If Jon Rahm approaches tournaments with a varied arsenal of strokes and resources, he faces press conferences with a balanced mix of eloquence, confidence and analytical skills. The world number one did not dodge any questions in his press conference at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters and made it clear how much the Real Club Valderrama means to him and how excited he would be to succeed on his well-kept course.
“Winning at this course would be very special, not only because my relationship with golf started here when some friends of my parents came to the 1997 Ryder, but also because of its history of great tournaments and the players who have won here, such as Sergio García. It would be something unique to add my name to the list of those winners,” reviewed the player from Barrika. “Valderrama is a very difficult course, which accentuates any weakness you have in your game. Whoever wins is a deserved winner, here there is no luck, it is the one who mentally can withstand the struggle of playing on this course. Two years ago I played well and came second, hopefully I can add a win at Valderrama to my record”.
In fact, Jon Rahm is willing to go a little further to make the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters grow. On the horizon, the alliance signed by the two most important circuits in the world and the possibility that the Real Club Valderrama hosts a tournament valid for both.
“I’m going to do everything I can to get the PGA Tour and the European Tour to have a tournament here together. Valderrama deserves it. Besides being a great golf course, it would be a change from the courses we play on the PGA Tour. There it’s all about hitting a good drive, 8-iron as high as possible and if you miss the green, the blaster… It’s very repetitive,” said Rahm. “For those who believe that distance is everything, here you have to come to play golf, you have to adjust to the course and hit certain shots in certain places. You can’t gamble because if it goes wrong, you end up really bad. I would love it if they could have a major tournament, with FedEx and Race to Dubai points. With the history and the desire for golf in this country, I hope it happens”.
After his first contact with the course, Rahm recalled a maxim about Valderrama offered to him years ago by Englishman Ian Poulter.
“I don’t dare much to predict a winning score because I’ve been told that they want the hardest greens during the tournament, and with the wind there is… bad subject. All I know is that if you make par on this course all four days, you’re top 10 100 percent of the time, and sometimes you’ve even won with that. Of course, if the wind is still strong and the greens harden, I would be surprised if the result is better than -5, but as I said in Madrid, I hope that the winning result is mine”.
The U.S. Open champion has lived a year full of emotions and contrasts, with his consolidation as world number one and his triumph at Torrey Pines, but also with his mishaps at the Memorial and at the Olympic Games due to covid. For Rahm, his family has been a fundamental support.
“It’s been a year with a lot of good things and there have also been bumps, and of course being a father has been the main help to overcome them. Of course, I have to give all the credit to my wife Kelley because she always told me that as soon as I became a father I would win my first major, and she was right. Although as a competitor I still care about everything that happens on the course, if the day hasn’t gone well and I’m angry I look at my son Kepa and it goes away. And I’ve always said that if you’re good off the course, you’re going to be good on it. Golf is not everything, it is an important part of my life, but it is much more important to be a good person, a good father, a good friend? And I’ve finished understanding that this year”.
Reaching the top continues to give vertigo, because the consolidation is complicated with the qualified competition that exists in modern golf. Confidence and discipline, two basic ingredients.
“The hardest thing about being world No. 1 is to stay there. Last year I got there and lost it after two weeks. But I think that comes as a consequence of playing well, you just have to keep doing well, and that’s why every time I come to a course I want to play well and prove that I’m No. 1,” Rahm added. “What I do want to say, for the kids watching this, is two things: if you believe you’re going to be number one, like I did growing up, say it, no matter what anyone tells you. Everyone who has ever been the best at something has believed it, and made it public. Say it if you believe it and train for it, which is the other fundamental part, since there are no tricks or anything special to be number one, it is about putting in a lot of hours of work and having a lot of determination to achieve your goals. It’s not just for golf, it’s true for everything in life, if you want to be the best at something you have to work very hard and have a lot of discipline”.
Despite brimming with confidence and having clear from a very young age what his path to the top was going to be, Jon Rahm is still not very aware of the effect he is having around him, especially in Spain.
