AUGUSTA - With the scoreboard popping all afternoon like this was some Keno pageant, Jon Rahm finally but decisively claimed the 87th Masters in the lengthening shadows Sunday. He fended off a wide assortment of challengers with consecutive birdies on the 13th and 14th holes for his his first Masters, his second major title and another endorsement that, at age 28, he has matured into one of the game’s toughest cookies.
His four-shot victory pairs with his 2021 U.S. Open, the first European to ever hold both titles, and the margin of victory matches the second-largest in the last 26 Masters. He finished 12-under par after rounds of 65-69-73-69. Rahm becomes the fourth Spaniard after the late Seve Ballesteros (1980, 1983), Jose Maria Olazabal (1994) and Sergio Garcia (2017) to win the Masters and the 10th international player to win here this century. Sunday marked what would have been Ballesteros’ 66th birthday.
“Never thought I was going to cry by winning a golf tournament, but I got very close on that 18th hole,” Rahm said. “And a lot of it because of what it means to me and to Spanish golf, right? It’s Spain’s 10th major, fourth player to win the Masters and my second win, right? My second major win, right? It’s pretty incredible.”
And halfway to a Grand Slam.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he said.
The title came at the expense of a stunned Brooks Koepka, who led much of the tournament, but shot a 3-over 75 when it mattered most. As scoring conditions improved into the day, as many as a half-dozen players young and old played themselves into contention over a compelling back nine before Rahm slammed the door.
Shock of the weekend came in the form of Phil Mickelson’s finishing second after closing with a 65, tying Koepka. Jordan Spieth (66), Patrick Reed (68) and Russell Henley (70), who all came back from at least a half-dozen shots back, tied for fourth. Cameron Young and Viktor Hovland shared seventh.
“Like, this is so much fun,” said Mickelson, who hadn’t had a lot lately. The two-time Masters champion had missed the cut in his last three majors.
While Rahm danced for much of the final round with Old Man Par -- he played 10 straight holes at even par at one point -- a host of players well off the pace started throwing up numbers that had the galleries swooning. Mickelson and Spieth, both 10 shots off the lead at the start, pole-vaulted their way into the top three. Both Young and Reed rammed their way to within three shots of the lead before fading.
Even Sahith Theegala, a Masters rookie, 11 shots off the pace, was slapping palms with the crowd with a closing 67 to finish ninth while golf writers everywhere wrestled with spell-check. After Saturday’s water follies, six players celebrated improved conditions by scoring in the 60s. In all, 15 players broke par Sunday.
“It was actually pretty quiet for some of the stretches,” said Spieth, Mickelson’s playing partner, “and then once we both started to really get it going around 10, 11, 12, 13 there, it started to pick up in our group. It was really cool.”
By then, Rahm had heard enough. He birdied the par-5 13th from five feet and then, in what he determined to be his shot of the day, plunked a 136-yard approach to the par-4 14th to within four feet and dropped what turned out to be the deal-closer with four holes to play. After opening the week with a double-bogey on Thursday, parring in felt like a parade.
“The goal at that point is to never come back to the rest of the field,” said Rahm who did so with a bogey-free back nine. “And knowing that if I could make a few birdies and pars, especially on the back nine, it was going to be pretty difficult for someone to catch up, with the wind conditions today.”
“The way Jon played today was pretty impressive,” Koepka said. “I don’t know, the game, it’s so good right now. Everybody. It’s amazing to see all these guys compete. When they are at their best, they are all tough to beat.”
Koepka can testify. He held at least a piece of the lead for the first three rounds and then simply disintegrated, going 22 holes without a birdie to make a wistful memory of the four-shot advantage he held in the morning, when the field assembled to finish the third round.
He may have had several elements of his game fail him, but Keopka’s performance off the tee was shaky and his 33 putts on Sunday tied for last in the field, not the prefered route to a green jacket. After falling five behind with his fifth bogey of the round on the 14th, he dressed up his card with birdies on No. 15 and 16 but there was no disguising how this one stung.
“I’d say probably give it a week and I’ll start to see some positives out of it and carry this over to the PGA, the U.S. Open and the Open,” Koepka said. “But right now, it’s kind of tough to see, if I’m honest, probably for the next few hours and the next few days.”
It had begun with an odd morning. Koepka, who saw his four-shot lead cut in half within two minutes of the resumption of the third round, missed an 11-footer for par on No. 7 before Rahm canned a nine-footer for birdie and his 29-hole birdie-less slough was on.
Yet by the end of the third round, no one had gone anywhere. Even as the breeze started to kick up, Koepka played out the round in 1-over 73 and lost no ground entering the last round. Rahm essentially matched him hole-for-hole with a twin 73 to set up the final 18 holes with a two-shot gap, which all slowly gave way through the afternoon.
“There’s got to be something here about having a Spanish passport,” Rahm said. “I don’t know, there’s something about the grounds that transmits into all of us.”
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