Jon Rahm thrills home crowd with strong start to title defence - Articles

Jon Rahm returned from his Ryder Cup heroics with an impressive opening 67 to delight the large home crowd at the acciona Open de España presented by Madrid .

The World Number Three, who won three points from his four matches as Team Europe won 16½-11½ at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club in Rome, began his defence of this title with five birdies and a single bogey at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid.

“It's a good score," he said. "You can't win it on the first day, but I put myself in a good position.

“I feel like I drove it so good, I just wish I would have taken advantage of a couple of other opportunities. I put myself in the right spots often enough and even a couple of holes I struggled to make a birdie on par fives are two great shots, but besides that it was really good.

“Hopefully I can keep hitting it to the green like that and just make a few putts the rest of the week."

Starting on the back nine, Rahm made back-to-back birdies at the 14th and 15th holes to get his round up and running.

He bounced back from his lone dropped shot, at the 18th, with a good up-and-down for par at the first before picking up further shots at the fourth, sixth and seventh.

Another almost followed as a magnificent chip from a difficult lie off the back of the eighth green stopped six inches short of the hole, but Rahm was happy to keep himself at four under and reward the Spanish crowd.

“This is not the biggest golf course and it's a massive honour to have as big a gallery as we have," he said. "I'll say most of them watching want me to do good and it's managing that energy around me.

“So obviously I want to do good but if you start adding that energy of wanting to hit a good shot, you don't want to start trying too hard, I still need to play golf like I do any other week.

"But the beauty of something like this is, you know, maybe when I'm not hitting my best shots, just using that crowd to my advantage. That moment on 18 and one where I made a bogey, made a great par on one, using the crowd energy and turning around and playing golf was key and I was glad I was able to do that.”

Rahm has won his home Open on three previous occasions, matching the total of the great Seve Ballesteros. Only Ángel de la Torre, with five wins, and four-time champions Mariano Provencio and Gabriel Gonzalez are ahead of him on that list, with Provencio's 1951 win the most recent among that trio.

Nevertheless, Rahm is calmer this week than he was going into the Ryder Cup.

“I've said it a few times but when you've already played one (Ryder Cup), it's almost a bigger anticipation because you know what to expect and how much fun it's going to be," he said.

“But you have to take it one day at a time. It's the same thing that week after. It's only one week off, so enjoy each day as much as you can, try to do the things like you've earned the right to do and relax, and once you get back into the tournament week it’s business as usual.

“It's always easier to come back to a regular event than flip it for the Ryder Cup, just because the Ryder Cup is so unique because it’s once every two years, whereas this is ‘one more week’ - (though) I know it’s a pretty big week for me.”

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