Jon Rahm arrived at Pinehurst for the 2024 US Open with one shoe off and one shoe on.
The former US Open champion withdrew from LIV Golf’s event in Houston four days ago with a painful lesion on his foot, and he has revealed it is a genuine concern this week at the third major championship of the year.
With a trainer on one foot and a flip-flop with what looked like plasters on the other, Rahm described how the affected area between his toes became infected and how he has dealt with it between pulling out of last week’s tournament and travelling to North Carolina to play in this tournament which he won in 2021.
“Oh, it’s a concern. It’s doing better. It’s doing better. But definitely still in pain,” he said.
“We’ve been trying to figure it out because I think that the closest term would be a lesion on the skin. If I were to show you, it’s a little low in between my pinky toe and the next toe. I don’t know how or what happened, but it got infected. The pain was high. On the Saturday round, Saturday morning, I did get a shot to numb the area.
“It was supposed to last the whole round, and by my second hole, I was in pain already. The infection was the worrisome part. The infection is now controlled, but there’s still swelling and there’s still pain.
“There’s a reason I walked out here in a shoe and a flip-flop, trying to keep the area dry and trying to get that to heal as soon as possible. But I can only do what I can do. The human body can only work so fast.”
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Jon Rahm injury took him out of LIV Golf Houston
Rahm, who joined the Saudi-funded LIV Golf League in December and became the captain of the new Legion XIII team, withdrew during round two at the Golf Club of Houston. He shot three-under in the first round and parred the six holes he played on Saturday before withdrawing.
Despite not winning one of LIV’s 54-man tournaments so far (eight events into his LIV career), Rahm is second in the overall season standings with just Joaquin Niemann ahead of him. Incidentally, Niemann doesn’t have a place at the US Open this week.
As one of the world’s best players and the highest-standing LIV player in the Official World Golf Rankings, golf fans might have expected to see Rahm in the winner’s circle in the breakaway league by now. The Spaniard also didn’t make a significant mark in the year’s first two majors with a tied for 45th spot at the Masters and a missed cut at the PGA Championship.
“I’m in a happy place. It’s not like I’ve been playing bad, even though a lot of you make it sound like I’m playing bad. I had two bad weeks,” he added, with seven top-10’s in the seven LIV events he has completed do doubt in his mind.
“I’ve been top 10 and had a chance to win in most of the tournaments I’ve played, and then unfortunately Augusta and PGA weren’t my best showings. But yeah, I’m happy.
“It’s been a wonderful career so far. And yeah, it hasn’t been the best first half of the year, but there’s been many times where I haven’t had a great start, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a great finish.”
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