Jon Rahm

[Hoganman1]

I know it's already Monday for all my friends "across the pond" but I hope you stayed up late to watch Rahmbo win the BMW. What a finish. DJ makes a 40+ footer to get into a playoff and Rahm makes a 45+ footer on the first playoff hole to win. I hope he can keep the momentum going for the US Open. I know the Tour Championship is next, but I really don't much care for that tournament. I used to like it because I love East Lake. When they went to the weird format where the number one guy starts at ten under before he even tees off they lost me. Any way kudos to Jon Rahm. He's learned to control his temper and he's become one of the best in the world. Here's hoping there are multiple majors in his future.

 

[Deleted member 23344]

Yes, I was watching. It certainly was one hell of a finish to the competition. Glad Rahm didn’t lose out in the end as a result of his bizarre error of picking up his ball on the green without marking it.

 

[Grant85]

I know it's already Monday for all my friends "across the pond" but I hope you stayed up late to watch Rahmbo win the BMW. What a finish. DJ makes a 40+ footer to get into a playoff and Rahm makes a 45+ footer on the first playoff hole to win. I hope he can keep the momentum going for the US Open. I know the Tour Championship is next, but I really don't much care for that tournament. I used to like it because I love East Lake. When they went to the weird format where the number one guy starts at ten under before he even tees off they lost me. Any way kudos to Jon Rahm. He's learned to control his temper and he's become one of the best in the world. Here's hoping there are multiple majors in his future.

Agree with the format about the Tour Championship.

They have tinkered with the Fed Ex Cup / Playoffs format for years to try and get it to come down to a grand stand finish. Ultimately if someone is miles ahead, they deserve a cushion, or to have all but won the Money List by the time of the final tournament.

If DJ had won last night, he'd have a several thousand point advantage over the 2nd placed player, but would still have got the 2 shot lead that Rahm is getting for being a few hundred points ahead. It's just all too contrived.

There is also the issue that the Playoff events are worth a LOT more points, so someone could go through the season having a mediocre year... like Justin Thomas last year compared to Brooks and Rory. Then have a good couple of weeks and get a 2 shot headstart on the field despite no one seriously arguing he had performed better than Brooks or Rory over the season.

The European Tour have the right idea. If it's a point race, then have a points race. Ok, so it means there's often not much to play for in the final week but it also gives the Race to Dubai a lot more gravitas that it is generally the best player on that tour over the whole season, as opposed to someone who has had a good finish to the season.

 

[slowhand]

Unfortunately American sports and their audiences are all geared to a playoff-type season, where a few get through to play head to head. The NBA, NFL and MLB all cater to this, and nobody complains when the wildcard team win Super Bowl.
Unfortunately, I agree that golf doesn’t lend itself to this style of play (and don’t get me started on the non-stop, “wraparound” season). The guy with the most points at the end of the season is that season’s champion. Simple as.

 

[Sekiro]

DJ’s on the 18th;-

Rahm’s answer to DJ’s in the playoff;-

Both amazing puts and I’m glad I stayed up to watch it.

 

[pool888]

Both fantastic putts in the circumstances. Rahm's must of been a right kick in the teeth to DJ who had the momentum of birdieing the last and being well inside his playing partner with a nice break landing him plum in the middle of the fairway after hitting a tree with his drive.

 

[Carpfather1]

It was a fantastic watch I’m glad rahm won in the end

 

[KenL]

I'm not a fan of Rahm myself.

 

[Sports_Fanatic]

Great couple of putts!

The idea that Rahm needed to control his temper in order to win is played up a bit too much. Look at his record - he was amateur number 1 for a record number of weeks, won plenty in his college career, has already won 12 professional events and reached World number 1 despite turning pro only four years ago. His record for a 25 year old stacks up as a comparison to most and I did see some stats where he compared quite well to Tiger. My point being if he needs to control his temper to win then he learnt that as a kid.

 

[Grant85]

Unfortunately American sports and their audiences are all geared to a playoff-type season, where a few get through to play head to head. The NBA, NFL and MLB all cater to this, and nobody complains when the wildcard team win Super Bowl.
Unfortunately, I agree that golf doesn’t lend itself to this style of play (and don’t get me started on the non-stop, “wraparound” season). The guy with the most points at the end of the season is that season’s champion. Simple as.

I've also heard several takes on podcasts that the Playoffs includes far too many competitors. Playoffs in other sports might whittle the field down to 25% or 33% for the 'post season'. And everyone starts the playoffs at zero with the regular season doing no more than seeding the teams for home / away advantage.

In golf, the playoffs pretty much start with a full field of 125 and realistically the guys in the bottom 30% have virtually no chance of winning the whole thing. Not the case in Baseball, for example, when it's not all that unusual for a 'wildcard' team to go all the way, despite only sneaking into the playoffs in the lower positions.

If they want to make it the genuine playoffs, then in my view they should have the normal 'money list' winner over a 48 week season, then the final 2 or 3 weeks just have the genuine top 30 players going for 2 weeks in some kind of stroke-play / matchplay tournament for the 'Fed Ex Cup winner'. Top 30 play 4 rounds of strokeplay to find the top 16 (playoff for every place, which would add great drama). Then the final week is last 16 matchplay. Again, you could playoff for every position (better money) which would mean plenty of golf and decent stakes matches where guys are effectively playing 18 holes for $200k.

I understand why they don't play more matchplay as you could easilly get a blow-out match, or you could end up with 2 nobodies while Rory, Rahm, DJ, Brooks, JT etc are all dumped out. But if you whittled things down to the top 30, then maybe the top 16 for the final 'bracket' you would be very likely to get some very good matchups.

 

[Patster1969]

It was a fantastic watch I’m glad rahm won in the end

Especially after his brain fart moment, when he picked his ball up without marking it on the green

 

[Jigger]

He’s starting to feel like a great number one. His comeback today was awesome.

By great I mean we will hopefully see him consistently top of the rankings, around the 12 point mark and clear by a couple of points by the end of the season. He has a bit of personality too which is good to see.