Spanish captains at Valderrama: Garcia’s success and Rahm’s quest

SOTOGRANDE, Spain – In the cafeteria at Real Club Valderrama, there are photos of each champion who has won a tournament at Spain’s most iconic course. Sergio Garcia’s image is a prominent one – no surprise considering he’s won four times on his favorite course, his most recent victory coming in 2024 at LIV Golf Andalucía.

Jon Rahm’s image, however, does not appear at all. Not that Rahm needs any reminder, but the club’s CEO and director general Javier Reviriego is quick to point out how much he’d love to see the photo of the country’s best active player added to the cafeteria’s walls.

“Every time he sees me, he tells me the same thing, right?” Rahm said. “He told me the same thing yesterday, that mine is missing, putting a bit of extra pressure on me.

“Whether that helps or not, I don’t know, but it certainly gives me motivation.”

Rahm’s quest to add his image among the club’s champion golfers resumes at this week’s LIV Golf Andalucía. Victory at Valderrama is one of the few things that has eluded him since he joined LIV Golf prior to the 2024 season as the captain of the league’s first expansion team, Legion XIII.

In his 2-1/2 seasons in the league, Rahm has won four individual tournament titles, two season-long Individual Championships and has captained the team to nine tournament wins as well as last year’s Team Championship. He has two individual wins this season and is the points-leader through this year’s first eight tournaments.

Just as impressive as his success is his consistency. In 34 regular-season starts, he has 31 top-10 finishes. His only non-top 10s are a WD in Houston in 2024 when he suffered a foot injury; a T11 in Dallas last year; and last week’s T16 in Korea, one of the rare times when he struggled to figure out a course.

While Rahm has lifted a LIV Golf trophy at Valderrama, it was for his team’s win last year. That doesn’t get him on the cafeteria wall, although he came close on the individual leaderboard, finishing solo second, just one stroke behind Talor Gooch – who, by the way, already had his photo on the wall after winning at Valderrama in 2023.

It’s not the first time Rahm’s had a close call at Valderrama, as he tied for second at the 2019 Andalucia Masters. On the flip side, he missed the cut in his two prior appearances in that event. In his first LIV Golf Andalucia start in 2024, he tied for 10th.

“It’s a course where I’ve either done very well or very poorly,” Rahm said. “The truth is, I haven’t had a middle ground. Once we land in Malaga, the desire to win kicks in. Every step I take on the course, I think about how much I would love to win.

“I’ve been lucky enough to win on two different courses in Spain but joining the list of champions at Valderrama would be something very special.”

If you go strictly on results, Garcia is Valderrama’s most special player. He’s made 18 professional starts at the course and has finished inside the top 10 a mind-boggling 17 times. His only non-top 10 was a 34th in the Volvo Masters in 2007.

In his three LIV Golf starts as the Fireballs GC captain, Garcia has the win in 2024 – he beat Anirban Lahiri in a playoff – and two top-10 finishes. His Fireballs also captured the team title in a playoff in 2024 against Bryson’s DeChambeau’s Crushers GC.

On Tuesday, his young Fireballs teammates were asked if Garcia ever reminds them about his track record at Valderrama. David Puig, sitting next to his captain, replied with a smile: “Every day. He keeps reminding us every day of how he played here. Yeah, we know.”

Responded Garcia: “Wouldn’t you?”

Garcia was just 13 years old the first time he saw Valderrama. It was a team match in which he represented Spain against England. Current European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald was on the other side.

“I loved it from the beginning,” Garcia said. “I loved the amazing conditions that it always had. One of the things that I’ve always enjoyed about Valderrama is that it feels like a course that you have to use every club in your bag. That doesn’t happen every week, for sure. It shows you the quality of the course itself. That’s something very unique.”

While Rahm hasn’t yet to experience an individual win at Valderrama, he does share Garcia’s appreciation for the beloved course, which was the first in continental Europe to host a Ryder Cup. Spanish legend Seve Ballesteros, a hero to both Garcia and Rahm as well as all other Spanish golfers of their generation, captained the European team to victory.

“Valderrama is a very difficult course where I don’t know if you can ever truly feel comfortable,” Rahm said. “It’s a course that challenges you on every single shot, and there is no rest. It’s a puzzle you have to figure out every day.”

Garcia has figured out Valderrama across the 69 career rounds he’s played here. He’s gained an average of +3.02 strokes on the field per round and has lost strokes to the field just once (in 2007).

Not surprising, his averages across key statistical categories at Valderrama are significantly higher than his career averages. His driving accuracy is 10% higher, his Greens in Regulation are 5% higher and his Strokes Gained Putting is +0.36 (compared to his overall career total of -0.03). Overall, his Strokes Gained Total average is +1.68 better at Valderrama that his career total.

He especially loves the challenge at Valderrama when the wind kicks up, and the greens begin to firm. He knows that separates the field, those who embrace the challenge from those who succumb to it.

“Every moment is complicated, not only physically but mentally,” Garcia said. “For me, that’s what I love about this course, that it demands so much from you without being a long course. It’s nice to see when many times you travel the world seeing that the only way they have to make courses more difficult is by adding distance.

“I really think there are other ways to do it, and Valderrama explains it in the best possible way.”