AN observation about Jon Rahm: when this wounded Spaniard gets angry with himself, which is increasingly often, he tends to swear in English. Confusing as that might seem, it is about right for a man who appears so at odds with himself.
Because what is he these days? Is he one of the very best in the game? Probably, yes. But is he even close to what he was or might have been?
That is a more complicated question, answered by a series of desperately underwhelming numbers on his scorecards this week at the Masters.
And so he trundled around his third round at Augusta National, a little out of place among the early cohort of starters, which is a politer way of saying Rahm was an also-ran.
Naturally, there are those departed from here who would be thrilled to make the cut, and he made it bang on the number, but Rahm, Rahmbo, was the pre-tournament favourite. More than that, he was the 2023 champion, a titan of the Ryder Cup, and for 52 weeks he was the world’s top-ranked player.
But he hasn’t looked much like that guy here and he was a pale impression again on Saturday.
The feared Spaniard known as ‘Rhambo’ is hardly the threat he once was a few years ago
He had spoken after his first-round 78 of needing a ‘miracle’ and followed his 70 a day later by admitting only a ‘heck of a round’ might save his week. Finishing a full hour before Rory McIlroy even began, he carded a 73; in other words, he went backwards and it is hard to shake the urge to think the same of his career in general since joining LIV in late 2023.
Can the pocketing of £400million ever be rated a mistake? Well, that’s an old debate and one that boils down to priorities, but at 31, we are forever acquiring new evidence to suggest his prime years are passing him by. That his relevance among the cream has diminished into a series of nostalgia-based predictions and reality-check results on the biggest stages.
We should add that Rahm has not become a bad golfer by any stretch – his major finishes since the end of 2023 read: T45, cut, injured, T7, T14, T8, T7, T34, plus whatever he delivers on Sunday, which will most likely be deep into double digits. Objectively, that is a good body of work, but everything is relative.
Back in 2021, for instance, when Rahm won the US Open, he was never lower than eighth in a major, and in his final season as a PGA Tour player, in 2023, he not only won the Masters but also finished second at the Open and 10th at the US Open. That was his level, supported by 17 other titles between 2017 and 2023 on the DP World Tour and PGA Tour.
Rahm is seen reacting on the seventh green during the third round at Augusta National
Regrettably, the slide is unmistakeable from a player who was expected to spend an entire era in battle with McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler.
He can perform in the smaller fields and gentler courses of LIV, where he has been excellent in 2026, but iron sharpens irons and there are too many blunt, faded stars on his day-to-day tour.
Ask him about that and he’ll deny it, of course, as he did rather tetchily on Friday. Just as he has previously denied the oft-repeated rumour of ‘buyer’s remorse’ since moving. Tyrrell Hatton, his LIV team-mate, told me last year that those assumptions are little more than ‘media bull****’ but many folk of importance in golf believe it to be true.
One senior figure on the DP World Tour told me as much earlier this week under the grand oak tree outside the Augusta clubhouse. It’s where the great and good here mingle and do deals and Rahm’s agent has been there most days – it is tempting to wonder if Rahm has ever queried to him privately if they were right to sign the biggest one of all.
We have seen Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed quit LIV in the past few months and there is no certainty whatsoever that Bryson DeChambeau will get the $500million he is apparently requesting to stay beyond this year.
If he goes, where does that leave LIV? And where does it leave Rahm, having gone all-in on this concept and whose contract is understood to run through 2027? For now, we are seeing a golfer in no-man’s land and stubbornly committed to a nonsensical row with the DP World Tour over unpaid fines. A place in the next Ryder Cup, the final domain where his stock is enormous, remains in peril if he does not back down.
We tried to discuss that with him earlier in the week and met a minor protestation that he was here to talk about the Masters. The place where many of us, myself included, tipped him to win. But he did let a few thoughts slip and offered an assurance he will be at Adare Manor in 2027, albeit to some surprise from the Tour with whom he is currently squabbling.
Rahm plays a shot on the eighth hole during the third round of the 2026 Masters Tournament
To watch him play golf is still to get reminders that he can play shots like few others. Also that he is a massive draw to galleries wherever he competes.
But this third round was sad and summed up somewhat by his final hole, where for the third time in a handful of hours he shouted ‘fore right’ off the tee before playing his next shot from an awkward stance under a bush. There was magic in the pitch over sand that gave him an eight-footer to save par and there was an inevitability that he then missed the putt.
That, sadly, has been the story of his week and much of the past three years.
When he wrapped up, he had little to say. ‘I came in with the same expectations I come into any other major, any other tournament – not any higher or lower,’ he said. ‘If I knew the why, two things: I’m probably not going to say it right now, and I would have tried to avoid it if I knew.’
He sounded confused. As are all the onlookers who swear by memories of what he could do in the not-so-distant past.
