Jon Rahm left the Kapalua Plantation Course with the course record (61 strokes, shared with Justin Thomas and Matt Jones), with the lowest score of his career at 72 holes, with 32 birdies and an eagle in four days and with second-best record in PGA Tour history, 33 under par. But he didn’t win that’s how hard golf is. The australian Cameron Smith was better by just one hit in the Sentry Tournament of Champions in which Barrika’s man returned to competition after almost three months of rest. The island of Maui course attended a birdie festival due to the lack of wind and very receptive greens and Rahm was short of that slim margin to win the tournament for the first time after four Top 10s and was repeated in second place in 2018.
In a situation reminiscent of the 2021 Tour Championship at East Lake, where Jon Rahm only lost to Patrick Cantlay on compensating shots after also setting the 72-hole record, the final day was an almost match-play duelAlthough a final attack by Jones, another Australian who made 23 under par between Saturday and Sunday, could add him to the fight. The number 1 in the world and Smith were tied, with the rest of the competitors at a long distance, and every hole counted, every stroke was important. Rahm wasn’t as fine teeing off as Saturday, struggling to find his good trajectory and missing some affordable putts. Thus, he had to bow to another rocky player, who did not make a serious mistake and did not make a bogey from hole 2 on the second day. From the moment the Brisbane golfer took a two-stroke lead on the 8th hole, he responded undeterred each time the Biscayan, who hit seven under par on the last day, squeezed him, especially in the final stretch. In this way, the Australian became the third player in history after Ernie Els and Justin Thomas to win the two tournaments that are played in Hawaii and made it to the top ten in the world for the first time.
For Rahm, this tournament was confirmation of his extraordinary consistency and that the break has served him well. His second place finish, which is his eighth Top 10 in his last nine PGA Tour tournaments, jumping to 26th place in the FedEx Cup after in his first appointment of the season, the Fortinet Championship that he played before the Ryder Cup, did not the cut will pass. Your next engagement will be next week’s American Express. at La Quinta. There he will arrive with the world number 1 safely after opening more distance with Collin Morikawa in Kapalua. It will be like this 33 weeks at the top of the classification with which Rahm surpasses Vijay Singh and already chases Nick Price, who was 44 weeks as leader.
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