PGA TOUR Top 20 Players to Watch in 2019: No. 7 Jon Rahm

Jon Rahm is one of the hottest young stars on the PGA TOUR, but he still has plenty of room to grow if he’s going to cement his place among the game’s elite. Will he be able to do that in 2019?

Jon Rahm has taken some massive steps forward in his PGA TOUR career over the past two seasons. Now, he enters 2019 not as an up-and-comer in the golf world, but as an established powerhouse. The only real question left it how far he can take it.

Rahm has two victories over the last two seasons, at the 2017 Farmers Insurance Open and the 2018 CareerBuilder Challenge. But almost as impressive, he’s also got five other top-three finishes, which could have easily become five, six, or even seven total victories. With Rahm currently ranked No. 7 in the world, that’s the type of opportunity that could have easily seen the Spaniard rise to No. 1 in a hurry.

While Rahm has been enjoying successes like a seasoned veteran of the PGA TOUR, it’s important to remember sometimes that he just celebrated his 24th birthday this past November. As one of the youngest stars out there, the room he has to truly step into his own at the game’s highest level is immeasurable.

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Rahm has already started to make his mark on the 2018-19 season, even as we’re barely a week into the new year. He finished inside the top 25 at the WGC-HSBC Champions in October, despite opening with rounds of 73 and 76 at Sheshan. In the Bahamas, he won the (unofficial) Hero World Challenge by four strokes. And just last week, Rahm came in tied for eighth at the Sentry Tournament of Champions.

As we begin the main part of the 2019 PGA TOUR season, Rahm really has just one key stat to focus on – his putting. In 2017, Rahm ranked 48th on TOUR in strokes gained putting, gaining an average of 0.283 strokes on the greens each week. Not coincidentally, he also finished inside the top 25 in 14 of 23 starts, earning over $6 million in prize money and coming in fifth in the final FedEx Cup standings.

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Last year, Rahm took a notable step back in his work on the greens. Finishing 147th on TOUR, Rahm lost 0.151 strokes to the field in putting alone. His power game is still as strong as ever, but the short game took a step back. I don’t think anybody is ignoring nearly $4 million in earnings and a pair of top-five majors finishes (Rahm finished fourth at both the Masters and PGA Championship), but again, how much did he leave out there?

Rahm admitted that he wasn’t always on top of his game in 2018, acknowledging that he found some balance between his work and personal lives. “This year was a big year of personal growth more than my golf game,” Rahm said. “I was actually quite surprised how well I played compared to what I had going on in my personal life.” Rahm doesn’t talk a lot about his personal life, but he did get engaged not long before the PGA Championship.

Jon Rahm’s year may well be defined by what we see over the next several weeks, particularly through the early part of March. Rahm has routinely done quite well in the early part of the year, specifically at events like the Farmers Insurance Open and the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Finding a win or two early on will help to build some much-needed momentum into the newly reorganized major slate.

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Rahm is known for being prone to waves of emotion, but far too often that’s presented only in the negative sense. But I believe that the impact of positivity is just as important, and I’m looking for plenty of that for Jon Rahm in the new year. This could be a turning point for the young star, as he looks to follow the likes of Seve and Sergio in Spanish golf history.

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