Spaniard Jon Rahm climbed to fifth place in the world golf ranking, which is still led by American Scottie Scheffler and in which his compatriot Will Zalatoris is ninth after winning the FedEx St. Jude this Sunday. The Barrika player, who returned on the last day in fifth place in the Memphis tournament, has obtained his best position on the American circuit since winning the Mexican Open in January.
This allows him to place an average of 7.20 and overtake North American Xander Schauffele (7.06).
Will Zalatoris, ranking
Scheffler firmly holds number one (10.04) ahead of Australian Cameron Smith (8.92), Irish Rory McIlroy (8.09) and American Patrick Cantlay (7.52).
Zalatoris overtook the Austrian Sepp Straka in the tiebreak and is the protagonist of the most sensational progression, going from fourteenth to ninth place, already very close to compatriots Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa.
Adri Arnaus continues to be the second best Spaniard, despite having dropped to 66th place, and Pablo Larrazábal is now third, in 69th place, two ahead of Sergio García. Jon Rahm attended Arizona State University and won 11 university tournaments, second only to Phil Mickelson who earned 16 titles.
In 2015 he participated as an amateur in the Phoenix Open, finishing fifth [4]. On April 1, he became first in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and stayed there for 25 weeks, then regained the position to hold it for another 35 weeks.
He thus qualified for the U.S. Open and the Open Championship of the following year: in the first of the two tournaments he finished twenty-third, then turned professional, simultaneously losing the right to play in the Open.
Quicken Loans National was his first professional event and he finished it third. The Canadian Open, on the other hand, saw him finish second. At the end of the season he obtained a card for the PGA Tour 2017. Rahm found his first success in the Farmers Insurance Open thanks to an eagle on the last hole, managing to enter the major tournaments on the world scene.
At the Mexico Championship, an event of the World Golf Championships series, he finished third, two shots from the winner Dustin Johnson, while in the second event, the Dell Technologies Match Play, he lost the final against Johnson himself.
He later won the Irish Open by six strokes and the final tournament of the European Tour season, the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, also winning the rookie of the year award. He started 2018 with a second place at the Tournament of Champions, still behind Dustin Johnson, but then came the triumph at the CareerBuilder Challenge with which he reached the second position in the ranking: followed by the Spanish Open and the Ryder Cup 2018 together with the European team.
He finished the year by also taking the title at the Hero World Challenge in December. In 2019, success came at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and third place at the U.S. Open. He then returned to winning the Irish Open and defended the title at the Spanish Open.
In the season finale he still triumphs at the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, thus finishing in the lead of the Race to Dubai and becoming European Tour Golfer of the Year.
