"To an extent, yes" - Jon Rahm answers questions on his chase of Tiger Woods
Jon Rahm is believed to be having the best days of his career. The current world No. 1 has won three PGA Tour events since the beginning of 2023.
He started his winning journey in January, clinching the trophy at the Sentry Tournament of Champions and then overtaking the PGA Tour Rookie Davis Thompson to win the American Express.
Surprisingly, he continued his winning streak with his third PGA Tour victory of 2023 at the Genesis Invitational Open. Rahm is competing against Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, both of whom won the PGA Tour event this year.
The three are now competing in the ongoing Arnold Palmer Invitational scheduled to wrap up with a finale on March 5. Jon Rahm once again managed to maintain his dominance in the tournament, leading the leaderboard with a scoring deficit of seven.
In a press conference at the tournament, a journalist popped a question about him chasing the legendary golfer, Tiger Woods:
"You’ve won five starts in nine around the world. As much as you’re competing against Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, how much are you chasing Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer?”
In response, Jon Rahm took a break for a few minutes and then answered:
"Ah, I’m trying to go day by day and then think about that, right. To an extent, yes. Once I’ve done what I’ve done, have three wins already, you can start thinking of some of the things Tiger did. I’m trying to do it for the first time at my age. He had done it about 12 or 13 times at this point, so I’m trying to get myself going."
He went on to add:
"But yeah, there’s sometimes where even this early in the week, you put yourself in position to maybe start dreaming of some moments like that, and I certainly started the year thinking about it and did what I had to do. So, so far, I can’t really say much but still a long way to go."
"I kind of picked up" - Jon Rahm opens up about his success this year
Rahm has dominated the field on the PGA Tour since dating back to the beginning of 2023 and then regained the World No. 1 title. The biggest change was certainly the world rankings. The top position has been constantly changing since 2022 when Scottie Scheffler dethroned Rory McIlroy to be on top.
Nonetheless, McIlroy retained the title in October only to lose it again to Scheffler at the 2023 WM Phoenix Open. Surprisingly, Jon Rahm took that away after he won the Genesis Invitational.
Speaking about the frequent changes to the rankings, Jon Rahm said:
"I do know this is the most amount of No.1 changes in this short period."
He went on to say:
"I saw some of those stats, because it's just really interesting, which speaks to the greatness of the game of golf right now, how good everybody's been playing."
Jon Rahm further talked about his biggest competitors Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, saying:
"Scottie had a great year last year, Rory had a great year last year, and then towards the end of the year I kind of picked up."
Jon Rahm has also maintained his lead at the 2023 Arnold Palmer Invitational, which is underway from March 2 to March 5.