Jon Rahm hopes the local accents are all he struggles with this week when the LIV Golf star tees it up at the Genesis Scottish Open.
The tournament, co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, begins on Thursday at The Renaissance Club in North Berwick. Eligible as a DP World Tour member, Rahm is playing in his first non-major PGA Tour event since the 2023 Tour Championship.
The 31-year-old Spaniard has enjoyed a lot of success playing links golf, including two wins in the Irish Open (2017, 2019) and a runner-up finish at The Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in 2023.
“A victory on Scottish soil would be fantastic,” Rahm told reporters on Tuesday. “As a European, understanding where it came from, and links golf, (joining) a list of great champions in the Scottish Open would be something that would be really, really exciting.”
Rahm has two wins and four runner-up finishes on the LIV Golf tour this season. The two-time major winner also tied for second at the PGA Championship in May.
Rahm also missed the cut at last month’s U.S. Open and finished T55 in his last appearance in the Scottish Open in 2022. He’s hoping for a better result as he prepares for The Open Championship next week at Royal Birkdale.
“It’s great to play a links golf event before a links golf event, and playing in the weather and the fescue grass and different than what we are playing year around,” he said.
Rahm was asked what makes a good links player.
“I just think you need to have a great understanding of spin, trajectory, control, and how the ball reacts on the fairway and on the greens, right,” he said. “You can usually, except a few holes here with some trees, where you can start the ball whatever you want, you hit whatever shot shape you feel like hitting or you can be as aggressive or as passive as you want to be.
“It all depends on your ability to understand how you can hit the shot, how the elements are going to affect how the ball is going to react once it lands on the fairway, on the green. I know it sounds like a lot but essentially it comes to what I understand as trajectory and spin control, mainly on to the greens.”
A few things are out of Rahm’s control, including the future of LIV Golf. He said LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil’s search for investors has not included reaching into Rahm’s wallet.
“As far as putting my money into it, they have not asked me to do that yet,” he said. “So I don’t know if they will or not. It’s not something that they have asked me but there has been many different avenues to try to make it different, what we’ve had till now.”
For now, Rahm is focused on getting a better feel for the course — and the language.
“The lad that drove me from the airport, I was a bit too sleepless on the flight, and he was very kind, and I could not understand 90 percent of what he told me on that hour drive,” Rahm said.
