AUGUSTA, Ga. — Jon Rahm floundered to 50th on the Masters leaderboard and 5-over through 54 holes on Saturday with a scorecard lined with bogeys.
Rahm was 17 shots back of leader and budding rival Rory McIlroy when the Spaniard bogeyed the 18th with his third five on a par-4 hole on the back nine on Saturday at Augusta National.
“Well, the only thing about a weekend like today, once things are not going well enough, is you can start trying things just to see how it feels or how you can do it in competition, right?” Rahm said. “Just a bit of what I did today. Probably what I’ll do tomorrow. Hitting it on the range is one thing; doing it on the golf course is a different thing.”
Rahm is tied with countryman and fellow LIV Golf circuit member Sergio Garcia entering the final round of the first major of the PGA Tour season. Rahm battled to make the cut following a first-round 78 with a 70 on Friday in the second. And the third round started with some promise. He birdied the first and third and sat 2-under before the third-round collapse as he carded a 73.
The 2023 Masters champion said he was using the latter holes of the third round to work on parts of his game he wouldn’t otherwise attempt in a tournament setting.
“Golf is golf,” he insisted when pressed about the challenge of transitioning to the Masters after spending the year to date in LIV competitions, where he had 17 top-five finishes in his first 30 events.
Rahm has never won the PGA Championship, which is the next major — May 14-18 at Aronimink Golf Club — one month before the 126th U.S. Open Championship at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. Rahm has two top-10 finishes in 10 career starts at the PGA Championship. He won the U.S. Open in 2021.
Trophy form wasn’t visible often during his first three rounds at Augusta this week. Rahm said he has an idea why he didn’t have a great week at the Masters, but wouldn’t disclose the diagnosis. He did offer that it wouldn’t be a swing change, but might involve putting.
“I’ll tell you one thing: My putting hasn’t been the best and I’ve been putting the line the last two days which I rarely ever do, right, just to help me a little bit,” he said.
Bogeys on Saturday at No. 5, 11, 14 and 18 left Rahm with little shot at a 77th top 10 and even his 107th career Top 25 finish was going to take a stellar 18. Rahm said he was perhaps already “too far away” to make noise prior to Saturday.
“I’m going to need an absolute miracle,” he said Friday.
The miracle didn’t come, and Rahm might get the double-knuckle shot with McIlroy maintaining his sensational pace atop the leaderboard.
McIlroy has been outspoken since the LIV Golf split from the PGA Tour and more recently in questioning Rahm’s resistance to meeting the stipulations of the DP World Tour requiring participation in events to be in consideration for the Ryder Cup.
McIlroy said it’s “a really generous deal.”
