CHARLOTTE, North Carolina :Jon Rahm has been playing in majors for nearly 10 years and the Spaniard said on Tuesday ahead of this week’s PGA Championship that he’s since learned to stop chasing perfection when it comes to golf’s blue-riband events.
For Rahm, a two-times major winner who made a stunning move to LIV Golf in December 2023, all facets of a player’s game do not need to be firing on all cylinders to achieve success.
“You always feel like, to win a major, you have to play perfect, which is not true,” Rahm told reporters at Quail Hollow Club where the PGA Championship begins on Thursday.
“At the end of the day, a lot of it is keep playing golf, keep playing solid good golf, and take advantage of the good stretches you’re going to have throughout the week. But by any means you don’t have to play perfect.”
Rahm said he has watched final-round replays of his triumphs at the 2021 U.S. Open and 2022 Masters where he missed fairways and mis-hit other shots but managed to prevent his round from spiralling out of control.
“I didn’t realize how many fairways I missed and how many shots that I considered that weren’t good, but did all the things right to minimize the damage, right?”
“It’s funny, nine, ten years ago I was thinking I had to play my absolute best in every aspect of the game, and I think if anything, you just have to have full faith in all aspects of your game and just learn how to manage the golf course that week.”
Rahm has not made much noise at majors since joining LIV Golf but arrives at Quail Hollow with top-10 finishes in all seven of his events on the Saudi-backed circuit in addition to a share of 14th place at last month’s Masters.
“Feeling very good. I’ve been playing good all year. Maybe not as great as I would like. I feel like there’s some avoidable mistakes out there,” said Rahm.
“But if you keep knocking out top 10s not having your best, I think it’s still pretty good.”
