Jon Rahm begins defense of his title with 67

Jon Rahm, 28 years old and world number 1, has begun the defense of his title at the Mexico Open, which will be held until Sunday on the par 71 Vidanta Vallarta course.

The Basque golfer, recent champion of the Augusta Masters and leader of the FedEx Cup, has signed a first card of 67 strokes thanks to six birdies and two bogeys that provisionally place him in the top-20 of the classification.

Jon Rahm, results

Even with many players on the course and even others awaiting tee time, Rahm is currently four shots behind the leader, the American Austin Smotherman (63), author of eight birdies without a miss, including four in the last four holes of his lap.

Rahm began his round on the 10th hole and was par for the course after the first nine holes, with two birdies (holes 14, 17) and two bogeys (11, 16), but he greatly improved his performance on the green in the second. part of the course and moved up many places in the table thanks to four more birdies on holes 1, 2, 7 and 9.

After the US Open, Jon Rahm joins the professional ranks which invalidates his qualification for the British Open 2016. In his first tournament as a professional, the Quicken Loans National, he is in the lead, alone or ex-æquo, during the first two laps, and finally finished third, four strokes behind winner Billy Hurley III. This performance allows him to qualify again for the British Open, the Quicken Loans National being part of the qualifying tournaments. He finished 2nd in the RBC Canadian Open, securing special temporary PGA Tour membership for the rest of the season. He also earned enough points as a non-member to earn a PGA Tour card for the 2017 season. On January 29, 2017, he won the Farmers Insurance Open with a 60-foot putt for Eagle on the last hole. A few weeks later, he announced that he would also play on the PGA5 European Tour. In March, he played the first World Golf Championships tournaments of his career, the WGC-Mexico Championship which he finished 3rd, then the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, a match-play tournament in which he finished 2nd, beaten in the final by the world number 1, the American Dustin Johnson. He won his second title of the year, and the first on the European tour, at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open with 6 strokes ahead of the second.

In July 2018, he won the Ryder Cup with the European team for his 1st participation and scored 1 point against Tiger Woods.

Between 2017 and 2021, he won six tournaments on the PGA TOUR.

On July 19, 2020, he became world number one. He is the second Spaniard after Severiano Ballesteros to reach this rank.

On November 10, 2020, he achieved what many call the hit of the century during the Augusta Masters pre-tournament in the United States.

On June 20, 2021, he won his first major by winning the US OPEN at Torrey Pines (South) golf course in San Diego, making him the first Spaniard to win the US OPEN.

On April 9, 2023, after already 3 victories since the start of the 2022-2023 season, he won the Augusta Masters with a 4-stroke lead. He thus becomes the 4th Spaniard to win this tournament, and also the only Spaniard to win the Masters (2023) and the US Open (2021) in his career.