Masters champion Jon Rahm vies for his first profitable US PGA Tour title defence this week when he tees it up on the Mexico Open in the hunt for a fifth title this season.
“Feeling good with the game where it’s at right now,” Rahm mentioned Wednesday at Vidanta Vallarta in Puerto Vallarta.
“I’ve only been able to defend the Spanish Open as a professional, so it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I could make the Mexico Open by my next defence,” the world quantity from Spain mentioned.
Rahm gained back-to-back Spanish Open titles on the DP World Tour in 2018 and 2019.
On the US PGA Tour, he’s made six begins as defending champion and been unable to repeat — though he led by six strokes after three rounds of his Memorial Tournament defence in 2021 when he needed to withdraw after testing optimistic for Covid.
He mentioned profitable one other title in a Spanish-speaking nation, whereas not precisely the identical as being at residence in Spain, could be “meaningful” — and so would following up his second profession main title with out an excessive amount of delay.
“You want to get the next win after a major right away just if you can get done just for your own state of the game,” he mentioned.
Rahm’s Mexico Open victory final yr was his first since he captured his first main title on the 2021 US Open — a spot of almost 11 months.
“I played really quality golf, a lot of top-10s, I just couldn’t get it done,” he recalled of that span.
“To be able to come here and go wire-to-wire, take the lead on Thursday and never give it up and never really be trailing from that point on was big.
“To get it done in any Spanish-speaking country makes it a lot more special, there’s always a little bit of extra pressure, an extra motivation for me to want to win. So it was big, it was big.”
Rahm mentioned his resolution to play the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head the week after an exhausting, weather-disrupted Masters marketing campaign had helped him get again in a “competitive mode.”
Drive for 5
He’s hardly appeared out of 1 since final autumn when two DP World Tour victories presaged a blistering US tour begin that featured victories on the Tournament of Champions, the American Express in California, and the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club earlier than his Masters triumph.
Another win would make Rahm the primary participant since Justin Thomas in 2016-17 to win 5 occasions in a season, and he’s the overwhelming favorite to take action with Sixteenth-ranked Tony Finau the one different top-10 participant within the area.
Finau completed tied for second final yr, his first top-10 of 2022 sparking a powerful run that included three victories.
Finau is one in every of 4 gamers on the sector with wins this season — his November victory within the Houston Open counting within the 2022-23 marketing campaign.
Colombia’s Nico Echavarria is searching for so as to add one other title after profitable his maiden professional title on the Puerto Rico Open in March, the identical month that England’s Matt Wallace claimed his first title in almost 5 years on the Corales Puntacana Championship.