PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 20, 2023

Jon Rahm

Oak Hill Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. I know it was a tough day out there but how encouraging was it to finish the way you did?

JON RAHM: It was great, obviously. I make that mistake on 10, I make that bogey and I'm looking at a stretch of holes that might not be the easiest. I'm hoping for dear life not to make anymore bogeys and find myself in a spot where I actually give myself quite a few birdie chances, converted them and gain a little bit of a boost of confidence.

And yeah, finished amazing. Both Cam and I, honestly, I told him, I think best-ball, very few groups would have beat us. But the fact that both of us played as a group the last three holes 2-under par is pretty remarkable in this weather.

Q. How do you deal with the rain? Do you wear rain gloves?

JON RAHM: No, I'm not, I've never been able to get used to rain gloves. For some reason, I can't get quite the grip I want on the club and hit it.

I mean, we all have different routines. We try to stay as dry as possible. For me, honestly, I feel like the first hour and a half where you're hoping it stops and you don't know what's going to happen might be the most difficult. After that, you can adjust a little bit to how the body is moving and how the golf ball is reacting, right.

Q. Do you ever anticipate like, all right, might be water on the face, I have to aim to the left?

JON RAHM: I had a few today. Like I said on 10, there's been a couple today where we're dead center of the face and some went left and some went right and that's just been unlucky. We played for water on 5 and hit a perfect 6-iron and ended up in a dead spot.

It is what it is. It's a bit of luck. I think I had a lot of bad breaks early on and then my last eight holes, I didn't really get any, maybe my tee shot on 16 but for the most part, everything else was golf shots, right.

Adam and I like to think that throughout the course of a round, things start to even out. It was bad early but was able to bring it back.

Q. Keeping things dry? What's his strategy?

JON RAHM: Adam is amazing. He had plenty of dry towels out there. It got to a point where there was some water collecting on bottom of the bag, so every time you pull a club out, the top was wet and you just have to do a lot of work. It gets to a point where it's patience. You know things are going to happen. You know you're not going to go out there and shoot very low and just try to limit the mistakes.

Q. Sounds like the answer is yes but is the caddie even more important on a day like today?

JON RAHM: Yes.

Q. What kind of stuff would he do that's not normal?

JON RAHM: We've done it a few times but at this point, he is in control of the bag. So how good he is at keeping the bag dry is very, very important so I can just take the umbrella and go. He sacrifices. He must be carrying about 35 pounds of water on him right now. You know, it's the little things that maybe I don't even realize, just making sure the grips are dry, the club heads are dry and positioning himself to help me out as much as possible. On a day like today, it's a lot harder for them, I would say, than it is for us.

Q. What's the worst weather you've ever played?

JON RAHM: Could have been worse. Could be raining. Worse weather, for a stretch of holes, was Sunday at Royal Portrush 2019 Open. That was about as bad as it gets. I remember both me and Tony Finau, I think on the 11th hole, we are kneeling down on the ground like this because the rain was coming in sideways. Besides that, nothing gets as bad as that. Augusta was pretty bad. It was on and off but it was pretty bad as well.

Q. It's been all four seasons this week. What did the different changes today present versus yesterday, the golf course itself?

JON RAHM: Listen, there's positives and negatives in everything, right. Greens are a little bit softer and a little bit slower, so you can be a bit more aggressive. The challenge is giving yourself putts to be aggressive with.

That's what I would say. This golf course, with how difficult it is, it all starts by putting the ball in the fairway. It's not an easy task. It's very, very difficult. If you can do that, then you can maybe give yourself some chances and it all starts with that. A little bit of it is trying to keep the club head dry and manage it but again, there's an element -- there's only so much you can control, so a bit of an element of luck.