Celebrating your birthday with a hole-in-one is pretty special, but making one in back-to-back practice rounds at Augusta National, as Jon Rahm did this week, is hard to fathom. But Rahm, who turned 26 on Tuesday, hopes that’s only the beginning of a big birthday week.
“You can look at it two ways,” Rahm said. “Either something special is going on, or I’m running out of luck already. I’m hoping it’s the beginning of a lot of good things to come.”
Rahm, the No. 2-ranked player in the world, aced the difficult fourth hole Monday. On Tuesday, playing his birthday round alongside Rickie Fowler, Rahm skipped it over the pond at No. 16 and watched it slowly roll up the slope and die into the hole.
Cumpleanos feliz.
Rahm raised his hands in celebration to a small audience – Patrick Reed and Paul Casey were filming a video on the 16th green, and there were a handful of random camera operators. Under normal circumstances there would have been quite a stir. Think Tiger roar.
“It would have been so loud,” Rahm said. “It would have been really special. The one on No. 4 wouldn’t have because not too many people would have seen it, but the one on 16 would have been.”
Regardless of his acumen with aces this week, Rahm has been tracking in the right direction since last summer. He won the BMW Championship playoff event in a playoff against Dustin Johnson – famously draining a 43-foot putt to force sudden death -- and valiantly tried to chase him down again at the Tour Championship. Rahm shot 66-66 on the weekend at East Lake, but that wasn’t enough.
He comes to Augusta on the heels of second-place finish at the Zozo Championship and arrives at the Masters knowing he’s a combined 24 under on his past seven competitive rounds at Augusta National. He finished fourth in 2019 and tied for ninth in 2019.
“I can’t lie, I’m feeling pretty confident,” Rahm said. “My last start, I hit it about as good as I hit it tee to green, especially on Sunday and the weekend. I’m simply happy. I’m happy outside the golf course. I’m happy within the limits of this pandemic. And I’m happy on the golf course, and I’ve been putting in the work and golfing well. Hopefully, something special happens this weekend.”
Rahm is trying to become the fourth Spaniard to win a green jacket, joining Seve Ballesteros (1980, 1983), Jose Maria Olazabal (1994 and 1999) and Sergio Garcia (2017). It isn’t lost on Rahm that this tournament marks the 40th anniversary of the first win by Ballesteros, a victory that earned him a special place in his home country and in the Rahm household.
Even though he never was able to watch Ballesteros, he recalled how his father would remind him every April 9 that it was Ballesteros Day. And it wasn’t lost on Rahm that Garcia won his Masters on the Sunday of Seve’s birthday.
“Hopefully, the fact that it is my birthday this week brings some fortune,” Rahm said. “I know that (Phil Mickelson’s) birthday is always around the U.S. Open, and he has played very well in the past. I hope I can get that victory, and it would be very special because I have a lot of friends and family members that have a birthday around this week.”
Mickelson is a constant adviser and practice-round companion for Rahm. Being able to lean on a three-time Masters champion such as Mickelson has helped flatten the curve when it comes to understanding Augusta National. Although this will be his only fourth time to compete, it feels like he’s been around for years.
“I would say I’m more experienced on how to play Augusta National, but it still amazes me every time I come,” Rahm said. “I still get the same feel as I did the first time when I go down Magnolia Lane. When it comes to the golf course, you can always learn something new. Every time there’s something that can be learned on the golf course, and if somebody doesn’t tell you, you learn yourself.”
Rahm is paired with U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau and former British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen for the first two rounds.
