Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm taught me 10 lessons in 45 minutes

Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm arrived early. Perhaps that was the first lesson they taught me: To be a proper pro, if you’re on time, you’re late. But by the time I’d gotten to their spot on the driving range at Maridoe GC in Dallas, both players already had wedges in hand, their warmups underway. And so our latest episode of Warming Up — starring Hatton and Rahm — began in real time.

Here are 10 things I learned.

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1. Both start with their highest-degree wedges.

“I mainly start by trying to hit it anywhere from 50-60 yards and just get used to the club being in my hands again for the day,” Hatton said of his 60-degree. Any shot shape he has in mind? “I don’t think about that, I just hit it,” he said. “Golf’s complicated enough.”

2. But they’d already begun in the gym.

That wasn’t always the case, Hatton confessed. But at this point he needs to get his engine going before he hits the range.

“Definitely not,” he said. “But as I’ve gotten older and stiffer and fatter, I’ve needed to start doing a bit more in the gym to get the rig ready to try and rotate.”

3. Hatton has a “double grip-down” he uses to take off distance.

“I’ve always struggled to take distance off by slowing my swing down, it messes me up,” he said. “So I started gripping down and then with the 54[-degree] I have a double grip-down, so that goes even shorter. So I can still make my swing.”

He shows me the little “V” marks on his grip that he uses to monitor the extent of his grip-downs. How many yards does that strategy take off?

“From a full shot? The double-grip down would take off normally close to 12 yards,” he said. “So it’s quite a bit. It feels horrendous, but I’ve done it enough that you get comfortable with it.”

4. Rahm likes playing with other fiery competitors.

“One of the things that makes us get along is we tend to have some similar reactions on the golf course,” Rahm said of Hatton, who has been his Ryder Cup teammate and is now his LIV teammate on Legion XIII. How does that affect him, playing with another hothead?

“Whenever I play with somebody that might get a little bit more fired up on the golf course, not only just [Tyrrell], everybody, because I see myself in it, I laugh. So there’s a bit of a joy that comes with it. And a lot of times they’ll see me laughing and then they laugh. Because they fully understand where it’s coming from.”

5. Rahm’s a gentle giant.

Asking Hatton what Rahm’s like away from the course led to probably my favorite exchange of the day:

Hatton: “Well, he looks scary, doesn’t he? But he’s like a big teddy bear.”

Rahm: “Why do people say I look scary?”

Hatton: “It’s probably something to do with being a f—ing unit and being like six foot three. When you’re a five foot eight hobbit, it’s unnerving.”

6. Hatton’s just as funny as you’d think.

“Tyrrell is one of the funniest people you’ll ever meet,” Rahm said. “He doesn’t like to do it, but I think he should be mic’d up for one of our practice rounds. Because he just drops gems. Like, any compilation you’ve seen of him saying funny things is very mild compared to what we usually hear.”

7. But he’s not much for positive self-talk.

I asked Hatton when he feels like he first got so good. I thought this was pretty safe territory; depending who you ask he’s considered one of the 10 or 15 best golfers in the world at the moment. That is, unless you ask him.

“That’s a weird question. I don’t think I am [so good],” he said. “I tell myself I’m s—.”

Then he invoked a line from an English comedian.

“What Micky Flanagan says: Positivity drains you.”

8. Rahm, on the other hand, is more positive than he sounds.

“I am, like, irrationally positive in my mind,” he said. “Never lose hope, always hoping for the best on the next shot in any situation — even though my mouth may be saying other things, I firmly believe it. The amount of times I’ll say in Spanish, ‘if you’re going to play like this, go home, what are you doing wasting your time,’ internally I really know i’m just trying to fire myself up yeah because I know, okay, you can do this.”

In other words, he’s never short on self-belief.

“No, no, no.”

9. Hatton hits the ball outrageously straight.

Just during our session he hit several shots that registered at an unheard-of “0” in side spin — including on one drive that carried 318 yards.

“For how complicated the game is and how much we try to simplify it, [Tyrrell’s] only thought is to hit a straight, which is arguably the impossible play,” Rahm said. “That’s the funniest part to me, but how good is he at it, right? I mean, you’re seeing it. To get zero side spin with so many clubs, he’s clearly good at it.”

Hatton confirmed that he doesn’t think specifically about chasing speed.

“I feel like I can hit it far enough to be able to compete,” he said. “Sure, there are guys out here that absolutely send it and you’ll never beat them in a long-drive competition, but hitting it a long way doesn’t mean you’re going to go win every week. There’s other ways to get around the course.”

10. Rahm’s been hitting more draws.

I asked Rahm if he hit 100 drives how many would be fades versus draws. That number, he said, has changed dramatically.

“If you asked me this five years ago, I would have said 99 fades and one accidental draw,” he said. “If we’re including 3-woods off the tee, I would say I’m maybe getting to 30 percent draws.”

Rahm showed what it looks like when he hits his stock fade — pick a reference point a few inches in front of the ball, line up to that, aligning slightly left of his target, and swing down the line of his aim, knowing the ball will fall to the right.

When he hits a draw, on the other hand, he’ll close his stance slightly but move the ball up further in his stance — all while leaving his club in the same spot.

“I’m just allowing an extra foot for the clubface to close,” he said. “I don’t change anything on my swing. And when I’m swinging well, worst case is it’s straight. If it draws, it draws a little bit.”

Good news: There’s much more where that came from! To hear Rahm’s favorite part of golf, whether or not Hatton “loves” the game and what he finds “disgusting,” watch the complete video on YouTube here or below.

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