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This wasn’t the start Jon Rahm likely envisioned.
The 2023 Masters champion nearly snapped his club Thursday during the opening round of the major at Augusta National, taking his frustrations out on a driver after hitting his first shot into the brush on the par-4 ninth hole.
Moments after his initial swing, Rahm — already 2-over par for the day — dropped the club and shook it off his back foot as he watched the ball sail into the woods. He then grabbed the club and nearly snapped it over his knee.
Although Rahm, 30, made par on the hole, he bogeyed three times on the front nine and shot back-to-back bogeys on the tenth and eleventh holes.
The Spaniard finished the day at a 3-over-par 75 and is tied for 63rd.
He’ll open the second round Friday at 10:26 a.m. with American Wyndham Clark and England’s Tommy Fleetwood.
Clark, the 2023 U.S. Open champion, is tied for 73rd at 4-over, while Fleetwood is tied for 38th at 1-over.
Rahm is just two years removed from his 2023 Masters run, when he edged out Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson by four strokes at 12-under.
Months after his Masters win in April 2023, the two-time major winner bolted the PGA Tour for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, netting a payday in the $500-$600 million ballpark.
Even though Rahm won two events on the LIV circuit in 2024, it weighed on him that he was unable to defend his 2023 PGA Tour titles (The Sentry, American Express and Genesis Invitational).
“I’m not going to lie; for everybody who said this would be easy, some things have been, but not being able to defend some titles that mean a lot to me hasn’t,” Rahm said last March, according to ESPN.
Only two LIV golfers have won majors since the league began play in 2022.
Koepka became the first LIV Golf star to win a major in May 2023 when he captured his third PGA Championship. Bryson DeChambeau followed suit a year later with a thrilling U.S. Open victory.
Englishman Justin Rose currently leads the pack at the 2025 Masters with a 7-under.
