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<\/p>\nIf 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. Andaluc\u00eda 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. <\/p>\n
\u201cWinning 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 Garc\u00eda. It would be something unique to add my name to the list of those winners,\u201d reviewed the player from Barrika. \u201cValderrama 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\u201d. <\/p>\n
In fact, Jon Rahm is willing to go a little further to make the Estrella Damm N.A. Andaluc\u00eda 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. <\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m 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\u2019s all about hitting a good drive, 8-iron as high as possible and if you miss the green, the blaster\u2026 It\u2019s very repetitive,\u201d said Rahm. \u201cFor 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\u2019t 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\u201d. <\/p>\n
After his first contact with the course, Rahm recalled a maxim about Valderrama offered to him years ago by Englishman Ian Poulter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t dare much to predict a winning score because I\u2019ve been told that they want the hardest greens during the tournament, and with the wind there is\u2026 bad subject. All I know is that if you make par on this course all four days, you\u2019re top 10 100 percent of the time, and sometimes you\u2019ve 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\u201d.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s 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\u2019t gone well and I\u2019m angry I look at my son Kepa and it goes away. And I\u2019ve always said that if you\u2019re good off the course, you\u2019re 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\u2019ve finished understanding that this year\u201d.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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\u2019s why every time I come to a course I want to play well and prove that I\u2019m No. 1,\u201d Rahm added. \u201cWhat I do want to say, for the kids watching this, is two things: if you believe you\u2019re 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\u2019s not just for golf, it\u2019s 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\u201d. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not very aware of popularity, on the field I\u2019m 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\u2019t changed, I\u2019m the same kid from Barrika, but with the things I\u2019ve done there will be more people who know me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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INSIDE ROPES<\/strong><\/p>\n Jon Rahm\u2019s favorite nicknames \u201cI have had many nicknames in my life, I like \u201cRahmbo\u201d, which they use a lot in the United States, \u201cthe Lion of Barrika\u201d and I also like \u201cel morrosko\u201d as Corti (Jos\u00e9 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 \u201cthe Cantabrian shark\u201d. <\/p>\n Sergio Garcia\u2019s advice for Valderrama \u201cWhile I was with Sergio at the Ryder Cup we didn\u2019t 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\u2019m 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\u2019m not surprised he has won here several times.\u201d<\/p>\n Cleaning of the beach Photo of the Spanish players Tickets are now on sale to enjoy Jon Rahm and the rest of the players who will attend this year\u2019s edition of the Estrella Damm N.A. Andaluc\u00eda 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.<\/p>\n Tickets can be purchased from the Tickets menu on the tournament website, at edamgolf.es or at Fever.<\/p>\n The Estrella Damm N.A. Andaluc\u00eda 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 Diputaci\u00f3n de C\u00e1diz, Exterior Plus, Hero, Rolex and Santander Private Banking. Callaway, Cinco Jotas, Enterprise, Gadira, Kyocera, La Reserva Club Sotogrande, Marca, Quir\u00f3nsalud, Riversa, the Royal Andalusian Golf Federation, SO\/ Sotogrande, Varma and Volvo are official suppliers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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. Andaluc\u00eda Masters and made it clear how much the Real […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":16532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Jon Rahm\u2019s 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 \u2018Corti\u2019: <\/p>\n
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: <\/p>\n
This Tuesday of EDAM 2021 has started with the \u2018Beach Clean Up\u2019, an action in which Santiago Tarrio and Alejandro Ca\u00f1izares have participated along with hundreds of volunteers to help clean the beach of Torreguadiaro. 230 kilos of garbage have been collected hard
\nnte all morning, and the first 200 volunteers who have come have taken a ticket to enjoy the tournament. An experience, framed within the \u2018Green Drive\u2019 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 <\/p>\n
At about 16:00 the traditional photo of Spanish players was taken, an initiative created years ago by M\u00aa Acacia L\u00f3pez-Bachiller, and whose main anecdote was the race that Sebas Garc\u00eda Rodr\u00edguez 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. <\/p>\n