In a YouTube video from 2017, Dave Phillips, the co-founder of the Titleist Performance Institute, explains how he and Jon Rahm had been introduced five or six years earlier via the Spanish Golf Federation. Back then, Phillips’ first thought had been along the lines of the kid needs some mobility work. And the second, that people would be seeing a lot more of him in years to come.
“He’s not the most flexible guy in the world,” Phillips says in the video, “but what he does is he uses what he has extremely well.”
Looking back, Phillips’ observation about Rahm’s idiosyncratic swing left room for a few questions. Yet it was not until four years later, in a press conference ahead of the 2021 Open at Royal St George’s, that the Spaniard started to fill in the gaps for the world at large in a process which began with a question about his practice habits. Why did he not do as his fellow players in having his team watch over him on the range?
The answer, here, was that his swing did not respond to change, let alone of the last-minute variety. “I have unique parts and certain unique – let’s say, physical limitations – that let me swing the way I swing.” He added that he had not “actively” tried to change his action in more than 10 years. “I have the swing that I have, though I’ve gotten more mobile and stronger in some parts of it so that it might change slightly …”
Curiouser and curiouser, to borrow from “Alice in Wonderland.”
One question further down the line and Rahm was telling all.
He had been born with a clubfoot – his right foot – and the reason he was moved to talk about it in the Open’s media centre was because he was fed up with people saying his short swing was down to “tight hips.” That, he noted, was “the stupidest” thing to say.
“Don’t try to copy me. Don’t try to copy any swing out there. Just swing your swing. Do what you can do. That’s the best thing for yourself.”
Jon Rahm
Though he acknowledged that people could be sensitive about such matters, he went ahead with the simplest of explanations. “So, for people who don’t know what clubfoot means, (in my case) is that my right leg up to the ankle was straight but my foot was 90 degrees turned inside out and basically upside down.
“When I was born, they broke every bone in the ankle and I was put in a cast from the knee down 20 minutes later.” (Everything he was saying tallied pretty much to the letter with the condition’s description on the Mayo Clinic’s website.)
As Rahm would have learnt from his parents, he had to go back to the hospital on a weekly basis to get a new cast on the foot – and that, in turn, stopped the leg from growing at the same rate as its opposite number: “So I have very limited ankle mobility in the leg as well as the leg being a centimetre and a half shorter.
“My ankle doesn’t have the ability or stability to take a full swing. So, I learned at a very young age that I had to be more efficient at creating power and consistency from a short swing. And that's where Dave (Phillips) has been such a great help to me at the Titleist Performance Institute. They have taught me how my body works.”
Eventually, Rahm threw in the news that further tests at TPI had revealed a related lack of mobility in his wrists – something which, he said, “accounts for a bowing of the wrists in every sport I do.”
Rahm called a halt to matters medical with a begging message for the next generation: “Don’t try to copy me. Don’t try to copy any swing out there. Just swing your swing. Do what you can do. That’s the best thing for yourself.”
In which connection, Phillips often has told of the first time he clapped eyes on Jordan Spieth as the then teenager arrived at his institute with a handful of others in his age group. Straight away, he had been impressed at how Spieth never copied the rest in saying he wanted to be the next Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy. Instead, he said: “I’m just trying to be better at being me.”
Dr. Andrew Murray, of the Sport and Exercise Department at Edinburgh University and the chief medical man on the DP World Tour, recently revealed something of the unexpected. Namely, that, “about one in six of the world’s population have specific impairments or things that may affect how they play sport.”
Of course, he was not going to go into details about Rahm or anyone else, but he did say the medical profession would always advise “maintaining strength and a range of movement” for anyone trying to stay on top of problems old or new.
“We see a large number of golfers that have conditions that affect their golf: for example, back pain, hip/knee arthritis, or a thickening of tendons in the shoulder. Here, it’s by maintaining exercise, strength and range of movement that golf can continue to be a life-long pursuit.” (We only have to look at Tiger Woods to see a player who is loath to be beaten, be it by man or malady.)
Going back to what Phillips said about Rahm in 2017, and how we could expect to hear more about him in years to come, the Spaniard’s time is now. To date, he only has one major title – the 2021 U.S. Open – among his 10 victories on the PGA Tour and eight more on the DP World Tour, but who would bet against the Masters being next on his list.
More than once, Rahm has referred to golf in his homeland and how, “I am used to playing golf with trees in the way.” (Anyone who has ever played at Valderrama will have tangled with the cork copses.)
Seve Ballesteros, José María Olazábal, and Sergio García were no different, with the late Ballesteros and Olazábal winning two Masters apiece, and García one.
If Rahm, ranked No. 3 in the world and winner of three PGA Tour titles in eight starts this year, were to come out on top this week at Augusta, a Spanish tally of 10 majors since 1979 would be third only to the American and Australian counts and well clear of its continental European counterparts. Pretty impressive when you consider that Spain trails all of Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and France on the European Golf Association’s list of registered players.
E-MAIL LEWINE
Top: Jon Rahm has not missed a cut in six Masters starts and owns four top-10 finishes (2018-21).
eli rehmer, angc