MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 4, 2023

Jon Rahm

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen we are pleased to introduce Jon Rahm to the interview room. Welcome back to the Masters.

JON RAHM: Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: Jon has played in six Masters. He has four Top 10 finishes. With those past experiences, what have you learned that you're applying to your preparations for this year?

JON RAHM: I feel like it's very difficult to apply everything you learn from each round here at Augusta National. I think the main thing is you get an idea of how to play each hole, get on the golf course, getting to play the golf course in every single wind, every single possible conditions, right, which every year I feel like the weather has been a little bit different and we've seen different things.

Just getting that knowledge helps. Obviously the more you play, the more comfortable you get with a little bit of the lag putting out here, I would say. It can be very deceiving to understand some of the breaks and some of the speeds on the putts. You know, a little bit of learning and things like that, but at the end of the day, it's a golf course where you have to come out here and play good golf, right. It's plain and simple. There's no trick to it. The best player wins, and that's what you've got to do.

Q. You've had remarkable success on the PGA TOUR so far this year, but as a test of golf, how different is this than what you see week-in and week-out on the PGA TOUR, and as a result, does it make how you were playing before maybe not as indicative as it would be for another major?

JON RAHM: I mean, you can always -- the form, you aren't going to always be indicative on how good of chances you have, but at the end of the day, it's a new week, right. What you've done before doesn't really matter, period.

There's been many times where there's players that haven't had the best year, but for some reason they feel confident on their chances and they've done good golf. Some of the lefties come to mind and come out here and have good performances. Obviously, Tiger, every time he came out here, seemed like he had a good chance. Jordan, no matter what, he's up on the radar.

Something about this golf course. I think it's because it allows you to play however you want to play it that always gives every player a chance, right. There's multiple options off the tee, multiple options into greens. There's not one style of golf. You can pretty much do it however is most comfortable for you. And if you play good golf, you might be able to get it done.

Q. The number of times you play here, the experience you build up, a lot of guys say they get more comfortable and certain things get easier. As time goes on and you rack up tournament experience here, is there anything that gets tougher?

JON RAHM: I wouldn't say anything gets more difficult. I mean, not to keep talking about the same hole I think everybody talks about, but 12 doesn't seem to get any easier anytime you play it. That one, it just depends on the wind gust and if you pulled the right club or not. That would be the only thing I say, the one hole out here that has a question mark for us. It's just depending on the day. There's been days when you get there, the wind is dead, and it's the easiest 9-iron you'll hit; and there's days where the wind is a little swirly, and the club ranges, you have no idea what the wind is doing. You kind of have to get comfortable with your choice and try to execute right. You see a little bit of everything.

Every other hole, though, I think you can pretty much manage your game pretty well out there. That one is just the margin of error is so small.

Q. There's a clear gap now between the world's top three and everyone else. What have you, Scottie and Rory got that nobody else has?

JON RAHM: I wouldn't know what to tell you. I really don't know exactly what to say. There usually points -- point difference might be a lot larger than what the actual game difference might be between the three of us, if that makes any sense, right. If we are talking about half a shot a round, that's just absolutely nothing. That's one good bounce and there's the difference, right.

But you create your own luck, I guess. Playing in good form and feeding off each other, and obviously since, well, Scottie starting it last year and myself later in the fall, we've been able to rack up more wins than anybody else. Just being able to get it done.

Q. Do you feel like you motivate and push each other and inspire each other to be better?

JON RAHM: I believe so. I was there on Sunday with Scottie when he won in Phoenix. You never like that feeling. So when I went to L.A., I definitely fed off that in that Sunday round.

Q. Are you a big believer in momentum from tournament to tournament, and if so, did THE PLAYERS that week, did that slow any kind of roll that you may have been on?

JON RAHM: If anything was going to slow anything down, it would have been Arnold Palmer, not PLAYERS. I actually felt really comfortable at PLAYERS in the first round. Didn't make the putts I wanted to make, but it was a very comfortable tee-to-green ball-striking round. I was looking forward to it throughout rest of the week. It's just, you can't. You know, sometimes life gets in the way in that sense.

But no, I'm a week-to-week type of guy, just because, you know, if you believe that something like that can stop positive momentum, when you get on a negative run, you know, how can you change that, right? If you're waiting for something outside yourself to change things, I don't think that's the best way to look at it, in my mind.

Every single tournament I go to, my plan is to win, and my mindset doesn't deviate from that. So I would say, again, I'm more of a week-to-week type of guy.

Q. With respect to data points, at the end of the week, if there are one or two reflective of you having a great week, what would they be?

JON RAHM: Hard to say. Historically it's not a golf course where people, when they go to win, they hit a ton of fairways or a ton of greens. Somebody told me the average green hit percentage was 60-some percent. Highest winner was Tiger one year with 82 percent, I believe, this was told to me recently.

But what everybody has in common is what's happening around the greens. If you can limit those mistakes and turn those mistakes into pars, sometimes birdies, maybe sometimes a bogey, that's kind of like the modern major championships.

If you go back and see Scottie's round last year, how many times did he miss a green, make up-and-down and make a par and keep the round going and make a few birdies and distanced himself from the entire field.

I think like that's a key aspect of the game. I would say, Bubba, both of his wins he was up there. I've talked to Phil many times about this, and he's told me the reason he's comfortable here is because with his short game, feels like he can be more aggressive than anyone and still get pars and birdies out of it. So what to say about Jordan Spieth's short game, right? So I would say it's a bit of all of those things.

Obviously, if you get a year where you're hitting 70-plus percent of the fairways and 70-plus percent of the greens, you're definitely having a better chance than everybody else.

Q. Can you describe your feelings and mindset on the first tee and how they could change, potentially change, from Thursday to Sunday?

