Jon Rahm falls short in his comeback attempt at the Spanish Open and the secondaries emerge | Sports

He needed a big comeback, one of those rounds of golf that he pulls off from time to time. But he stayed halfway. Jon Rahm wanted to but couldn’t, at least not as much as he would have liked, to row a little more and get closer to the lead of the Acciona Open of Spain held at the Villa de Madrid Country Club. The world number three delivered this Saturday a round of four strokes under par, for -7 in total, nine behind the Frenchman Matthieu Pavon, runner-up last year precisely in the wake of Rahm. Today he is the leader with -16, compared to -14 for Englishman Nathan Kimsey.

In that 2022 edition, Rahm destroyed the field with an overall result of -25, the lowest in the history of the championship. In 2023 it will be impossible to even get close to that mark, and except for a strange alignment of the stars, they will not be able to retain the title, win their fourth crown and break the tie that now ties them with Severiano Ballesteros as three-time national champions. It is the rawness and at the same time the magic of this sport, which can lower the great stars and exalt the most modest. As examples, the two best-placed Spaniards, Alfredo García-Heredia with -12 and Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño with -11. The first, a 41-year-old from Gijón, was sixth in the previous edition, with a final lap of -7, and this Sunday he will fight for his first victory on the European circuit. His case is curious: the former amateur world runner-up admits that he does not like watching golf on TV, and that he did not even follow the Ryder Cup, but considers it only his job and his passions are other. Above all fishing, without which, he says, he would have become “golf crazy,” and playing soccer games with the veterans of Sporting de Gijón, the club of which he is a fan. He is also a friend of Fernando Alonso, whom he has followed in some races. And he starred in the curious story of this Open when on Thursday, on the first day, he cut his hand on a door to the course bathrooms on the 14th hole. The doctors treated him and he resisted as best he could with a bandage until the end.

One shot behind him is Fernández-Castaño, who at the age of 43 this Friday aspires to his eighth title on the European circuit 10 seasons after his last bingo, the 2013 BMW Masters. Two consecutive rounds of -5 have returned him to a forgotten walkway. After a period in the United States, the Madrid native has presented a line of golf clothing in this tournament and has jumped onto the screen with a weekly program on YouTube called Golf without labels, which he presents together with Álex Larrazábal, Pablo’s brother.

For Rahm it was a day of examination after the slap the previous day, a day that closed one over par and with a blank on the record with the putts, a strange thing because there was no way for one to get in: short, long, off, with a tie… nothing. And on the first turn on Saturday, there was the putt again, on hole 1, to measure the patient’s golf and emotional recovery. Rahm holed out to four feet, 1.2 meters, and made a hopeful birdie to uncork the round. But… the rawness of golf, remember. In the immediate shot he missed the fairway to the left on hole 2, took a stroke to return it to the ring and left a long putt that this time did not go in. The bogey stopped that burst of energy that had given him his start back. The obstacles were going to happen on the route without giving him a respite. Some would be saved, others would be penalized. He came out unscathed after failing again from the tee on the 4th, also to the left and with a tree in his face, although the par five condition allowed him to make birdie with a good recovery. He also sweated to keep the result at 5, again with a detour in the same direction from the starting box. On the 7th he hit the green with the second shot, but a painful trip brought back the bad memories of the previous day. And although he added another birdie on the 8th, he closed the first part of the Madrid tour with the feeling that he needed one more gear.

A dart to the flag on 10 increased his collection of birdies, and made it clear that when the Basque puts the ball in the fairway, straight and with the bomber power that he shows, he has a lot of work done. However, there were too many occasions in which he walked around the sides of the holes. On the 14th, until now his favorite spot, misfortunes occurred: he stepped into the rough on the right, his second shot tripped on some branches, he came up short with the third, still without catching the green, and with the fourth he left a 12-foot, 3.7-meter putt, which he missed. In that par five of 488 meters where he had celebrated nine birdies and four eagles in 13 consecutive rounds, on Friday he wrote the par and this Saturday the bogey. The garden had become a vine. “You have to take risks. I did it because I had nothing to lose, but I didn’t imagine that tree was going to come into play,” he later lamented.

It was a convulsive lap, in fits and starts, just when I needed to find rhythm and regularity. A powerful start to the center allowed Rahm to call the birdie at 15, he puffed at 16 when he saved par after losing the fairway again, and at 18 he lowered the blind after discounting another stroke when he was on the edge of the green. with the starting cannon shot. A -7 is still insufficient to cement the dream of a fourth Spanish Open. “I hope the leaders don’t leave me too much and we’ll see what we can do. I only say to the public that I hope the best is yet to come,” Rahm said goodbye before resuming his praiseworthy habit of signing caps, balls and polo shirts for a long line of children. A champion is not only seen on the court.

Results of the third day of the Acciona Open of Spain.

Matches and departure times this Sunday.

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2023-10-14 13:57:39
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