The role of reigning Masters champion suits Jon Rahm, not that there was ever any doubt about that.
Some men are made for such things, and Rahm, all passion and power, has a place at Augusta National in perpetuity. Once his playing days are done, Rahm can hang around the clubhouse during Masters week, wearing his green jacket and being a part of the place, like the azaleas and the years that whisper to us from wherever they’ve gone.
Last week, Rahm did a pre-Masters Zoom call with some media members, and he showed up on computer screens around the world wearing his green jacket, apologizing for how he had tied his gold Augusta National necktie. He began by talking about the menu that he will serve as last year’s winner at the Tuesday night Champions Dinner.
Rahm talked about the jamón (Spanish ham), chistorra (a spicy chorizo), Idiazábal cheese, a lentil soup that his mother makes, and main-course choices of turbot with white asparagus or chuletón, a seared ribeye and a dessert called milhojas, a puff pastry with custard. He even pulled a bottle of red wine from his office shelf to show what he and his peers will sip on that special evening.
When the conversation turned back to golf, Rahm said, “I’m definitely looking forward to joining with the rest of the best golfers in the world and teeing it up at the Masters with them.”
It’s like a one-week answer to a so-far unanswered prayer: unification, at least a version of it.
These four weeks – the Masters, the PGA Championship at Valhalla, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 and the Open Championship at Royal Troon – bring the best players together again.
Masters Monday is two weeks away and, like any other run-up to April in Augusta, the anticipation is building. There’s pollen in the air down south, the shrubs are beginning to pop with color and, like a pilot on final approach, it’s time to get everything lined up just right.
It feels as if the major championships are more important than ever.
They have long been, like growth marks penciled into door frames, the ultimate measure of a professional golfer’s career. That’s why we know that Jack Nicklaus won 18 of them, Tiger Woods has won 15, and 230 other players have the distinction of having won at least one of the game’s most important events.
Jack Fleck and Danny Willett won majors. Todd Hamilton and Ben Curtis won majors. Bob Hamilton and Reg Whitcombe won majors.
Rory McIlroy has won four majors, but because he hasn’t won one in nearly a decade, he’s viewed by some as having underachieved even though he has won twice as many majors as Greg Norman or Dustin Johnson.
Because of the fault line that has separated the game into two distinct camps, it’s the major championships where the lines get blurred or erased all together. These four weeks – the Masters, the PGA Championship at Valhalla, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 and the Open Championship at Royal Troon – bring the best players together again.
Not for as long but as television ratings tumble and fans complain about what’s been lost in the PGA Tour-LIV Golf money war, the majors seem elevated from their already enhanced status.
Scottie Scheffler won his second straight Players Championship barely a week ago, shooting 64 on Sunday like the great ones do, and still there was the slight shadow of “but Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith weren’t there” hanging around.
McIlroy touched on it earlier this year when asked whether it would feel any different should he win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am as compared to previous years.
“I’d like to win here and stand up with a trophy on 18 green and know that I’ve beaten all of the best players in the world, so, yeah,” McIlroy said.
The majors are as close to unification as professional golf may get for a while.
With Koepka winning the PGA Championship last May, LIV had a reason to celebrate, but the majors last year felt bigger than the “us vs. them” narrative that endures.
Look at the top of the 2023 Masters leaderboard, and four of the six names – Rahm, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Koepka – aren’t on the PGA Tour anymore. Rahm won a year ago, holding off the LIV assault, but the money pulled him away.
With Koepka winning the PGA Championship last May, LIV had a reason to celebrate, but the majors last year felt bigger than the “us vs. them” narrative that endures. It was about what those events meant and about the players chasing that bit of golf immortality.
The majors mattered more than taking sides.
It feels even more that way now.
Some of it is because we all tend to want what we can’t have and, for the foreseeable future, we aren’t getting the best players together but four times a year. Even then, some LIV players will have to go through qualifying to get in the two Opens this summer.
The Masters deserves a tip of the white bucket hat for inviting Joaquín Niemann this year for his worldwide success, a nod to including the best players in the best event of the year.
The majors are hard to get into and harder to win. They define and validate careers. They are the ones we remember the most.
Now more than ever, they stand apart – by bringing the game together.
E-MAIL RON
Top: Jon Rahm won the Masters in 2023, and later turned his back on the PGA Tour.
SIMON BRUTY, COURTESY AUGUSTA NATIONAL