J.J. Spaun, the surprising and brilliant winner of the US Open, the third major of the season, has moved up to eighth place in the world golf rankings. Scottie Scheffler remains the undisputed leader, seventh on the infernal Oakmont course, tied with Spaniard Jon Rahm, who has climbed several places.
Rahm, ranking
The first victory in a Grand Slam tournament allows the 34-year-old Californian to advance seventeen places to also enter the top 10 for the first time. Norwegian Viktor Hovland, third this Sunday, returns to the top 10, rising to ninth place. American Russell Henley and Austrian Sepp Straka move up to sixth and seventh.
The top five remain unchanged. Scheffler leads by a landslide (18.35) ahead of Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy (11.01), who with Rahm posted the best round on Sunday to finish nineteenth, and fellow Americans Xander Schauffele (7.31), Collin Morikawa (6.17), and Justin Thomas (6.00).
Rahm, a participant on the LIV circuit, shined on the final day at Oakmont to finish tied for seventh, moving from 77th to 59th on the world list, which is followed by Spaniards David Puig (124), Jorge Campillo (125), and Eugenio López Chacarra (142).
Jon Rahm Rodríguez (born November 10, 1994 in Barrika) is a Spanish golfer.
Already ranked number 1 in the amateur golf world for a record 60 weeks, he reached the top of the official ranking after winning the Memorial Tournament in July 2020, returning to the highest position after winning the U.S. Open in June 2021: he was the first Spaniard to triumph in the prestigious tournament.
He attended Arizona State University and won 11 tournaments in the university field, second only to Phil Mickelson who won 16 titles. In 2015 he participated as an amateur in the Phoenix Open, finishing fifth[4]. On April 1, he became first in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and remained there for 25 weeks, then regained the position and held it for another 35 weeks. He thus qualified for the U.S. Open and the Open Championship of the following year: in the first of the two tournaments he finished twenty-third, then turned professional, simultaneously losing the right to play in the Open.
The Quicken Loans National was his first event as a professional and he finished third. The Canadian Open instead saw him finish second. At the end of the season he obtained a card for the 2017 PGA Tour. Rahm found his first success in the Farmers Insurance Open thanks to an eagle on the final hole[5], managing to enter the major tournaments of the world scene. At the Mexico Championship, an event of the World Golf Championships series, he finished third, two shots behind the winner Dustin Johnson[6], while in the second event, the Dell Technologies Match Play, he lost the final against Johnson himself. He then won the Irish Open and the final tournament of the European Tour season, the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, by six strokes, also taking home the Rookie of the Year award.
He began 2018 with a second place at the Tournament of Champions, again behind Dustin Johnson, but then came the triumph at the CareerBuilder Challenge with which he reached the second position in the ranking: he followed that at the Spanish Open and that at the 2018 Ryder Cup together with the European team. He ended the year also obtaining the title at the Hero World Challenge in December. In 2019 he succeeded at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and third place at the U.S. Open. He then returned to win the Irish Open and defended the title at the Spanish Open. At the end of the season he triumphed again at the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, thus finishing in the lead in the Race to Dubai and becoming Golfer of the Year of the European Tour.
In the year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to the title of the Memorial Tournament he became first in the world rankings, the second Spaniard in history to achieve this after Severiano Ballesteros. In August he also won the BMW Championship, beating Dustin Johnson in the playoff. In June 2021 he was forced to abandon the Memorial Tournament, where he was leading by six shots at the end of the third round, due to testing positive for COVID-19. However, on June 20, his first triumph in a major arrived, at the U.S. Open, thanks to two birdies in the last two holes. In July he placed third at the Open Championship tied with Louis Oosthuizen. Subsequently, in October he triumphs a second time in the 2023 Ryder Cup.
On 8 December 2023, it was announced that the Spanish golfer had moved from the PGA Tour to the Saudi LIV Golf circuit, with which he signed a three-year participation contract, with an estimated earnings of around 550 million euros.