JON RAHM: Well, it's a special situation on that first tee because we rarely get an opening tee shot where the Patrons are that close, right. I mean, if you tee it up on the right side of the tee box, they are three feet from you. That doesn't happen very often. Just from the simple announcement you get, no matter who you are, it's pretty much ready, set, go.

You know, it's an iconic tee shot. Everything you see around here is iconic. Thursday is up there, Friday, Saturday might get a little bit easier, and Sunday gets -- Sunday night, especially if you're in contention, you're aware, and not to say anything, the first tee shot is difficult. If you dial back, you're going to have a really mean iron shot into a difficult green. If you try to take on the bunker a little bit, it plays quite narrow. Not the easiest opening tee shot. There's not one that you can tee up and swing driver as hard as you can, because trouble is lurking on that hole everywhere.

Q. There's obviously a distinguished Spanish history here. I wonder what your earliest memory of watching the Masters was.

JON RAHM: Well, unfortunately when Ollie first won, I wasn't born. In '99, when he won his second one, I don't think my family had started playing golf yet so we didn't know. My earliest memory from Augusta National was Phil's second shot into 14 in 2004. That's my earlier memory.

But then obviously I've come back and seen a lot of playbacks of what has happened. I'm obviously very aware that it's the 40th anniversary since Seve's second win out here.

So it's something that's important to me, right. I think when Ollie won in '99, Sergio, it was his first start in the Masters, as an amateur, but still, and when Sergio won it was my first Masters as well. I hope history repeats itself and I get to win someday.

Q. Just an extension of the World Ranking question. There's the big three which has always been part of history and folklore, Arnie, Nicklaus, Tiger, Vijay, Phil. Do you think what you guys have done over the past one year is making the new big three?

JON RAHM: I would say you can say that if we can do it for five -- at least five-plus years like many of those players did, right. Even while Tiger has been on his run in the 2000s, Phil and Vijay still managed to win 45 and 20-plus times themselves in that time frame.

So I think for us to be compared to something like that, we have a very long way to go. It could be the start. But still a long way to go.

Q. Your interests, you seem to know a lot about Tiger and his history. Digging into his accomplishments, did that precede you becoming his peer, or is that more since you've gotten to know him? And how have you acquired all that knowledge, knowing the details of his career?

JON RAHM: Of Tiger's?

Q. Right.

JON RAHM: I know the details of a lot of players' career. I like history in general and the history of the game and I like seeing what players have done in the past. I'm a golf junkie, if you say that. I'm the guy who, you know, if the kids don't wake me up, even before we had kids, I'm up at 5:30, 6:00 in the morning looking at reruns of tournament on YouTube and videos and looking at things players have done because I like it. I love the game, and I love learning about it.

You can always learning something watching those things and learn. I wouldn't be able to explain it. I just -- it's something that interests me and I like knowing. I do have knowledge of players, too. I think I might have annoyed a few people by recalling 15 of the shots they have done in the past at tournaments -- always good ones, obviously.

I think Rory made a remark about something like that, I think when we were in the last Ryder Cup. I think I was talking to Shane, and I was -- I don't know what shot with Shane I was talking about. And Rory kind of stopped me and he said, "By the way, he's going to do this with the 15 next shots that you've done in your career that you can remember."

So yeah, I just love it. I love the game and I love learning about it.

Q. What are your thoughts on the lengthening of 13 and what might your strategy be there this week?

JON RAHM: Well, you obviously don't really have a chance to turn the corner as much as people did in the past and have a short iron, right. I've been able to hit an 8-iron there into the green and obviously that's a huge advantage. It's funny, mentioning this, obviously I've seen a lot of videos of people hitting a tee shot and then having a long iron into that hole, talking about 4-irons, 2-irons, possible woods. I think they just wanted it to play the way it's meant to be played, right. It kind of gets to a point that 11 being a par 4 being longer than 13, it's a bit odd.

I'm not opposed to it. I think you're going to see a lot more lay-ups, obviously. If you don't quite hug the left side you're going to have such a long iron in that a lot of people who choose to lay up. But there's still going to be a risk, more so risk/reward aspect to it, because if you hit the green and give yourself an eagle chance, it's going to matter a lot more maybe than it did in the past.

Q. If you go back to last year's JP McManus Pro-Am, how important was that week for the top players to come together and hash out ideas and come up with a vision to help reshape the vision of the PGA TOUR?

JON RAHM: I think it was important with what was going on in the world of golf to basically show unity to ourselves, right. To show some sense of vision for the PGA TOUR as players ourselves. I think that was important. Not only for the TOUR itself but just for us players to see that, okay, where is everybody else and where do we want the shift to be going to.

That was the beginning of obviously a long process. I think I'm glad we did it and it was needed, right. I don't remember the last time that, let's say, the top 10, 15 players of the PGA TOUR got together to discuss the future. I think it was something that was really good for all of us.

Hopefully, hopefully in the future we don't have to keep doing this because things are going so well.

Q. This week, having the 18 LIV guys here, and it seems like everybody is getting along really nicely. Does it change the dynamic does it make you miss them? What have your emotions been hanging around the guys this week?

JON RAHM: Nothing changes, really. I don't think they feel any different. I don't feel any differently with having them.

To be honest, I saw Dustin first yesterday and Sergio, I kind of forgot, honestly. It didn't even dawn on me until I looked out and I saw Dustin wearing FootJoys, I was like, oh, yeah, things are different, I kind of forgot, right. I had not seen him since The Open Championship. But it didn't really register in my mind. With Dustin, I feel like I've spent more time playing with him and against him than this new dynamic we have. I feel like it changed at all, at least in my mind.