Jon Rahm ‘embarrassed’ by PGA collapse. Charles Barkley’s wisdom brought solace

Rory McIlroy didn’t talk much at this PGA Championship.

On Sunday evening, Jon Rahm couldn’t stop talking.

“Sorry for the long answers,” he told the assembled media after the final three holes of this no-nonsense golf tournament had punched him square in the gut. “I’m trying to process things right now.”

Rahm, of course, had nothing for which to apologize. He was rattled, reeling. You couldn’t have blamed him for wanting to crawl under the podium and tuck his meaty 6-foot-2 frame into the fetal position. Instead, Rahm stood before the press and gamely dissected a day that had started with so much promise and poise — three under through 11 holes and briefly tied with leader Scottie Scheffler — before concluding with a hopeless home stretch.

“I think it’s the first time I’ve been in position to win a major that close and haven’t done it,” he said. The weeks he did do it, you’ll recall, came at the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines and 2023 Masters at Augusta National.

Rahm and his wife Kelley’s first child, Kepa, was not yet three months old when his father won the U.S. Open. “If this is a dream, I still haven’t woken up yet,” Jon wrote on Instagram after the win. “So happy I can enjoy this with my entire family!”

In an interview with Golf Channel just hours after he’d signed his card at Torrey, Rahm said that becoming a father had made him realize that he needed to rein in his temper and take a more balanced it’s-not-life-or-death approach to the game. “Now I have a son, somebody who is dependent on me who is going to learn a lot of things from me like I did from my dad,” he said. “This cannot happen, I cannot do some of the things I’ve done in the past that I truly regret.”

A couple of years later, Jon and Kelley had a second son, Eneko. Around that time, Rahm spoke in a press conference of racing home after range or gym sessions to hang with Kepa and Eneko. “I completely forget about what’s going on and what I’m doing,” he said of the time with his boys. “It doesn’t matter.”

Last September, Jon and Kelley’s brood grew larger still when they had a daughter, Alaia, meaning this week at the PGA Championship was the second major Jon has played, after the Masters in April, as a father of three.

It’s cliched to say that athletes’ perspectives change when they have children, but, um. . .they do. How can they not? If you yourself are a father or mother, you know that the moment you bring life into the world, you see the world differently. You are no longer the priority — he or she is.

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Can you guess what the three hardest holes were at Quail Hollow on Sunday? Of course you can: 16, 17 and 18, the so-called Green Mile. Red Mile might be a more apt moniker given the amount of blood the holes drew. In the final round, the par-4 16th played to a field average of 4.338; the par-3 17th to 3.554; and the par-4 18th to 4.431. Those numbers don’t excuse Rahm’s 5-5-6 finish, but they do provide some context.

Several years ago, Rahm might have followed a closing stretch like that by snapping his putter clean in two or throwing a trash can across the scorer’s table. On Sunday, he signed for his two-over 73 then told reporters, “God, it’s been a while since I had that much fun on a golf course” — for 15 holes, anyway.   

Rahm also said he found solace in the words of one of the great philosophers of our time: Sir Charles Barkley. The hoops legend and savant, Rahm said, has long preached to NBA players that no matter what happens on the court — no matter how soul-crushing a loss might feel — it’s just basketball. Life will go on.  

“Like, I play golf for a living; it’s incredible,” Rahm said. “Am I embarrassed a little bit about how I finished today? Yeah. But I just need to get over it, get over myself. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not like I’m a doctor or a first responder, where somebody if they have a bad day, truly bad things happen.”

Also emboldening Rahm, he said, were the three welcome distractions that were waiting for him at home. “To them,” Rahm said, “whatever I did today, win or lose, they don’t care. So that’s always a good perspective.”

There’s that word again.