The incredible stats behind Jon Rahm's rapid rise

If you’d like a small snapshot of Jon Rahm’s extraordinary progress since turning pro in 2016 then here are a couple:

The 25-year-old (I know) is now up to third in the world which now puts him ahead of Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas
From all the players who have reached the world’s top 10 only three have had a career winning rate of higher than 1 in 10 tournaments – Tiger (22.8%), Greg Norman (10.3%), and now Rahm (10.1%)

Like most stats you could pick holes in the latter but still, Rahm’s efforts are ridiculous.

The Basque superstar has won in each of his three full years on the PGA Tour which is impressive enough, we see on a weekly basis how hard it is to get over the line, but when you get to the European Tour his numbers are off-the-scale good – Rahm has only played in 15 regular European Tour events, so not the majors or WGCs, and he’s won SIX of them. Percentage wise that equates to 40.

There’s even a nice bit of symmetry to the victories with two at the Irish Open, two in his home Spanish Open and two in the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. And in all but four of the starts he’s finished in the top five.

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Just over a year ago Rahm hadn’t even featured in a Ryder Cup, now he heads up both European and World Points Lists and he’ll be one of Padraig Harrington’s aces in the pack.

Far too much is made of the whole rookie thing, look at Tommy Fleetwood in Paris, but more often than not it’s not something that you just settle into. While Rahm might have encouraged the fans to “make some noise” on the 1st tee at Le Golf National his golf wasn’t at its best for two days and so he came to his singles clash with Tiger Woods without contributing anything.

Away from all the amateur and college heroics and runaway wins on tour that Sunday told us plenty about Rahm and the way he closed out the match with a birdie on the 17th might have been the most ruthless conclusion in the history of the competition. And all on the back of a whiffed short putt at the previous hole.

“I played arguably the best golf in all my life on the last hole. It’s a perfect drive, great wedge shot and then to make that putt, to be honest, I didn’t see the ball go in. I just knew it was going in, so everything came out of me a little prematurely.”

Now, take away Rory, the Spaniard is Europe’s biggest asset and the only player who really comes close to him is Tommy Fleetwood who is nearly four years his senior.

The next big thing, like Fleetwood, is a first major and the way things are progressing he’ll likely have chalked that off by the time we arrive in Whistling Straits.