Jon Rahm was a trendy pick coming into this Open Championship at Royal Portrush, and for good reason.
In 10 LIV starts this season, he has just once finished outside the top 10. In the first three majors of 2025, he also was consistently excellent, finishing T14 at the Masters, T8 at the PGA Championship and T7 at the U.S. Open. Rahm also is an elite links player; in three of his last four Open starts, he has finished no worse than T7.
In the early going at the 153rd Open Championship, the good mojo continued. Playing in the morning wave in the first round, Rahm opened with five pars before birdieing 6 and 7. After two more pars, he turned in 34 and was on the first page of the leaderboard.
Then came Rahm’s first slip-up of the day. After flying the green long and left on the par-4 10th, Rahm failed to get and up and down and made bogey to drop him back to one under in the midst of an into-the-wind stretch of holes (8 through 12) that he later described as the teeth of the course.
Links golf throws all kind of vagaries at golfers: wind switches, rain spells, bad bounces. But the spot of unfortunateness that Rahm encountered on the following tee — at the beefy par-4 11th — is not in the links-golf playbook.
The 11th, which plays as a par-5 for members, statistically is the hardest hole on the course. “Though the fairway widens as it bends right, inviting players to try to cut the corner at 260 yards, trouble lurks both left and right in the form of dunes and gnarly rough,” my colleague Josh Sens noted of the hole. “The green is elevated, with a false front that repels balls into a valley — yet another reason the 11th yielded more than twice as many bogeys or worse than it did birdies in 2019.”
When Rahm settled in over his tee ball at 11 on Thursday, the conditions were less than ideal.
“If I were to paint a picture,” he said after his round, “you have the hardest tee shot on the course, raining, into the wind off the left — it’s enough.”
By which he meant he certainly could have done without what came next. As Rahm, who has a track record of losing his cool on the course, drew back his driver and unloaded on his ball, a shrill sound, produced by a fan, pierced the air.
As Rahm’s tee shot sailed into the right rough, he raised his arms and looked at the cluster of fans to the left of the tee box.
“Really? Whistling?” he chirped. “Great time. Right in my backswing. Very smart — whoever it was.”
Rahm’s tee ball found some heavy rough and he was able to advance his next shot only 114 yards, leading to his second consecutive bogey. Still, he regained his composure and played the closing seven holes in one under to finish with a one-under 70.
After his round, Rahm was asked about the distraction at 11. Veteran reporters were likely expecting the fiery Spaniard to lash out at the fan, but instead Rahm, who in recent years has made efforts to temper his combustibility, took the ill-timed disturbance in stride.
“I know they’re not doing it on purpose,” he said of the fan. “It just seemed like somebody trying to get a hold of someone for whatever it is. It was bad timing. I think I just used the moment to let out any tension I had in me.
“To be honest, it probably didn’t affect as much as I made it sound like. It was a bad swing as well. Just a difficult hole. I mean, it’s frustrating, but it is what it is. It’s an everyday thing in golf.”
Healthy attitude, right? We think so!
As of this writing, Rahm was tied for 21st, three behind a pack of leaders at four under.
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