By RENALDO DORSETT
Tribune Sports Reporter
rdorsett@tribunemedia.net
SPANISH pro golfer Jon Rahm made his first appearance at the Hero World Challenge one of the best performances of his young career and produced his third title of the season.
Rahm separated himself from the remainder of the 18-man field to finish at -20 and claim the 2018 title yesterday at the Albany golf course.
The 24-year-old Spaniard closed with a -7 (65) in the final round to clinch the four stroke win and $1 million prize ahead of second place finisher Tony Finau and third place finisher Justin Rose.
“It’s about as perfect as it could have been today. It was a ton of fun out there. Tony [Finau] is arguably one of the nicest guys in this world. If there was anybody I wanted to see win today it would have been him, other than me. But I played so solid today, didn’t make any mistakes. Like I said every day after the round, if you can capitalise on the five par fives and the two drivable par fours, which I did all of them today, you have a chance.”
Rahm entered the event ranked No.8 on the PGA Tour listing with a FedEx Cup rank of 129.
His best result of the season at a PGA Tour event prior to Hero was a tie for 22nd at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in October.
Rahm took the lead on day two and never relinquished, despite sharing the top spot with several players over the course of the event.
He previously defeated Hero World Challenge host Tiger Woods in head-to-head match play at the Ryder Cup.
“You know, that Sunday with Tiger is one of the most emotional, most important moments in my golf career. I started crying when I was shaking his hand because that meant so much to me to play against Tiger Woods,” he said. “A couple months later to win his event, his foundation’s event along with Hero, this is really special. I grew up watching all those events and watching Tiger win how many times in a row.”
Woods finished 17th overall at -1. “Overall it was a long week, but one that I hope the players enjoyed and I hope all the people who were involved and came out enjoyed. This entire year has been amazing. Just been so blessed to have the opportunity. To come from where I came from last year at this point to have the ability to actually play and compete again in the game and do it consistently is quite amazing.”
Woods’ comeback season this year included a win at the Tour Championship. The win was the 80th tour title for Woods – but his first since August 2013.
“I haven’t really done much of my offseason prep work for next year and testing and all that stuff. So I’m looking forward to that part of it, wrapping this whole year up now. I’m done competing, I’m done playing for the year,” he said. “It’s been a quite amazing year to go from where I’ve come from and now I can actually finally say I’m done playing for the year. We can sit back and really enjoy it.” Another first timer at Hero, Finau, finished in second place, four strokes behind Rahmn at -16.
Albany resident, Justin Rose, climbed five spots on the final day to finish third overall at -15.
Rose, currently holds the No. 2 position in the Official World Golf Ranking, and secured the overall FedEx Cup which determines the season-long PGA Tour champion.
“You know, it’s a golf course that gives you opportunities really. My iron play’s been phenomenal this week. It’s probably the best I’ve hit my irons for a long, long time actually. I played the par threes unbelievably well. If I look back on this week, I just probably haven’t played the par fives as well, but today I did play them a little better. Just got hot on the back nine,” he said, “I kind of told myself, I was five down standing on the 10th tee and I played the back nine 5 under. I was trying to chase -- I knew this week I had an opportunity to get back to No. 1. I knew today was going to take a low round, and I’m kind of right on that knife edge now depending on what the guys do coming in whether that happens for me or not. That’s what I was chasing coming down the stretch. I knew Jon had pulled away, but I knew I was playing for top-three.
Henrik Stenson entered the day tied for first but eventually finished fourth at -14. First round leader Peter Cantlay and defending champion Rickie Fowler were tied for fifth at -13.
The Tiger Woods Foundation is the event’s primary charitable beneficiary, along with the Tavistock Foundation and Bahamas Youth Foundation.
“You all know that we already extended the contract for the Hero World Challenge, so this is our fifth year after having completed four, first at Isleworth and three here at Albany. I love it here and I’m sure we all do. It’s not just the Hero World Challenge contract that we extended, we’ve also extended the contract with Tiger as Hero’s corporate partner. I’m very glad, I’m very glad to announce that,” Pawan Munjal, chairman, managing director and CEO of Hero Motocorp said, “The first four years for both of us have gone very well, I would say great. The association is absolutely wonderful, very appropriate, very useful for both Hero and Tiger and for me personally. We have carried the brand Hero with Tiger’s brand into many new geographies in these four years, and going forward I’m sure we will be going into many, many more geographies with or without our products, but the brand Hero is surely going across the globe and we’re very happy to attach our brand with Tiger’s.”
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