Rahm’s Players Postmortem

In the glow of his third-round 64 that catapulted him to a one-stroke lead entering the final round of the Players Championship last week, Jon Rahm had a smile on his round face.

The occasionally dark and stormy Rahm had found peace. Shooting 8-under par on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass can do that to a person. In his tranquility, Rahm talked about his maturation and how he had worked to overcome his temper, which can boil up in an instant.

“I’ve said it many times, (last year) was a year of personal growth rather than golf game. It’s been a work in progress of many years to get to this point, and it’s hard to do when you’re playing highly competitive golf. It’s very hard to do,” Rahm said.

“So I can’t attribute it to one thing because I worked on many, many things slowly, and this is what I called earlier a midterm of hopefully a very good final project.”

On Sunday, Rahm shot 76, making three bogeys in his first four holes. His stubborn determination to hit a dangerous second shot at the par-5 11th despite the more p...