Jon Rahm, at 22 years of age, is proving that he is here to stay among the world elite, and his second professional victory and first on the European Tour, at the Irish Open, attests to this. With his resounding success, with a final round of 65 strokes that included two eagles and took him six ahead of the runners-up, Ramsay and Southgate, the young Basque from Barrika broke the tournament record for strokes under par.
Rahm thus joined his name as champion at the Scottish Open to his three most successful compatriots in the international arena: the unforgettable Seve, Olazábal and Sergio García.
With his victory, the Biscayan climbed to eighth place in the world ranking, where Sergio is fifth.
An anecdote of the final day, in which Rahm started tied for the lead with Daniel Im, is that the Spaniard was benefited on hole 6 of the revision of the rules of golf that apply since last April, specifically when he raised his marker for being in Im’s line of shot and placed it to the right, a putt head away. He hit Im and then Rahm regained his marker position but placed the ball in front of him instead of to the side.
Under new standards announced in April, a referee can deem that the player did “everything that can reasonably be expected” to follow the rules, despite what the video evidence shows. In making his decision, the referee can take several things into account, including the player’s explanation, his body language, comments from fellow players and more.
The tournament’s rules official, Andy McFee, accepted Rahm’s arguments, who thus escaped a two-stroke penalty.
As Rahm told Golf Channel, “I moved the marker and put it behind and as I saw I put the ball behind exactly where it had been… I thought it was the exact spot. Andy (the referee) told me there was a very small difference. I thought I had put it right in the same place.”
“On 13 I said to Andy, ‘If there’s stroke penalty tell me now, and I’ll take it. If I’ve done it, I’ve done it.”
McFee said, “He has not put the ball directly to the side, but slightly offset from the center. On a clock it would be the equivalent of putting it at 10 o’clock instead of 9 o’clock, which might be the right angle. A couple of millimeters.
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