Jon Rahm turned the air blue and the scoreboard black. Shinnecock Hills is yet to show its nastiest side this week, but it succeeded in kicking different shades of madness out of the Spaniard on Friday.
To be fair, Rahm gave the course plenty of assistance with shortcomings in both his temperament and putting as he plummeted from contention towards a likely missed cut in a second-round 78.
His journey from two under par to six over was grim. Ugly. And utterly astonishing for the contrast to his opening loop, which he completed in 10 fewer strokes and without a single bogey. That last point is key – of the 446 rounds completed when this major previously visited Shinnecock, in 2018, none were completed without a dropped shot. It’s simply that tough.
But Rahm managed it, because we know his ceiling is higher than almost anyone, just as we are aware he hasn’t won a major since joining LIV in 2023. He won’t win this one, either, which traces to a calamitous round, typified by the short birdie putt he missed on the ninth, prompting him to scream ‘f*** off’.
Alas, that was barely the starting point in his descent. By the turn, he had traded one birdie for three bogeys, but it was on the way in that the wheels came off – between leaving the 11th green and stepping on the 17th tee, the former world No 1 haemorrhaged six shots, culminating with a nightmarish double bogey on the 16th.
His drive went into a bunker, as did his second shot and third. His fourth? Same again. He signed for a six.
Jon Rahm endured a calamitous, expletive-laden round as he heads towards missing the cut
This is a turbulent time for Rahm, of course. His dismay at LIV’s impending collapse has been shown in his refusal to assist the circuit in their search for post-Saudi funding, but he had arrived here to great expectations.
By finishing runner up at the PGA Championship last month, the odds were short on the 31-year-old going better, but this attempt died the death of a thousand putts – none were worse than the 3ft tiddler he left above ground on the sixth.
Rahm wasn’t the only LIV player to turn livid. It emerged on Friday that his colleague from the breakaway circuit, Joaquin Niemann, became the first player to be penalised under the new code of conduct rules over a first-round incident involving fire ants and a chucked club.
Having sliced two balls out of bounds on the sixth hole, the Chilean went berserk when he was denied free relief from an ant nest. A flag was kicked, a sand wedge was tossed and his total of nine was bumped up to 11 with a two-stroke penalty in a chaotic round of 78. An exceptional 65 on Friday carried Niemann back to three over, one inside the projected cut.
‘Yeah, that was misbehaviour on my part,’ Niemann reflected. ‘I felt a little bit extra penalised by the two-shot penalty, but it kind of helped me have a better round today.’
At the happier end of the leaderboard, another of golf’s bad boys flourished. That would be Wyndham Clark, who was banned by Oakmont Country Club at last year’s US Open after smashing a vintage locker during a bout of rage. Terms of his readmission included an anger management course.
There were no such tantrums on Friday, when he added a 69 to the sublime 64 he shot in his first round. At seven under par, he was four clear of in-form Matt Fitzpatrick and likely to be well clear of the field going into the weekend, barring any dramatic movement from the later starters, which included Rory McIlroy.
‘I’ve gotten a lot of grief since last year and rightfully so,’ said Clark, the 2023 champion. ‘I’m hoping I can win back the fans because it was a terrible incident.’
