So, with the three birdies in his first three holes, maybe Jon Rahm can still do the occasional notable thing in this major malarkey and maybe those who are writing him off as a force might have gone a tad early in their assessment that joining LIV Golf has removed his big-stage superpowers.
The argument goes that since Rahm signed up for his £350 million Saudi bounty 18 months ago he has not contended in any of the big four.
Fair enough, but let us look more closely at his results sheet in this regard. Rahm missed last year’s US Open with an infected foot and followed that up the next month with seventh at The Open (which in a field of 156 is not too shabby).
So coming in here, 24 months from his Green-Jacketed glory, the 30-year-old had in fact blown out in two majors since he switched sides – a tie for 45th at last year’s Masters and a missed cut in the USPGA Championship. For his critics – one of whom accused him the other day of “knowing the ramifications of his choice” – the opening two rounds seemed manna sent. A first-round 75, a second 71… a place among the early starters on Saturday for those who only just made the cut.
Nobody comes back from 10 shots off the lead at the halfway point at the Masters and even his electrifying beginning in the third round would hardly have had his detractors running into the pine straw for cover. And with good reason. His eventual 70 was not nearly enough to thrust him into any sort of final-round contention.
But for those of us who do not believe that a few tournaments grant licence to pen a hit-piece, those opening 10 shots were at least a wondrous reminder of his form in 2023 when he was undoubtedly a member of the burgeoning “Big Three” alongside Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.
He holed an 18-footer on the first, chipped up 10 feet on the second and holed from 20 feet on the third.
2023 Masters champion Jon Rahm begins his third round with three birdies in a row. #themasterspic.twitter.com/CwSYz1zIEj
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 12, 2025
It was exactly what he had come to expect, ever since he burst from college to win events almost immediately and made his Ryder Cup debut in Paris in 2018, not even two years removed from education. Rahm contended every time he teed it up.
Except did he? Not in 2022… well not in the majors anyway. It is surely merely inconvenient to look at that decidedly average season when rushing to the judgment that LIV has emptied his competitive spirit.
The year after Rahm had made his breakthrough at the US Open at Winged Foot – and finished fifth at the Masters, eighth at the USPGA and third at the Open at Sandwich – he did not record a single top 10 in the majors. In fact, there was only one top 25, a 12th at Brookline, sandwiched in between a tie for 27th at Augusta, a tie for 48th at Southern Hills and a tie for 38th at St Andrews.
He was asked what the problem was and he did not really have an answer. He does not ...
