The Journey to No. 1

Jon Rahm has come a long way from being a broke student to flying between competitions in a private jet. And he knows it. Ryan Herman chats with perhaps the world’s best golfer and gets to know the man behind a world-beating mission.

There’s a saying in golf: “You drive for show, putt for dough.” Less than a decade ago, Jon Rahm was a broke student at Arizona State University relying on his putting ability to put bread on the table, figuratively and literally. When he had enough money from hustling teammates, Rahm and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Kelley Cahill, would occasionally dine at one of Tempe’s more affordable diners, which also made a mean margarita. “And she bought the drinks!” he says with a laugh.

Fast-forward to the present and Rahm has recently surpassed the $40 million mark for career earnings. He also has 19 pro-tournament wins (and counting) and a US Open title and will be one of Europe’s go-to players at this year’s Ryder Cup. Not bad given Rahm only turned professional in 2016.

“It’s easy to take all this for granted,” he says. “I live in Scottsdale, Arizona, and sometimes I think this is all pretty crazy for somebody who couldn’t afford much, who had to win chip-andputting contests against his teammates to be able to afford to eat.

“I always envisioned myself being one of the best in the world, and I had that goal in mind. But what I’ve accomplished—especially as of late— it’s quite incredible. And to not have any financial stress is a huge thing, right?”

“Of late,” he has been on an extraordinary run of form. At the time of this writing, Rahm had won three of his last four tournaments. Going into February, he hadn’t finished outside the top 10 in any event since August. And while we all set ourselves goals at the start of the year—some of which are ambitious, some doable and others which get ditched within a week—one of Rahm’s was “to win more than one tournament” in 2023. He achieved that ambition on January 21. Eleven days earlier, Michael Verity, a statistician who also sets betting odds for golf tournaments, calculated that Rahm’s recent performances would give him a +13 handicap.

Back-to-back wins at the Tournament of Champions and the American Express at the start of 2023 prompted Verity to later tweet: “Relentless Rahmbo . . . we may need to revise this handicap index further!!”

So what does being +13 mean to the casual fan whose interest in golf revolves around the Majors and the Ryder Cup? Well, if you’re good enough to play off a level handicap, aka “scratch,” then you’re a member of golf’s elite, but you’ve probably done that playing the same courses, making adjustments as you go. And you will still be 13 strokes behind Rahm each round.

Gareth Bale, one of Britain’s greatest modern soccer players, who played with Rahm earlier this year at Torrey Pines, has a handicap of +2, although Rahm reckons Bale is probably two strokes better than his current mark. “He has no business being this good at golf,” says Rahm.

Yet the former Wales and Real Madrid striker is some way from making any impression in professional golf. Or, as Rahm helpfully explains, “If I’m gonna be +13, Rory McIlroy must be somewhere around there. And I bet there’s a lot of people on +8 to +12. So, if you’re a club pro who thinks you could be a [tour] pro, well, guess what, you’re eight shots from being one of the best. Those courses aren’t changing. They’re not easier. But players are evolving. We’re making it look easier as a collective. And this speaks to the greatness of the game right now.”

Out of all those players, Rahm has been the most consistent off the tee lately, albeit with a swing that is shorter than his peers’. That is partly due to being born with a club foot that required multiple operations when he was a small boy growing up in Barrika, 12 miles north of Bilbao, Spain. But, as Rahm stresses, his swing is also the product of many factors, not least having coaches knowing how to maximize his natural ability.

“It wasn’t like I had life-threatening surgery, but what it did was direct me on a path toward learning what my body could or couldn’t do. Although that is meaningless if you don’t have the people that understand golf to apply it to your own game.”

When he was 13, Rahm’s mother took him to meet coach Eduardo Celles. “If I took a full swing, I wasn’t accurate whatsoever. But it really, really worked when Eduardo told me to start basically swinging three-quarters, to shoulder height. That was when I started winning tournaments.”

He also attributes that swing to a sport known in the US as jai alai. For some readers, the only time you will have seen jai alai is for a split second during the opening credits of Miami Vice, but it is also played in the Basque country where it is known as pelota. “They use the hook [in America], but I use the wooden paddle. If you look it up, the paddle is very similar to how I do my golf swing.”

However, as in any sport, winning and losing often come down to preparation, and creating the right environment both on and off the course. “When you’re traveling as much as we do, playing 20 tournaments in the first 34 weeks of the year, a lot of them very far away, there’s a lot of coming back and forth and you don’t want to worry about flights being delayed or clubs not turning up.

“But my caddy once told me, ‘Man, you gotta invest money to make money,’ and he’s the one that pushed me toward flying private. If you think of yourself as a company and you are the asset, to invest in your body, to make sure you are rested and physically fit to be able to play, is just so important.

“I’m six feet three inches. You know, I don’t really want to be sitting in the middle seat, shoulder to shoulder with other passengers!” he jokes. “And I’m pretty sure I spend almost as many hours sleeping on the jet as I do in my own bed at home. Also, it means I get to spend more time with my family as we fly together.” Rahm and Cahill have two young children, Kepa and Eneko, so the extra hours he gets with them are invaluable.

All that traveling this year will include two trips to Rome. The Ryder Cup makes its debut in Italy, at the Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, which was completely rebuilt to host the event. Rahm has yet to play the revamped course but says he will do so when he returns to Europe later this summer before or after he plays the Open at Royal Liverpool or the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. He was one of Europe’s few saving graces after that American annihilation at Whistling Straits in 2021, when there were no European supporters because of Covid restrictions.

“Me and Sergio [García] did well in that environment, maybe because we were so comfortable with each other. We almost had to take silence as the European cheers. That was the only way to know we’d done something good, as the crowd went silent. But I enjoyed having people rooting against us. It’s kind of unique. Although you know with all these destinations we’re picking for European venues, like Paris and Rome, I think we can expect a lot more US supporters to show up.”

Rahm is waiting to see if he will renew that partnership with García, who joined the Saudi-funded LIV Golf Tour that saw golfers publicly falling out with each other last year.

As it stands, the LIV golfers—which include Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Lee Westwood—could all be barred from playing, while other stars including Rahm and McIlroy stayed loyal to the PGA and European Tour.

What became a sporting soap opera has been captured in a new Netflix series called Full Swing Rahm, perhaps mercifully, only plays the role of Special Guest Star. “You’ll see me here and there, but my family has enough going on,” he says. “I didn’t need the extra attention on and off the course. But the door is still open to having me in the show in the future. I’m kind of glad I wasn’t in it, what with the whole LIV situation. I didn’t need another news outlet asking me questions about it, although I think it was great for the show, and a heck of a time to start recording it!”

Can it do for golf what Drive to Survive did for Formula 1? “One of the concerns some of us had is that F1 is extremely exciting. You’ve got so much going on. I love golf, but it’s not on the same level of adrenaline as F1.”

One way or another, though, this is clearly a significant year for the sport—and especially for Rahm, who will go into each major as one of the favorites. But as we have an audience with probably the best golfer in the world right now, we would be remiss not to ask for one tip on behalf of the reader that will improve your game. And Rahm’s answer brings us back to where we started: a putter.

“If you’re not the best, the one thing you can practice the most, that could help you in the long run, is putting. If you can save as many shots as you can, inside six feet, those shots start adding up. You can find a million drills online about how to practice those putts. Maybe just dedicate 20 minutes on the putting green instead of hitting 1,000 golf balls. And this applies to a 20 handicapper as well as to every player on tour right now.”

Or even somebody trying to hustle their way through college on a diet of tacos and tequila.