As far as preparations for a maiden outing at the Olympic Games go, Jon Rahm couldn’t have asked for much more just days before heading to Paris.
The three-time DP World Tour Championship winner picked up his first LIV Golf win, and first pro victory since last year’s Masters Tournament, after pipping home favourite Tyrrell Hatton to the title at LIV Golf UK.
The duo’s one-two finish also secured Legion XIII a league-leading fourth win this season as they closed the gap on Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers GC at the top of season-long leaderboard.
The Spaniard now heads to Paris to compete in the Olympic Games’ golf tournament at Le Golf National, where Rahm helped Team Europe secure a memorable victory over Team USA at the 2018 Ryder Cup.
“(This win) gives me a lot of confidence,” said Rahm, who missed out on Tokyo 2020 after testing positive for covid.
“Relief, like I said. Had I gone next week and performed well again and given myself a chance going into the last six, seven holes, maybe it might have felt different if I hadn't won, but having gotten over it, I think I would approach a moment like that with a little bit more confidence, especially after learning from what I could have done better today.”
“It's something I really look forward to. It's going to be a fantastic week to share with David (Puig), being another LIV member, a player that's become a really close friend of mine. It's going to be a lot of fun, and hopefully one of us has a chance to get the gold.”
While winning a gold medal at the Games in gymnastics, athletics or swimming is seen as the pinnacle of each respective sport, the same cannot be necessarily said for golf right now.
The sport will only be making its fifth outing at the Games this year after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved golf’s return to the Games for the first time in 108 years ahead of Rio 2016.
A whole host of the game’s star names opted to pull out of that event, including Rory McIlroy who, at the time, said, “I’m not sure golf will be one of the events I watch,” before adding he would “watch the stuff that matters.”
The Northern Irishman, among others, then made a U-turn and competed in the next edition in Tokyo after the sport was deemed to have made a successful comeback to in Rio.
This year’s men’s tournament is arguably the strongest yet, but does the prospect of winning a gold medal hold the same prestige as slipping into the Green Jacket at the Masters Tournament?
“I really don't have the perfect answer because the Olympics, unfortunately, were not a possibility for any of us until 2016,” said Rahm.
“Ever since then there's been two editions, and with me not being able to go to Tokyo because of covid, I might have been a little bit better watching that.
“Hard to position myself on where the magnitude of something like that may be, but to be able to say that you have a gold medal or an Olympic medal for that matter is something that a very small group of people in all human history can say.
“I don't think it might have the recognition it could have yet, but in the future this may be one of those things that means a lot more than we're aware of right now. Just to be able to add to a Spanish medal count would be absolutely amazing.
“I can't put it in a ranking based on Majors and things like that yet, but if I were to get it done on Sunday, ask me that same question and I'll be able to tell you because you can usually tell on the 18th green how it feels.”
The men’s competition gets underway on August 1, with the women teeing off six days later on August 7.
