Jon Rahm on the ‘no joke’ element of this Open that you don’t see on TV

The sunny skies and relatively little wind at Royal St. George’s created ideal scoring conditions through the first two rounds of the 2021 Open Championship. But while Saturday’s weather looked much the same as the previous two days, low scores seemed fewer and farther between for the third round. What gives?

According to Jon Rahm, the course setup has some tricks up its sleeve that are not always visible to viewers at home.

Instruction

“Because of the weather conditions it’s easy to think it could have been a little bit better,” Rahm said of his third-round 68. “But the pin locations were no joke. I don’t know if on TV you could appreciate it, but those are some of hardest pin locations collectively I’ve ever seen.

“On a golf course that’s not the easiest it can get tricky,” he continued. “You can hit the right shots and give yourself chances, but even hitting the right shots you can of some funky putts with difficult breaks and difficult speeds. So scores show it. Two under is a much better round than I thought it was for a while.”

Rahm made five birdies and three bogeys en route to his two-under 68. He’s currently seven under par overall — five shots behind Oosthuizen’s lead of 12 under.