It is difficult to remember an Open tournament of any country in Europe that has seen three players from that country find themselves on the Camino Real on the last day to play for the victory.
All this before the edition of the Open de Espana that just ended with the victory of Angel Hidalgo.
On Sunday on the tee of the 1st of the Club de Campo Villa de Madrid an exceptional trio honored “their” Open.
Spain, results
In addition to Hidalgo, Jon Rahm and David Puig gave life to a beautiful challenge that ended with a two-way playoff between Rahm and Hidalgo, who with two consecutive birdies won his first title on the DP World Tour, and what a title…
Angel Hidalgo, in addition to winning the home Open, defeated his idol.
Although there are only four years that separate them, Hidalgo said that only three years ago he came to the Open as a spectator, to cheer on Jon Rahm, as he has done since he was a child.
During the press conference, the winner was completely sincere and direct:
“To be honest, on the eighth tee, I thought David Puig would win the tournament by at least eight strokes because he was hitting the ball incredibly, while Jon and I were making a lot of mistakes”.
But then things changed.
“I played quite well and quite intelligently, I putted very well, and yes, I am happy”
“And especially for Jon, he is the most important Spanish player of the last 20 or 30 years”.
And Jon Rahm himself, although disappointed for not having achieved the poker of victories in the home Open, can instead smile while looking towards the next Ryder Cup.
With his second place he obtained 555 valid points for the Race to Dubai, which made him jump to 41st place in the ranking, with a gain of 84 positions.
The next competitions, starting with the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, will bring further improvements.
Rahm played successful college golf for Arizona State University. During this time, he won 11 titles and led the World Amateur Golf Ranking for a total of 60 weeks. After graduating, he became a professional golfer in 2016. In the first year of his professional career, he confirmed his good results and played his way up to second place in the world rankings. Rahm won the Dubai World Championship, the final tournament of the European Tour, in 2017 and 2019, among others. In July 2020, Jon Rahm reached the top of the world golf rankings for the first time by winning the Memorial. Rahm was the 24th player and the second Spaniard after Severiano Ballesteros to lead the world rankings. He lost his top position two weeks later to Justin Thomas, but regained it after the PGA Championships, only to lose it again two weeks later to Dustin Johnson. After Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth, Rahm was the third player to lead the world rankings among both amateurs and professionals.