SAN DIEGO – Jon Rahm has accepted that he had no choice but to withdraw from the Memorial on June 5 after testing positive for COVID-19. How do we know he’s moved on? Because he’s already able to joke about it. Too soon? Not for Rahm.
“I got it all. I had it, I got the antibodies, got the vaccination. I feel invincible at this point,” he said at his U.S. Open pre-championship press conference on Tuesday.
The World No. 3 experienced one of the most stunning moments since the return of sports when after opening up a commanding six-stroke lead in his title defense at Jack’s Place, he was told that he wouldn’t be able to play on Sunday.
“Not again,” Rahm said.
“For all those people wondering when I said, ‘Not again,’ that’s exactly what I mean, not again. Last year I put my heart out talking about one of my family members passing, and I get told, ‘Well, go sign your scorecard with a penalty stroke,’ with no warning.
“Then this past year I put arguably the best performance of my life, and I get told again on live TV, ‘Hey, you’re not playing tomorrow.’ So, it could have been handled a little bit better, yeah, but it still doesn’t change the fact of what really happened. Because it was the second time I got put on the spot on the same course why I was a little bit more hurt, but yeah. Again, it’s tough.”
Rahm expressed regret that he didn’t get vaccinated earlier, waiting until May 31, the Monday of the Memorial.
“Not early enough, that’s all I can say. Looking back on it, yeah, I guess I wish I would have done it earlier, but thinking on scheduling purposes and having the PGA and defending Memorial, I was just – to be honest, it wasn’t in my mind. I’m not going to lie; I was trying to just get ready for a golf tournament. If I had done it in a few days earlier, probably we wouldn’t be having these conversations right now. It is what it is. We move on,” he said. “To all the people criticizing the PGA Tour, they shouldn’t. We are in a pandemic, and even though this virus has very different forms of attacking people, you never know what reaction you’re going to get. So PGA Tour did what they had to do.”
“I’ve heard a lot of different theories,” he added. “I should have played alone; I shouldn’t have – that’s nonsense. The rules are there, and it’s clear… I was fully aware when I was in tracing protocol that that was a possibility. I knew that could happen. I was hoping it wouldn’t. I was playing like it’s not going to, but I support what the PGA Tour did.”
Rahm showed poise and an ability to look at the bigger picture in his classy tweet after the fact explaining his feelings on not being able to play the final round, and he sounded like a man with wisdom beyond his 27 years as he detailed the 10 days that have come and gone and his self-quarantine. Rahm did take another test right after being pulled off the golf course to confirm the Tour’s result and it was positive again. He flew home to Scottsdale, Arizona and self-isolated away from his family.
“I was a little bit scared because, even though I was feeling fine, I didn’t want to give the virus to anybody in my house. I didn’t want to possibly give it to our young son. Yeah, I think the hardest part out of all this was for just over ten days not being able to even spend any time with my little one,” he explained.
But the hardest part may have been the timing of a visit from his parents, who arrived from Spain two days later and met Kepa, Jon and wife Kelley’s first child, who was born shortly before the Masters in April, for the first time.
“Those are the hard parts about this virus in life,” he said. “Tuesday they met my son, and I wasn’t there. That was truly, truly a hard thing.”
Rahm confirmed he watched some of the final round of the Memorial, which was won by Patrick Cantlay in a playoff over Collin Morikawa, who tied at 13 under. Rahm was 18 under for three rounds.
“To be honest, I was kind of wondering how close they were going to get to 18-under,” he said.
Rahm used the time off to catch up on watching some TV shows, including Rick and Morty, and for some good old-fashioned self-reflection.
“Just tried to really spend as much time in the present as possible,” he said. “It was really easy when you’re laying in your bed to go back and forth, what could be in the future, what could have been in the past. A lot of meditation and mindful reading and trying to stay in the present, and within the weird part of saying this is trying to understand what that experience was for and trying to learn from it.”
He received his first negative test on Thursday and his second negative on Saturday morning, which meant he was cleared to participate in the 121st U.S. Open and could begin hitting balls again to try to recapture his sensational form at the Memorial.
“Two weeks ago, it’s finally clicking all together like I was waiting for it to happen. Finally everything was firing on all cylinders,” he said. “Not that I’m expecting to play that perfect again, but I know that I can play at a really high level.”
It doesn’t hurt that he gets to do so at one of his favorite venues. Torrey Pines’s South Course was the site of his maiden victory on the PGA Tour. Rahm proved his mettle, shifting into what he calls “Rahm-bo mode” with a back-nine 30, including two eagles, to leapfrog the competition and win the 2017 Farmers Insurance Open. He also dropped to one knee – in sweatpants no less – and asked Kelley Cahill to marry him during a hike near the beach just past the North Course at Torrey.
“We love the city,” Rahm said. “It was only right that I proposed in our special place.”
Could their special place also be the site of his major breakthrough, too? Rahm said he wished he was a little better prepared for the challenge of a major championship, but this is what separates the best in the game from the rest of us mere mortals.
“You go do a job,” he said. “Was it 13 years ago Tiger won on pretty much a broken knee without really being prepared? Once the gun goes off, it doesn’t matter.”
