By Frank Pingue
FARMINGDALE, New York (Reuters) -Jon Rahm has turned the Ryder Cup into his personal magic show as the Spaniard made the impossible look routine with his second highlight reel shot in as many days for Europe at Bethpage Black on Saturday.
Rahm delivered the shot of the week with a most improbable hole-out from 49 feet at the par-three eighth during a foursomes match he and Tyrrell Hatton went on to win 3&2 against Americans Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay.
Following Hatton’s errant tee shot into a bunker, Rahm was staring down seemingly impossible odds given he was forced to chip with his feet in the sand while the ball was nestled above his knees in the greenside rough.
But the ice-cool Spaniard was unperturbed as he chipped the ball right onto the edge of the green from where it rolled into the cup for a most improbable birdie that put Europe one up.
“I was honestly just trying to put it on the green. Hopefully, hit it somewhere online, somewhere with the right distance, and it came out absolutely perfect,” Rahm said after improving to 3-0 on the week.
“It’s a bit of luck involved but at least the ball was lying well and got really decent contact on it.”
During Friday’s foursomes, with Rahm and Hatton down a hole and the Americans on the sixth green 13 feet from the cup, the Spaniard produced a remarkable recovery from 45 yards left of the fairway despite hitting out of thigh-high grass that also impacted his backswing.
Rahm’s ball settled 12 feet from the hole en route to a par that not only halved the hole but also sucked the life out of the pro-American crowd and marked a turning-point in a match that he and Hatton went on to win 4&3.
Either shot could go on to become one of the defining moments of the week should Europe go on to become the first team to win an away Ryder Cup since they last did so in 2012.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue, editing by Ed Osmond)
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