Augusta, JA. – On the day Seve Ballesteros would have celebrated his 66th birthday – and the week of the 40th anniversary of his second Masters win – he crowned a fourth Spanish champion at Augusta National Golf Club on Sunday.
John Rahm, who started the day 4 strokes behind Brooks Koepka on the leaderboard, edged the LIV golf league star by more than 30 holes on Sunday to win a 72-hole par 12-under green jacket in the 87th edition of the Masters. He beat Koepka and three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson by four shots.
Ram, 28, is the first player from a European country to win the Masters title and the US Open. He won the 2021 US Open at Torrey Pines. Ram returned to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking with a win at the Augusta National.
Ram joins Ballesteros (1980 and 1983), José María Olzabal (1994 and 1999) and Sergio García (2017) as Masters champions from Spain.
Here’s how Ram won the second Grand Slam of his Masters career:
With his latest win, Ram also dealt a blow to the PGA Tour, after defeating one of the LIV Golf League leaders in a largely nine-hour duel between former world No. 1 players on Sunday.
After Saturday’s third round was suspended due to heavy rain, Koepka and Rahm returned to the course at 8:30 a.m. ET on Sunday. Immediately Ram took the upper hand. He made a 9-foot birdie putt on the seventh hole, while Koepka missed an 11-foot par putt. Just like that, Koepka’s lead was cut from four strokes to two.
After both players were 1 over 73 in the third round, Koepka took a two-stroke lead heading into the final 18 holes. They returned to the course over two hours later, and played each other for the last set.
Both players posted pars on the first two holes, then Ram hit first with a birdie on the fourth third, reducing Koepka’s lead by just one stroke. Koepka bogeyed the next hole and they tied. Ram took his first lead of the day after Kupka posted another bogey in third place in sixth. Ram never gave up the lead and it grew to as many as five when he was standing on the fifteenth tee.
Ram was one of the most complete players on the field all week. He hit 80.4% of the fairways, 62.5% of the greens, and averaged 1.68 strokes per hole.
What is most remarkable about Ram’s win at Augusta National is how bad the tournament started for him. On Thursday, he put up four first hole for double bogey. While walking to the second tee, Ram said he was thinking of Ballesteros’ famous quote after he played four times in Augusta, “I miss, I miss, I miss, I do.”
Ballesteros, who died of a brain tumor in May 2011, was the star golfer Ram played while growing up in Parica, Spain.
“If you’re going to make a double or quadruple hole, it could also be the first hole—71 holes to make,” Ram said.
Ram was 9-under the last 17 holes and took a share of the first-round lead with Kupka and Norway’s Victor Hovland. Ram shot a 3-under 69 in the second round and one over 73 in the third, which was played in a downpour and was suspended until Sunday morning after water pooled on the greens.
Ram finally played in the final round of a major for the first time in his career, largely avoiding the big misses that plagued Kupka throughout Sunday’s round. Ram has shown once again that he can come from behind on the sport’s biggest stage. At the 2021 US Open, he trailed three co-leaders by three shots after 54 holes and came back to win.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, Ram is only the fourth player to overcome a multi-shot deficit after 54 holes and win both the Masters and the US Open. The others are Jack Nicklaus (1962 US Open, 1986 Masters), Byron Nelson (1937, 1939 US Open), and Gene Sarazen (1922 US Open, 1935 Masters).
While much attention this week focused on Rory McIlroy’s quest to complete a grand slam (he missed the cut), Tiger Woods’ return to Augusta National (withdrew before play resumed on Sunday) and Scotty Scheffler’s bid to win the Grand Slam. Green Jacket In consecutive years (tied for #10), the Ram has been largely ignored.
While Ram’s play has subsided over the past month, he has long been playing like the best in the world. Since the 2022 Tour Championship, Rahm has now won six times and finished in the top ten 11 times in 14 starts.
While McIlroy, Ram and Scheffler battled for the No. 1 standings for the first four months of the season, there was little debate over who was the best now that Ram slipped on a green jacket at the Butler Cabin.