Rahm the towering Spaniard who dominated the PGA Tour in 2023’s early months won the Masters on Sunday, April 9, 2023. Against an eggshell blue sky, he overcame a two-stroke deficit to win despite starting the final round behind four-time major winner Brooks Koepka, who failed to make the cut at the Masters in April.
In the end, Rahm had a four-stroke advantage and finished the competition 12 strokes under par. Rahm said:
“I’m looking at the scores and I still think I have a couple more holes left to win, Can’t really say anything else. This one was for Seve. He was up there helping and help he did.”
For the time being at least, Rahm’s victory thwarted a top goal of LIV Golf, the second-year competition that was funded by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and intended to divide men’s professional golf into hostile factions. Koepka is a major name on the rebel circuit and recently won a LIV tournament in Florida.
To follow that up with a win at Augusta National would have been unprecedented for a Young player in the world of golf. In mid-May, the league will have another opportunity at the P.G.A. Championship at Oak Hill Golf Course, not far from Rochester, New York.
In Augusta, where there were 88 golfers and 18 from the LIV, Rahm methodically eliminated the league’s 2023 chances. Though the league had a strong showing behind Koepka and Phil Mickelson, whose sensational Sunday outing at seven under eventually vaulted him into a tie for second with Koepka, the tournament concluded with Rahm, a PGA Tour stalwart, poised to select the menu for next year’s dinner of Masters champions.
Three-time Masters champion Mickelson is expected to attend. Koepka will not, despite having finished each of the first three rounds in a tie for the lead and displaying a level of consistency (until it vanished) that was all the more impressive given the disruptions caused by weather and the tournament’s schedule.
Koepka said:
“I led for three rounds, and just didn’t do it on the last day, That’s it, plain and simple.”
After missing the green with his tee shot, chipping well beyond the pin and putting barely past the hole with his par putt, Koepka made a bogey and lost the lead on Sunday. Both golfers had made an eagle on the par-5 eighth hole at some point during the competition, therefore it was a hole where they might potentially make up ground.
Nevertheless, Koepka’s tee shot on Sunday afternoon landed in a patch of pine straw, necessitating a punch-out onto the fairway. Rahm guided his third ball onto the green, setting himself up for an easy birdie that increased his lead to two shots.
As a result, Mickelson finished his round in second position, all by himself. Koepka tied Mickelson with a birdie on the 13th hole, but Rahm kept his three-stroke lead with his own birdie, his first since the 8th hole. But, Rahm’s lead quickly returned to five strokes after the next hole.
From close to the woods, Rahm hit his second ball onto the green and it rolled in a semicircle until it halted near the hole, setting up an easy birdie putt. Even though Koepka’s second putt landed on the green, it rolled further away from the hole than his first.
Koepka had his fifth bogey of the round when a long attempt for birdie was unsuccessful and a much shorter one at par lipped out. At the par-5 15th hole, he almost made an eagle putt but settled for a birdie.
With only three holes remaining, Rahm had a four-stroke lead. After his tee sh0t sailed over the water at No. 16, Koepka made a magnificent birdie to trim the deficit to three. Nevertheless, the window of opportunity for a comeback was rapidly closing.
With his only major title coming from the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego, Rahm was a shoo-in for the green jacket and in a few months, a Masters trophy bearing the names of all the players he defeated.
Rahm said:
“Never thought I was going to cry by winning a golf tournament, but I got very close on that 18th hole”.
Rahm has played exceptionally well recently, even by the standards of a star who initially topped the Official World Golf Ranking in 2020. He had a two-stroke victory margin at the DP World Tour Championship in November.
He won the Genesis Invitational in February after sweeping the first two events on the PGA Tour in January with identical 27-under-par totals. Throughout the month of March, he struggled, finishing tied for 39th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational missing the Players Championship due to stomach sickness and having a below-par performance at a World Golf Championships match play tournament.
He said last week:
“Every single tournament I go to, my plan is to win, and my mind-set doesn’t deviate from that”.
He had never placed higher than fourth at Augusta National until Sunday night. Yet, he came into this year’s competition, his seventh Master’s appearance with so much course knowledge that he believed it would be difficult to exploit to its full potential. He said:
“I feel like it’s very difficult to apply everything you learn from each round here at Augusta National”.
He added:
“The more you play, the more accustomed you will become to the slight delay inherent in playing from this location. Some putts have incredibly subtle breaks and others move at speeds that are difficult to judge.
“Some study and preparation is in order of course nonetheless, your primary objective in coming here should be to play some excellent golf. It’s as simple as that. No special skill is required. You need to play at your best if you want to succeed”.
If you’re interested in reading more posts about similar topics, you can find all of our most recent posts by following us on Twitter.