“I’m not very aware of popularity, on the field I’m on my own. Yesterday I had dinner with Aritz Aduriz and he prepared me for what Bilbao can be like when I go there in December. My way of thinking about myself hasn’t changed, I’m the same kid from Barrika, but with the things I’ve done there will be more people who know me.”
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INSIDE ROPES
Jon Rahm’s favorite nicknames
Jon Rahm’s press conference began with the Basque solving a doubt that has been floating around the Spanish press for a long time: how does Jon like to be nicknamed? There are many and varied nicknames about him, but he has finally said the ones he likes the most, with a special nod to his beloved ‘Corti’:
“I have had many nicknames in my life, I like “Rahmbo”, which they use a lot in the United States, “the Lion of Barrika” and I also like “el morrosko” as Corti (José Manuel Cortizas, journalist of El Correo, recently deceased) used to call me when he wrote about me. I like any of the three, although I had never heard of “the Cantabrian shark”.
Sergio Garcia’s advice for Valderrama
Rahm himself has stressed that to be number one in the world there are no secrets, but where there are secrets is at Valderrama, and the one who knows the most about it is Sergio Garcia, triple winner of the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucia Masters. Jon Rahm knows it, and any help that comes from the Borriol is welcome:
“While I was with Sergio at the Ryder Cup we didn’t talk about anything other than what was in front of us, there was no time for Valderrama, but today playing a few holes here I did think about writing to Sergio because I’m sure he can give me some advice. It is a course where every trick or every experience can help, because you have to learn to play it and to adapt your game to the course, even though everyone has their own style. There are always flags, greens or tees where there are better mistakes than others, like if you send it to the right on the 16th you are lost, so the advice of someone like Sergio is always welcome. Of course, it must be said that if Sergio is hitting the ball well, from tee to green there are very few in the world at his level, so I’m not surprised he has won here several times.”
Cleaning of the beach
This Tuesday of EDAM 2021 has started with the ‘Beach Clean Up’, an action in which Santiago Tarrio and Alejandro Cañizares have participated along with hundreds of volunteers to help clean the beach of Torreguadiaro. 230 kilos of garbage have been collected hard
nte all morning, and the first 200 volunteers who have come have taken a ticket to enjoy the tournament. An experience, framed within the ‘Green Drive’ initiative of the European Tour, which has shown how aware of the environment are the City Council of San Roque, the circuit itself and the other entities involved in the implementation of the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucia Masters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK00eecMq4
Photo of the Spanish players
At about 16:00 the traditional photo of Spanish players was taken, an initiative created years ago by Mª Acacia López-Bachiller, and whose main anecdote was the race that Sebas García Rodríguez took to get the photo on the horn. A snapshot that makes the players themselves very excited, since it takes place in every tournament played in Spain. Although some of the players were absent due to different training schedules, eight of those who will participate in the tournament from Thursday were able to be present.
Tickets are now on sale to enjoy Jon Rahm and the rest of the players who will attend this year’s edition of the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters, and the flexibility of the offer allows you to choose between individual access for each day, four-day passes or passes for the weekend, with preferential rates for children under 14 years, federated or people with reduced mobility.
Tickets can be purchased from the Tickets menu on the tournament website, at edamgolf.es or at Fever.
The Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters, a European Tour tournament valid for the Race to Dubai and held thanks to the essential collaboration of the Real Club Valderrama, is sponsored by Estrella Damm and the Ministry of Tourism, Regeneration, Justice and Local Administration of the Andalusian Regional Government, as well as being co-financed with European funds and having been declared an event of exceptional public interest by the Spanish Government. The tournament is also supported by the Diputación de Cádiz, Exterior Plus, Hero, Rolex and Santander Private Banking. Callaway, Cinco Jotas, Enterprise, Gadira, Kyocera, La Reserva Club Sotogrande, Marca, Quirónsalud, Riversa, the Royal Andalusian Golf Federation, SO/ Sotogrande, Varma and Volvo are official suppliers.
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