Rahm hopes steady form pays off at PGA Championship

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Having seen his friend and Ryder Cup teammate Rory McIlroy complete the career grand slam last month, Jon Rahm would one day love to join the elite club that now consists of just six players.

The 30-year-old Rahm is halfway there, having won the U.S. Open in 2021 and the Masters in 2023. A win this week at the PGA Championship would add the third step. But for now at least, his focus is on quantity of majors.

“Obviously it would be a lot more on my mind if I were to win a third different one,” the Legion XIII captain and reigning LIV Golf Individual Champion said Tuesday at Quail Hollow Club.

Of the 15 LIV Golf regulars in the PGA field this week, Rahm and 4Aces GC Captain Dustin Johnson – who, like Rahm, has won a Masters and U.S. Open – are the only two who can add a third leg of the grand slam with a victory Sunday.

Smash GC Captain Brooks Koepka also is halfway there, but he’s already won three PGAs. HyFlyers GC Captain Phil Mickelson is three-quarters there – no player in this week’s field has won more majors than his six – and the 54-year-old will get a chance to complete the grand slam next month at the U.S. Open at Oakmont.

Bryson DeChambeau has two U.S. Open wins and is one of the betting favorites coming off his most recent start, a win at LIV Golf Korea presented by Coupang Play. DeChambeau nearly added the PGA last year, shooting 20 under at Valhalla to finish solo second, one shot behind Xander Schauffele. The 20-under total was the lowest score never to win a major. A month later, he won the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.

In looking at multiple major winners, Rahm said he’d rather achieve a higher number like Nick Faldo’s (six wins, three each at the Masters and The Open) than someone who won one each of three different majors.

On the flip side …

“If you get all four of them, and if you won each one once, I think it’s so significant that you might take that over six,” Rahm said. “But right now, I’d rather just think more about number three. If it happens to be The Open or the PGA, then I’ll focus on a possible Grand Slam.”

Of the four majors, the PGA Championship has given Rahm the most trouble. He has two top-10s in nine previous starts, his best finish a T4 at Bellerive in 2018 when he finished five strokes behind Koepka. Eight years ago when Quail Hollow last hosted the PGA, Rahm tied for 58th.

The PGA is the only major in which Rahm has yet to produce a top-3 finish.

“I’m aware it’s been probably the one I haven’t been my best at,” he said. “I think it’s possibly because of the versatility and variability of this event.

“When you go to Augusta, you know what you’re getting. Same course every year, too. The U.S. Open, nine out of 10 times, you know what you’re getting depending on weather. Same with The Open, right? It will be firmer or less, but you know what you’re getting.

“It’s this championship that we change venues and drastically change the way we set it up, like the way a Southern Hills might play to the way this week might play to the way a Bethpage might play. They’re all drastically different.”

Rahm’s form outside his recent major results have been amazingly consistent. Since joining LIV Golf prior to last season, he’s completed 19 regular-season starts – and finished inside the top 10 in each one. His only blip was a WD last year at LIV Golf Houston, a foot injury that also knocked him out of the U.S. Open.

He returned in the second half of the season to win the LIV Golf Individual Championship, rallying past Torque GC Joaquin Niemann with two late wins.

While he’s yet to record a victory in 2025, Rahm feels like he’s close.

“I’ve been playing good all year,” he said. “Maybe not as great as I would like. I feel like there’s some avoidable mistakes out there. But if you keep knocking out top 10s not having your best, I think it’s still pretty good.

“I can see my game going towards those improvements, so very hopeful.”