Two-thirds of the way through Jon Rahm’s second round at the US Open, it looked like he’d finally turned the corner.
The two-time major winner was two-under par, in the mix for the win, and going along nicely at Shinnecock Hills. After being in contention at the PGA, it appeared that Rahm had finally corrected his major form, which has been poor since he joined LIV Golf.
Then came the collapse.
From the 12th to the 16th hole, Rahm went bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, double bogey to fall to six over par, missing the cut by two shots. He finished his day with a 78, the single worst round of his major championship career.
After the round, he explained why this was especially painful.
Jon Rahm says he didn’t play badly despite missing the cut at the US Open
Rahm was understandably devastated after his second round collapse. The Spaniard said that it actually felt worse to miss the cut when he felt he played well.
Speaking to Ten Golf, he said, “It bothers me more because I genuinely don’t feel like I played badly. I don’t feel like I did as badly as the final score suggests.
“I’ll need to pray that the wind picks up so I can play on the weekend, but I really didn’t feel as bad as the result was. That’s what hurts the most.”
“Because if you had told me on the fifth hole, after hitting the shot I hit, that I was going to finish at eight over, honestly I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“I felt pretty good, so I’ll have to see what happened.”
The wind didn’t pick up, and Rahm missed the cut. He said a lot of that came down to good putts not dropping for him.
He continued, “It’s not that I hit bad putts; they just didn’t want to go in. They were bouncing quite a bit, given how the greens are, and I think on the greens it was a bit of bad luck.
“I hit some very good putts. Look, in the first 18 holes today I didn’t miss one, and in the second 18 I hit them just as well.
“They looked like they were going in, and right at the end they were missing by nothing, half a metre, and they all went off to the side.”
Jon Rahm says what people don’t know about Shinnecock watching it on TV
Shinnecock Hills is one of the toughest golf courses on the planet, but Rahm said that it’s much harder in real life than it appears to be on TV.
He said that the cameras do not get across for the undulating and windy nature of the course: “It is a difficult course, even though they say the fairways are wide and it’s soft, it’s a difficult course.
“It it windier than it seems on TV and the greens are much more undulating. They are not easy. They’ve put more flags in corners this afternoon.”
TV cameras are poor are getting across the undulations of golf courses, making the greens seem flatter than they actually are. So however hard you think Shinnecock looks, it’s harder.
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