Get to know Jon Rahm: 15 things you didn’t know about the Masters winner
Jon Rahm won the Masters Sunday for his second major title.
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Jon Rahm is major winner once again after emerging victorious at the 2023 Masters. With the win, his fourth of 2023, he moves back to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings for the second time this year.
But you already know all of that — just like you know his first major title was the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
To celebrate his first green jacket, here are some things you might not know about Rahm.
15 things you didn’t know about Jon Rahm
1. As was mentioned on the broadcast, Rahm was the No. 1 amateur in the world for a record 60 weeks before turning professional in 2016, but he never got to play Augusta National until 2017. Hope he didn’t get jealous of Gordon Sargent and Sam Bennett, two amateurs in the field this week at Augusta.
2. Born in a small town called Barrika in Spain, Rahm didn’t know much English when he got to Arizona State. Without knowing anyone yet as a freshman either, he studied the lyrics of rappers Kendrick Lamar and Eminem. Would be cool if he busted some bars at the green jacket presentation.
3. Rahm is a big supporter of Athletic Club Bilbao from his home region of Basque, Spain.
4. His wife, Kelley, threw javelin for Arizona State. She also was recruited to play tennis out of high school.
5. Rahm proposed to Kelley while hiking around Torrey Pines in 2018 with a ring he had custom-made by PGA Tour pro Brian Stuard’s wife.
6. Earlier this year, Rahm jokingly (or not) suggested his first son, Kepa, was conceived the night he first reached No. 1 in the OWGR in July 2020. “We suspect it was that night,” he said.
7. Rahm vowed he would withdraw from the 2021 Masters if Kelley went into labor. Luckily, Kepa was born a few days prior to the tournament and Rahm finished T5 that week. Their second son, Eneko, was born in 2022.
8. Rahm’s parents, Edorta and Angela, had never played golf before attending the 1997 Ryder Cup at Valderrama. They took up the game shortly after and soon followed the young Jon a few years later.
9. Rahm played as many as five sports up until the age of 14: golf, soccer, canoeing, Jai alai and Kung Fu.
10. At Arizona State, Rahm was coached by Tim Mickelson, the brother of Phil Mickelson, who finished T2 this week with Tim on his bag. Tim was also Rahm’s agent for a time after he turned pro.
11. Phil Mickelson bet with GOLF Subpar’s Colt Knost in June 2016, before Rahm even turned pro, that Rahm would become a top 10 player in the world within a year. Mickelson won the bet.
12. Rahm’s caddie, Adam Hayes, sports a beard because Rahm won when Hayes first showed up with it at the Sentry Tournament of Champions at the start of the year. The beard is now “responsible” for four wins.
13. According to longtime PGA Tour caddie Joe Skovron, “If Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia had a baby, that’s who Jon Rahm is as a golfer,” he said.
14. After meeting Rahm for the first time and doing a club fitting for him, TaylorMade’s vice president of tour operations Keith Sbarbaro called Golf Channel’s Tripp Isenhour and told him, “I just met the sixth-best player in the world, and he’s still an amateur.” Sbarbaro, who signed Rahm to play TaylorMade equipment out of college before, later said, “I may have sold Jon short.”
15. While testing Callaway drivers ahead of 2022 product launches, Rahm recorded 10-straight drives with a spin difference of less than 100 RPMs, better than a robot.
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