Every great golfer has his fetish course. Nobody won more times, six, than Nicklaus at Augusta. Arnold Palmer endorsed Tamarisk, where he racked up four wins. Ben Hogan shone especially in Colonial and Tiger, a separate case, raised eight trophies in Firestone, Bay Hill and Torrey Pines. This latest design, located in San Diego (California, USA), is the garden of Jon Rahm. There, where he got his first professional victory in 2017 and where he raised his first major last year, he aspires this weekend to reign for the third time.
That 2017 premiere was precisely at the Farmers Insurance, the same tournament that, after the first two rounds, co-leads with -13 along with two Americans: an immaculate Adam Schenk, who linked eight birdies in a row from 4 to 11 and then added two more for -10 on the day, and Justin Thomas, who shot an equally remarkable 63, nine under par.
Rahmbo, for his part, signed -7, improving on Wednesday’s -6, an unusual debut motivated by the NFL playoffs (normally PGA tournaments are played from Thursday to Sunday). This time he played the North route after transiting the South in the first round. He didn’t have his best day off the tee (“I suffered trying to find the fairways,” he later acknowledged), but this time the putter, which brought him headfirst last week at La Quinta, saved the day on many holes that began with his ball in the rough.
In the end he accumulated eight birdies for a single bogey, a great card that however did not leave him, self-demanding as he is, a great taste in his mouth. On several occasions, gestures of disappointment were seen and he claimed to have felt “frustrated” at times given his performance with the driver. On Saturday, day of movement, predicted a “hard” day. Nothing the world number one can’t deal with.
