“I’ve managed,” Jon Rahm sums up at the end of his first day at the British Open, on the windswept Scottish course of Royal Troon. Just like that, without any great joy but also without tragedy, a card of 73 strokes, +2, which takes him away from the top positions (the leader was the Irishman Shane Lowry with -5), but which keeps him alive with three rounds still to go. It is the version of Rahm in these times, and this is demonstrated by the fact that he has collected a place among the top 10 in each tournament in which he has competed in the Saudi League, LIV Golf (except for his withdrawal due to injury in Houston), but without a victory to boast about. He is a champion in search of himself, without a single triumph since the 2023 Masters, his longest drought as a professional, and with the Paris Games on the horizon.
At the British Open, getting by wasn’t a bad deal, considering what we’ve seen. Bryson DeChambeau, the winner of the last US Open, was left behind with a score of +5, and Rory McIlroy continued to suffer from his slip-up in the previous major with +7, unable to recover from the blow of having come close to his fifth Grand Slam title and having let it slip away in the final breath. Tiger Woods also had his usual share of suffering on the last occasions he enters the ring and handed in a +8. The world number one, the American Scottie Scheffler, tied with par for the course, in his most earthly version.
But getting by isn’t enough for Rahm, a two-time major winner who is used to bidding for a bigger prize. At Royal Troon he saved several pars in tight spots, mostly due to miscues on the fairways, but he let the par fives slip by without making the most of them, quite the opposite: a par on the sixth hole and a par on the eighth. bogeys in the 4th and 16th. Bad business when he only added one birdieon par three of the 8th.
“I haven’t been as comfortable as I would have liked, but I’ve managed well and I haven’t made any big mistakes, except for the one at the start of hole 13. I wouldn’t say it’s been a great day, because I haven’t been comfortable, although with this wind and the conditions in general it’s also very easy to try to guide the shot too much and that means you don’t have a good shot.” swing It was a bit fluid, but hey, these are the things you have to deal with. It was very difficult out there. Eight of the front nine holes are all right-hand and long, difficult holes. Just when you think it might be a little bit easier, downwind, it’s actually not. The back nine is very difficult, brutal, especially 14 and 17, and the par 3s are very, very difficult. I played well. What I was able to do was hit a lot of good holes. putts for a couple that kept the round, but, it is true that I did not place myself in the best positions to make a couple of birdies and finish par or under par, which would have been a fantastic round,” Rahm said.
Among the rest of the Spanish troop, the amateur Jaime Montojo, 19 years old, had the pleasure of scoring a eagle On the first hole, a par four, he holed out with his second shot in his debut at a British Open. Nacho Elvira dropped to +5, Ángel Hidalgo to +6, and David Puig (also an Olympian, like Rahm) and Jorge Campillo, dropped in the classification to +9. Royal Troon was a tough nut to crack.
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