Somebody tell Jon Rahm it's not supposed to be this easy.
A week after finishing as the low amateur at Oakmont, the recent Arizona State grad made his pro debut on the PGA Tour on Thursday and fired a bogey-free 64 to grab the early lead at Congressional Country Club. Not that we should be too surprised.
Rahm, the only two-time winner of the Ben Hogan Award, had held up remarkably well in the in five PGA Tour events he'd entered before this week. After missing the cut in his PGA Tour debut at the 2014 OHL Classic at Mayakoba, Rahm finished T-5 in at last year's Waste Management Phoenix Open and had three sub-70 rounds at the 2015 Travelers Championship.
He added a T-10 in his return to the OHL Classic in 2015, and after an opening 76 at Oakmont, he shot 69-72-70 to finish T-23 and grab low amateur honors at the U.S. Open. Rahm, the world's top-ranked amateur before turning pro, still has three more rounds to match or better the pro debut made by Bryson DeChambeau earlier this year. DeChambeau finished T-4 at Hilton Head in April to earn $259,600.
Rahm said he got some advice from Jack Nicklaus after the U.S. Open, and that Thursday's round was "some of the best golf I've ever played."
We hope so. If not, the rest of the PGA Tour is really in trouble.
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