship, a co-sanctioned event on the Challenge Tour and the Sunshine Tour.

Rahm as World No 1

1) 19th July 2020 – 1st August 2020 (two weeks)

2) 9th August 2020 – 22nd August 2020 (two weeks)

3) 20th June 2021 – 10th July 2021 (three weeks)

4) 18th July 2021 – 26th March 2022 (36 weeks)

5) 19th February 2021 -

Philip Reid

Philip Reid

Philip Reid is Golf Correspondent of The Irish Times