After John Rahm won his maiden Masters title earlier in the month, it didn’t take him long to make his next appearance, in the following week’s RBC Heritage, which he explained at the time he was determined to play as he "made a commitment".
Not surprisingly, he admitted to being tired following his second Major win, and that was reflected to some degree in his performance, where he couldn’t reach the heights of a week earlier and had to settle for a tie for 15th at Harbour Town.
Rahm skipped the next PGA Tour event, the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, but he's back in action this week in the Mexico Open. However, as he prepares to defend the trophy he won last year, he admitted he's still not fully recovered despite last week’s rest.
He said: “You know, I wish I could say one week off was enough. It was a long Masters and then went right away to RBC, so it wasn't - I wish I could have rested a little more, but it is the life we signed up for.“
Rahm then revealed that it wasn’t just the exertions of four gruelling rounds at Augusta National that left him struggling to recover his energy levels, with the post-win celebrations at least partly to blame. He said: “I probably didn't help, I celebrated the Masters win on Tuesday, that delayed the recovery a little bit."
Rahm claimed his first win in 11 months at Vidanta Vallarta last year and, since then, he has embarked on the best run of form of his career, with six more wins worldwide, and he admitted that success has forced him to rethink his goals.
He said: “Yeah, I had to reassess them even before winning the Masters. One of my goals for earlier in the year, I mentioned it a couple times, was to win multiple times again on the PGA Tour and I won my first two events. After LA [The Genesis Invitational] I kind of had to - you kind of need to reset because I was getting close to accomplishing everything I had set my mind to.
"I like being able to - if you have to reset or refresh your goals, it's an amazing thing because that means you're exceeding your expectations. So I did have a day with my mental coach where we talked about things and reassessed and refocused on what we wanted to accomplish in the year. Yeah, I had to do it, which again, it's a wonderful thing to do.”
Rahm also revealed the importance of playing this week’s event as a Spanish-speaking Masters champion. He said: “It's meaningful, it's meaningful. Obviously I would love for this to be something I'm doing in Spain right now this close to the Masters, but this is the next closest thing. The Mexican crowd, the Mexican people have all accepted me not as one of their own but like you just mentioned, as an Hispanic playing golf as the champion at the Masters, they've taken me in very, very well.
“If I can be an inspiration to anyone, it's great. If I can be an inspiration to somebody who maybe didn't have the means to play golf early on, it's even better, so I'll take whatever it comes.”
