When Jon Rahm turned on the back nine at Le Golf National on Sunday, he looked well on his way to bringing home a gold medal for his native Spain.
He shot 31 over the first nine holes to finish 5-under par and pull away from the rest of the field, then he birdied the par-4 10th hole and suddenly Rahm was 20-under par, four strokes ahead and in complete control of the Olympics.
Then he missed a five-foot putt for par on the par-3 11th hole, three-putting, and it all fell apart from there. Rahm bogeyed the 12th hole and then a double bogey on the par-5 14th to fall to 16 under and far behind the leader. He managed to redeem those blunders with a long birdie on the par-3 16th to at least restore some hope of a medal, but consecutive bogeys on the final two holes sealed his fate. Rahm finished in a tie for fifth place, an outcome that seemed impossible to him as he tee’d off at the 11th hole.
“I can’t remember the last time I played in a tournament but this is how I felt. I can’t find the words. Not only the feeling of letting myself down but also not achieving a result for the whole of Spain is much more painful than I would have liked,” Lahm said after the match.
“I was asked questions like, ‘Where do you think I’ll place in this tournament?’ and ‘How do you think it would feel if I won?’ but I think losing today gave me a deeper understanding of what this tournament meant to me than if I had won a medal. It really gave me a taste of how important it was. It was such an honor to represent Spain in so many events and I’m very disappointed that I couldn’t finish this tournament.”
Rahm added afterwards that things had gone “a little bit” wrong towards the end of the game.
“Honestly, 11 and 12, the more you think about it, it can happen in golf. It’s not that it’s terrible,” Rahm said.
“On the 11th hole, the wind was blowing a lot harder than we felt it was, so that’s why it added to the distance. I played five strokes down and ended up being 10 strokes down. I made some good putts, but I misread them. Three-putting situations have been an issue all week. I think I’ve three-putted almost every day, which is not something I’m used to. I think I’ve three-putted three, four, five, six times this week, which is just too much.”
But Rahm said his biggest mistake of the day was taking a seven strokes on the 14th hole.
“My biggest mistake was my third shot on the 14th hole,” Rahm explained.
“I missed the fairway once. It’s a tough tee shot so that can happen. But I had a good layup. Then you can’t do what I did on the third. You can’t go left. I think it was 600 feet with an 8-iron. I was trying to hit a long shot and knew if I went short right I’d be OK. Well, you can’t go left of the green, right? I ended up with a terrible lie. I ended up paying for all my mistakes on that hole.”
He then tried to get back into attacking mode, knowing that a few three-stroke wins over the final four holes could see him overtake Rahm and others for the lead and tie with eventual gold medal winner Scottie Scheffler.
“I don’t think I had a bad swing, it’s just that the golf course is so difficult, it’s as simple as that,” Rahm added.
“It’s a shame I didn’t get more chances to beat Hideki on the 18th. [Matsuyama] “We were in a playoff. The mistake was too early. I missed the ball from 20 yards out on the 11th tee. I did it to myself. It hurts even more when I think about what it meant and what it could have been for Spain.”
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation Playing Through. Follow For more golf articles, follow us on Twitter Jack Mirko In the same way.
