At the Memorial, Jon Rahm gets hot — and is poised to be golf’s new No. 1

That’s because Jon Rahm, the 25-year-old Spaniard born 65 miles along the craggy Atlantic coast from Ballesteros’s hometown, will start Sunday with a four-shot lead after a Saturday when the leader board inverted itself dramatically. If the second-ranked Rahm, at 12 under par after a third-round 68, can hold off Ryan Palmer and onetime front-runner Tony Finau at 8 under par and also everybody else in this smashing field, well, let Rahm assess the meaning:

“It’s always tough to put into words,” Rahm said of his debt to the late Ballesteros, who won five major championships and redefined the game from his particular intersection of swash and buckle. “Seve is a huge influence of mine. I’ve said many times thanks to that Ryder Cup in ’97 and his captaincy and the way he inspired many not only in Spain but in Europe, he’s the reason why I’m playing here today, and anytime I can do something remotely close to what he did, it’s pretty emotional.

“I can’t lie. It’s something that’s deep in my core as a Spaniard and as a player I would love to achieve, and if you think about it, major champions that came after him like Sergio [Garcia] and [Jose Maria] Olazabal never got to be, so it would be quite unique. But against, it’s all a consequence of me winning tomorrow, right, so it’s an afterthought.”

Yet it’s an afterthought from which he wouldn’t run. “Oh, it’s extremely important,” he said, soon adding, “It’s obviously a big deal. I can’t sit here and try to diminish it and avoid it because it would just be lying to myself because it is a big deal.”

Midway through the third round at the PGA Tour’s sixth stop since it resumed after a 91-day hiatus in the novel coronavirus pandemic, the idea of Rahm to No. 1 seemed more secondary than it became. Finau, the 19th-ranked 30-year-old from Salt Lake City who is living merely one of the best biographies in golf history, was the one sitting at 12 under and leading the tournament by four shots. Having won $18 million on tour in a stirring ascent as that rare Polynesian tour player, the third of seven children of non-golfing parents of Tongan and Samoan descent, but having won only the 2016 Puerto Rico Open when it ran concurrently with a World Golf Championship event, Finau looked primed for a first tour win against a top field.

Then he didn’t, after the firm course, likened this week to a U.S. Open in its punishment of those who stray from fairways, bit. Finau double-bogeyed the par-3 No. 12, double-bogeyed the par-4 No. 17 and bogeyed the par-4 No. 14 amid. Even birdies on Nos. 11 and 15 couldn’t help much.

“Yeah, it was good, and then it wasn’t good,” said a man widely known as nice playing a sport widely known as not. “Ran into some speed bumps on the back nine. Man, this golf course can get you in a heartbeat.” For both double bogeys, he traveled rough to rough, overshooting the green on the par 3 by going too hard with a “‘tweener,” as he called it, so his back-nine 38 toward a 73 leveled left him with the 43-year-old Palmer, whose back-nine 36 got him to a 73.

Meanwhile, Rahm bounded along merrily, birdieing Nos. 13, 14, 15 and 16 toward a back-nine 32, clearly needing no roars to inspire himself at this latest spectator-less tournament. His putts came from 13 feet, five feet, a two-putt after a venture from primary rough to 36 feet on the par-5 No. 15 and 26 feet, what he called “a lucky putt on 16.”

“I just assumed I was going to have three, four, five feet for par, and luckily it found the hole,” he said. “Hopefully I don’t have to rely on putts like that tomorrow.”

Along the way, as his 68 popped up behind his 67 of Friday and his 69 of Thursday, the former Arizona State Sun Devil and Arizona-based Rahm won that utmost battle Ballesteros used to win dramatically: the one with himself.

That has been a tricky one for him to win sometimes, even if such a theme might not dredge tears given a guy who has won thrice on the PGA Tour and six times on the European, including twice in Ireland, twice in Spain and twice in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai).

“There’s definitely been moments out there this week where I could have just lost it or maybe in the past I would have gotten more frustrated and changed my game plan,” he said. “Maybe a couple years ago I don’t think I would be here with a four-shot lead right now going into tomorrow. It’s a slow process. Unfortunately I’m a person who learns from mistakes, like most of us I would say, and luckily I’ve been able to.”

In mature, U.S. Open-like form Saturday, he told himself, “Just keep making pars. Pars were never bad.”

In just making pars, he soon made birdies. Then a man who wasn’t quite 3 years old when Ballesteros captained that Ryder Cup in Spain but who has come a long way already spoke of making enough good shots Sunday to “enjoy that walk,” as he put it. That would be the walk up No. 18 and could be the walk that illustrates how a 25-year-old has come so far quite fast.

Source:WP