And genetics shaped Jon Rahm
Spain is losing idols in the world of sport. Gasol is thinking of retiring from basketball, Nadal has already given up the Olympic Games, Fernando Alonso is surviving as best he can in Formula 1 and 12 football world champions are still active, but Casillas, Xavi, Puyol, Iniesta and Torres have given way to the new generations.
While Spain is looking for new favourites to get hooked on the sport, Jon Rahm is knocking on the door of the best. Nobody understands golf, but many Spaniards went to bed at almost 3 a.m. on Monday 21 July 2021 watching a guy from Barrika (Bilbao) make two birdies (scoring in one less stroke than the hole) on the 17th and 18th holes of the Torry Pines facilities in San Diego (California).
The world of golf is unknown to many. They even brand it as elitist, as they once did with paddle tennis. But licences are growing and the mornings of children and grandparents on courses all over Spain are now a common sight. Severiano Ballesteros did a lot for golf outside golf. He got the public hooked on the game and alerted future generations to seek out the green jacket and earn respect.
Jon Rahm is on his way to becoming a golf legend. His projection says he will far surpass Sergio Garcia or Miguel Angel Jimenez, to name two of Spain's active golfing greats. What happened at Torry Pines was no coincidence. The book 'Jon Rahm: Marked by the Gods' (Ten Golf, 2020) tells how a legend like Phil Mickelson recruited Rahmbo for the programme at Arizona State University and decided to open the doors to the world of professional sport. In San Diego came Rahm's first victory as a member of the PGA Tour in 2017. And that's where he proposed to his girlfriend Kelley Cahill, his college sweetheart at Arizona and the mother of his son Kepa since April 2020. His first big win came in the week of Father's Day in America.
Jon Rahm March Rodríguez was born in 1994. His paternal surname comes from other generations who worked in Switzerland, but he decided to model his inner golfer on the college sport for the Arizona State Sun Devils. The American model of offering the student and quasi-professional sporting incentive while studying will never be matched anywhere else in the world. Rahm studied and completed his degree in communications at Arizona while learning English by listening to Eminem songs. His girlfriend Kelley Cahill studied Biology and was a javelin thrower.
Rahm fell short of his progression at the Royal Spanish Golf Federation in Madrid and the Blume National School. For a child golf prodigy, his future lay in the United States, although he took the psychological pillars from Madrid and Barrika in his backpack. Because the first years were tough and the language seemed an insurmountable obstacle. The mental discipline instilled by his coach Joseba del Carmen has allowed him to keep his strong temperament at bay, the one that prevents him from making mistakes while forcing him to be the best.
Rahm is the first Spaniard to win the US Open in 120 years of history. He now sets his sights on the Tokyo Olympics where he will try to give Spain a gold medal and continue to grow. Jack Nicklaus is the greatest golfer of all time with 18 majors. He is in good terms with the Spaniard and, after winning the US Open, he said that "he will win many more major tournaments". It's not a compliment, it's the reality of a kid who is genetically gifted to dedicate himself to golf.
COVID also came into Rahm's life. At the beginning of June he tested positive on the 18th hole of the Memorial Tournament organised by Nicklaus in the town of Dublin (Ohio). The PGA had the indelicacy to inform him in front of the press just as he was about to tee off. An uncomfortable situation, although Rahm never wanted to point the finger at the organisation. Asymptomatic, his only obsession was not to have infected his four-month-old son. Everything went well, he recovered and put everything on the US Open card to start fighting in the majors of golf.
The future has in store for him a green jacket like the one worn by Ballesteros in 1980 and 1983. From the sky he continues to guide the paths of Spanish golf. From birdies in California, to an eagle, or an albatross and, who knows, if one day Rahm will subtract four strokes from a hole and enter the history of the condor. From Barrika, for the world of golf.
