What happens so that one day you sign 66 strokes and the next day 75 and the next 77? Well, you are playing golf. Nothing more, nothing less. Of course, it’s not the same thing that just any fool does it than that the protagonist is the aspiring world number one in the tournament that could have put him on the throne of the planetary golf. It was a pity, but John Rahm did not come out well from his first assault to the top of world golf.
After rounds of 68 and 66, the first of the debacles came at the Farmer Insurance, the first of the debacles, the 75, which was sealed with a double bogey on the 18th. Even so, the player from Barrika started Sunday four strokes behind the leader, a distance that in other occasions had seemed to him to be attainable. Without going any further, last year in this same tournament he had overcome a three-shot disadvantage to win.
But this time the goddess Fortune turned her back on him, and so did his putter, which was not aiming at the hole as usual. Rahm’s particular via crucis began on hole 3 and did not end, in its first stage until he left behind the 6th. Four bogeys in a row and goodbye to any hope of fighting for the title.
Another via crucis with bogeys on the 14th, 15th and 17th, and a consolation sigh, in the form of a birdie, on the 18th. A total of 77 strokes and a drop of twelve positions on the day, down to twenty-ninth. And an added problem, if he had finished in the top sixteen, he could opt again this week to become the second Spaniard, after Seve, to be crowned number one in the world. We will have to wait, and trust Rahm.
Tiger Woods was not bad in his expected reappearance in an official tournament. Although he did not play very well on long shots off the tee, he managed very well in the short distances and finished in twenty-third place, with an overall score of 3 under par.
By the way, the victory will be decided today because yesterday’s playoff between Australia’s Jason Day and Sweden’s Alex Noren had to be suspended due to lack of light.
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