The world no. 1 and the European Ryder Cup captain’s star player, Jon Rahm is feeling better as he battles a stomach illness.
The Spaniard returned to action Thursday at Silverado Resort with a first-round 72 to open the new season at the Fortinet Championship.
Rahm struggled through the day after he found just six fairways and missed five greens in regulation, and his putter failed to cooperate.
“A little tight today probably from having to be in bed for so long yesterday,” said Rahm.
“Toward the end of the round, a lot of times my mind just wasn’t in it, I was having a hard time focusing given the fact that I haven’t had a solid meal since Tuesday morning.”
Rahm felt sick after a sponsor dinner on Monday evening describing the feeling as “terrible”.
“My stomach just wasn’t agreeing with me,” Rahm said. “It’s not like I couldn’t have played the pro-am, but I would have had too many unnecessary stops, let’s just say it that way. I would have taken a long time to play and that would have delayed everybody else quite a bit.”
Rahm had a tough time with his health this year as he was positive on Covid-19 twice.
The 26-year-old said that these stomach issues felt far worse than the Covid-19.
“I’ve heard there’s a stomach virus going on,” Rahm said, “but I think in my case it’s just a little run down from the season and just happened to manifest this way.”
“I’m going to get better in due time whether I play here or not,” Rahm said, “and I would rather get competition rounds in at least for the mental aspect of the Ryder Cup.”
Rahm went 1-2 in his Ryder Cup debut in Paris in 2018, though he did beat Tiger Woods in singles.
He’ll be counted on even more this year, so Harrington will need Rahm at 100%.
