Par for the Course: Tip of the cap to Jon Rahm's June redemption - Lewiston Sun Journal

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Jon Rahm made the headline golf news again for the second time in June, as he captured the U.S. Open championship in stylish fashion June 20 at California’s Torrey Pines.

Bill Kennedy, Golf Columnist Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

“I picked him the Tuesday before the tournament,” said Kyle Ladd, golf director at Mingo Springs.

Two weeks prior to the Open, Rahm was forced to withdraw June 5 with a six-shot lead at the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio, because he tested positively twice June 4 for COVID-19, which became the PGA Tour’s big news of that weekend.

“He was a true gentleman about that,” Ladd said. And he showed what a gentleman he was once again during his Open championship interviews, during which he could have expressed some bitterness about his situation.

A very accurate golf source told this columnist during the week that Rahm had been given his first COVID-19 vaccination prior to the Memorial, and that he now has had both shots. If this is common knowledge, it has not been made very public.

What was amazing about Rahm’s Open performance is the fact that he handled Torrey Pines so well.

The Open has a well-known and lengthy tradition of conducting the tournament on courses with rough always grown long and thick. Fairways are made to be extremely narrow. The U.S. Golf Association wants players to get into trouble and to be challenged.

For the average golfer, the Open rough means you need to hit the ball sideways back to the fairway grass before you can attempt to advance it. Pros can hit forward in that rough, but as seen at Torrey Pines the result of doing that can be disastrous. Even the strong/muscular players like Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka had difficulty advancing the ball accurately from that rough.

Rahm proved to be a master rough player, and there might be a reason for that.

“He has a history at Torrey Pines,” Ladd said of the course where Rahm won his first PGA Tour event in 2017. Apparently, Rahm has played there often enough to know his way around the course, how to avoid trouble and how to handle trouble when it rears its ugly head.

All of the players on the PGA Tour are supposed to know how to navigate from bad lies, but almost every year the U.S. Open shows the average golfer that these guys are human. And that was the case with the 2021 Open, where the entire field was brought to its knees by Torrey Pines, with the exception of Jon Rahm.

Considering the way Rahm’s month of June went, we should salute him with a tip of the cap. He was that good at Torrey Pines. He was so good that the $2.2 million and change he won at the Open has elevated his season earnings to $6,111,433, which puts him in second place in the FedEx Cup standings.

*****

With the June 24-27 Live and Work in Maine Korn Ferry Golf Tournament reaching its conclusion today, it is noteworthy that 19-year-old Caleb Manuel of Topsham qualified for the field June 21 at The Ledges with a 66, which tied him for third among the eight players who qualified that day.

Manuel was the 2020 Maine State Golf Association Player of the Year, and having just finished his freshman golf season at the University of Connecticut, where he was selected as Freshman Golfer of the Year in the Big East Conference. He seems to have a bright future in golf, which is significant because not a lot of Maine golfers have had professional opportunities. Manuel appears to be on the way to becoming a pro golfer.

Four other Maine players — Brian Bilodeau of Auburn and Martindale (72) tied for 24th, Michael Caron of Gorham (77) tied for 48th, Bradley Ross of Brunswick (78) tied for 52nd, and Greg Martin of Boothbay Harbor (81) tied for 61st — failed to qualify.

*****

The MSGA men’s “play day” will be July 2-3 at J.W. Parks. The women’s “play days” will be June 29 at Fairlawn and Penobscot Valley. The Women’s New England Amateur is set for June 28-30 at Agawam Hunt in Rumford, R.I.

Bill Kennedy, a retired New Jersey golf writer and editor, now residing on Thompson Lake in Otisfield, is in his ninth season as Sun Journal golf columnist.

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