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Good start for Jon Rahm, 70 shots, two under par, in the Memorial Tournament that is played in the Muirfield Village in Dublin (Ohio) and is one of the 'designated' tournaments of the PGA Tour, with 20 million dollars in prizes.
Rahm started very solid and tied for the top 10, three shots behind the leader, Davis Riley (67).
Jon Rahm, statements
Riley birdied six to one bogey and is one shot clear of Britain's Matthew Wallace and two shots clear of a seven-man field that also includes Jordan Spieth.
Playing in the morning shift, the man from Barrika went out on the 10th hole, and covered his first nine holes par, with a birdie and a bogey (at the 18th). He began the second round with another bogey, which he immediately recovered with two birdies while the fourth shot won on the course of the day came on the second par 5 of this first part of the course, when he played his third shot from the bunker and almost holed out for eagle.
He had a very clear option for the last birdie of the day at 9 but the ball did not want to go in. Rahm (winner of this event in 2020), world number 2 and leader of the FedEx Cup, finished better than his great rival this year and number 1, Scottie Scheffler (74, +2, with 4 bogeys and two birdies), while other top 10 in the ranking, such as Rory McIlroy or Patrick Cantlay (champion in 2021), signed the par 72 for the Northern Irishman and 71 (-1) for the American.
McIlroy could have finished much better after reaching the 18th hole with 4 birdies and a bogey, but on the last hole he messed up and closed his performance with a triple bogey-7 that undid all the previous work. Viktor Hovland finished with 71 (-1) Be that as it may, this week the Basque has options to recover the world ranking lead that he ceded after the PGA to a Scottie Scheffler whose last 14 results on the PGA Tour are breathtaking.
Precisely the victory in the 2020 Memorial gave Jon the number 1 for the first time in his career. Therefore, recovering number 1 will not be an easy task. Jon only has two results to return to the top of the ranking: win or finish second alone.
Besides, once this is done, he'll be dependent on what Scheffler does. Winning Rahm, if the current number 1 is worse than second classified alone, Jon will unseat him. With Rahm being 2nd, if Scheffler finishes tied for 16th or worse, Jon would also return to the top of the ranking.