Jon Rahm won the 2023 Masters on Sunday, clinching his first green jacket and second career major with an unflappable showing at Augusta National.
On the birthday of late Spanish golf icon Seve Ballesteros – champion in 1980 and 1983 – Rahm became the fourth Spaniard to win the green jacket and the first European golfer to win both The Masters and the US Open, following victory at Torrey Pines in 2021.
Ballesteros, José María Olazábal, and Sergio Garcia were the only three of Rahm’s compatriots to have donned the green jacket previously, and Olazábal was one of the first to embrace the tearful new champion at the 18th green.
Rahm, the towering Spaniard who dominated the PGA Tour in 2023’s first months, won the Masters on Sunday, overcoming days of punishing humidity, plunging temperatures, green-saturating rains and tree-toppling winds, as well as that Thursday mess on No. 1, to claim his second career major championship.
His victory, beneath an eggshell blue sky, came after he began the final round trailing Brooks Koepka, a four-time major winner who missed the Masters cut last April, by two strokes.
Rahm ultimately won by four strokes, 12 under par for the tournament.
Rahm didn’t dwell on that half. He began the final round two strokes behind Koepka but played the first eight holes in 2 under (birdies at the par-4 third and par-5 eighth) while Koepka played them in 2 over (bogeys at the par-3 fourth and sixth) to seize control of the tournament.
He especially didn’t like making bogey on the ninth hole, he added, with Mickelson and Jordan Spieth (66, T4, five back) posting a flurry of birdies up ahead. But it didn’t matter in the end.
The final round wasn’t particularly close, Koepka failing to make a birdie until 13 when it was too little, too late. Rahm covered it with a birdie of his own and was three up with five to play.
Vamos Jon Rahm!
My Goat Sports 