Jon Rahm says goodbye in style at Spanish

• golf

Jon Rahm, world number 3 and champion of the Spanish Open on three occasions, started the last day at the Country Club brilliantly, four birdies in a row that made him "have the hope" of even opting for victory, "with that principle There were options...", but in the second nine holes, "the tone of the week returned a bit.

Friday's round cost me dearly," said the Basque when finally delivering a card of 64 strokes, seven under par, with 8 birdies and a bogey (at 13, which left him stopped) for 274 (-14) and in the top ten. "Good ending for the statistics," highlighted Barrika, who left the 18th hole smiling after having touched the eagle on this par 4 in which he hit a drive of 300 meters, placing the ball on the green about six meters from the flag and the putt did not want to go in by millimeters.

"Proud to have competed and to be able to finish in the top ten. Next year we will try again," Jon said. The 64 blows were insufficient to certify the comeback and fight for victory. Jon started nine shots behind the leader, the Frenchman Matthieu Pavon, the truth is that he tried with six birdies in the first 8 holes of the course.

He needed a lot of epic, but the second round did not want to know anything about heroics. He left, yes, for the gallery, the 'almost eagle' in the 18th. Rahm, irregular in his game the first three days, saved his best repertoire of shots for the last day.

The positive trend in his game could not be maintained in the second section of the course, in which he went to par until on the 13th hole he got stuck and signed a bogey, the only one of the day. Encouraged by the large audience that followed him at the Villa de Madrid Country Club, Rahm ended up satisfied but resigned.

Jon Rahm, statements

"It was a good day. I started very well but then I got a little stuck between holes 12 and 14. I would have liked to finish better to get closer to the leaders and give them a scare but it couldn't be. It was a shame about Friday ( second day) and I hope next year I will have better options and try again," said Rahm in the mixed zone.

"I'm going to remember that 18th hole. My idea when I went out to play was to get to -15 as soon as possible and from then on do as little as possible. I wanted to give my best to offer a great Sunday to the public, to whom I wanted to give the final eagle.

I have done what I could from the beginning and I think it has been a good Sunday. This way the flight back home will be easier. If I were left with a bad taste for every tournament I don't win it would be a very hard life." , he added.

The Basque could not fulfill his goal of surpassing Seve Ballesteros, with whom he is tied with three victories in the Spanish Open and two with Ángel de la Torre, who, with five titles (between 1916 and 1925), holds the record for more wins in the tournament.

After playing this Spanish Open, Rahm will take "a minimum of ten days of vacation and, from now until January," he will only play in the Dubai World Cup, the final of the European circuit (in which he no longer has a mathematical chance of catching up with leader Rory McIlroy in the Race to Dubai) at the Jumeirah Estates (November 17-20).

"It's been a long year. I've done a different schedule and I've ended up more tired than other years but that's no excuse," Jon said. On this last day the other great protagonist was the German Marcel Siem, author of a 61, which is not considered a course record since the ball could be placed (he would have beaten Rahm's 62 in 2022), but it has been since this Sunday the lowest result ever achieved on the European Tour.