Jon Rahm electrifies American Express without “A Game”

A lot can change over the course of a year. One year after labeling The American Express as a ‘putting contest’, Jon Rahm is back in the Coachella Valley this week and full of confidence.

After winning in his first start of 2023 a couple of weeks ago at the Sentry Tournament of Champions; the Spaniard has picked things up right where he left off at this week’s 2023 The American Express event in La Quinta, California.

It’s a locale that the 2018 winner is extremely comfortable at, in fact, Jon has never finished worse than 14th at The American Express, even after his frustrating second round here last year when he let his emotions get the better of him for a brief moment.

There were no such frustrations for Rahm on Thursday during his opening round of this year’s event.

The 2021 U.S. Open winner put together one of the rounds of the day as he lit up the La Quinta course at La Quinta Country Club, one of the three courses that are in use this week, en route to an opening eight-under-par round of 64. It was the second consecutive year that he began his tournament at La Quinta.

Jon opened with a 66 at La Quinta last year before a disappointing (by his own high standards) round of 70 followed at the Nicklaus Tournament Course the next day. The 28-year-old will be hoping for a different outcome this time around.

Jon Rahm is full of confidence at the moment.

Rahm seemingly is in a much better place now than he was at the same time last year and the former world number one is certainly not lacking any confidence this week.

“Yeah, I mean I would like people to think that it’s hard to beat me and almost impossible because, again, if I don’t have my A game and I’m shooting rounds like this it should be a pretty good year,” the Spaniard stated following his sensational start on Thursday.

Including his improbable comeback win at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in his first start of the New Year, Rahm hasn’t finished outside of the top ten in any start since the Tour Championship at East Lake last August.

However, despite his excellent run of form coming into the first event of the PGA Tour’s ‘California Swing’ and his fantastic opening round at this week’s The American Express; Rahm doesn’t believe that he had his best stuff in round one.

“I wouldn’t say I had my absolute best out there,” he added. Now that’s a scary thought for the rest of the field.