"You're also battling the golf course and yourself" - Jon Rahm on how he approaches challenges in the game and keeps moving ahead
The No. 2 in the world ranking, Jon Rahm, is already at the TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, to participate in the 2023 Travelers Championship.
He explained that the courses where it is more difficult to play for par are the victories he personally enjoys the most.
At a press conference held at the Travelers facility starting next Thursday, Jon Rahm reflected on how the most demanding venues tend to bring out the best play. This is because competitors are not playing alone against the rest of the field,
"You're also battling," he said, "the golf course and yourself."
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This was part of Jon Rahm's remarks, via TenGolf:
"One of my most terrorist wins is always going to be the Memorial because of how difficult the golf course was and when you go out there and perform like that and beat people on a very tough test it's a lot more gratifying."
He added:
"You're obviously battling the rest of the field but you're also battling the golf course and yourself. When you go to Kapalua you know you need to shoot 2500 to have a chance, right?"
"So it's not really a fight against the golf course, so, I would say if I would ever to go to a tournament and win with over par score, I feel like that would be a really satisfying week. It doesn't happen often anymore, but I feel like that would be a really, really satisfying week."
Jon Rahm loves the tough tests. 💪 https://t.co/TWh7wRkhs1
What else did Jon Rahm tell the press from River Highlands?
Jon Rahm also spoke about the agreement between the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia and the PGA Tour. He continued to discuss with reporters how he is preparing for his career as a professional golfer.
About the agreement, he expressed that his position is to worry as little as possible about the issue and not to "waste time" on it.
Here are Rahm's words on the matter:
"I didn't really talk about it much last week and I guess I might know more in a few hours once we're done with the player meeting tonight. I don't think we're gonna get a lot of answers, but I'm gonna at least get an idea of where the membership heads at."
He added:
"That's all I can say, we don't know anything, I don't even know if the people in charge know much more about it than we do. There's so many unanswered questions that, at this point, I wouldn't want to waste time thinking about it."
About his training, Rahm shared that he prefers a competitive game format rather than doing set numbers of repetitions. This way, he can replicate what happens during the actual game.
This was part of what he explained:
"It's different for everybody. I don't find it, personally, very productive when I go and just do a drill or I have to be here until I finish this, make x amount of punch and make x amount of this and that."
He added:
"Those games that I have, it could be eight minutes, it could be 20 minutes, and if I don't get it done, I don't get it done which is very similar to what we do in real life and pretty much in anything. If you do poorly you kind of need to let it go and go to the next and try to accomplish that".
Jon Rahm will participate in the Travelers Championshiop for the fourth time in his career. His best placement was T25 in 2016, the same year of his debut as a professional.
Jon Rahm also explained to reporters that the reason he missed this tournament in previous years is because of its location in the calendar (after the US Open).
In previous years, Rahm used this week to play tournaments in Europe. This year, however, the Travelers Championship is the last designated event of the season. Rahm cannot skip it because he already used up his chance at Wells Fargo Championship.