By Ryan Herrington
Spain’s Valderrama Golf Club isn’t a course where players expect to “get right” with their golf games, cork trees pinching fairway after fairway and creating a highly claustrophobic experience. So Jon Rahm probably wasn’t figuring to have everything turned around at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucia Masters after a ho-hum T-17 performance the week prior at the Spanish Open.

That said, rounds of 78 and 74, with just two birdies over 36 holes, weren’t what the No. 1 player in the world was expecting either. Fourteen shots off the lead of France’s Romain Langasque, Rahm was also five shots over the projected cut, causing him to miss the weekend in a European Tour event for the first time since the 2019 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

The early departure was disappointing as much for Spanish golf fans as it was for Rahm himself. The local hero had made a point of returning home for the first time since becoming a major champion with his U.S. Open triumph in June, to support a stretch of Spanish events on the European Tour.

“I realise how much I mean to the Spanish crowd and how much they mean to me,” Rahm said last week during the Spanish Open. “That’s why I keep coming every year and try to make them now.”

In turn, Rahm pledged that he would remain to sign autographs every day for kids in the galleries because of how much it meant to him when he was a child and tour pros signed his shirt when he attended the European Tour event there in 2007 (it was Henrik Stenson doing the honours below).

Jon Rahm knows what it’s like to be on the other side ?

(Valderrama, 2007)#AccionaOpen pic.twitter.com/RXiUuiPK8K

— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) October 10, 2021

Needless to say, Rahm proudly paid it forward this week, even if his golf game had other ideas.

World Number 1 @JonRahmpga after his opening round 78 ?#EDAM2021 pic.twitter.com/IxCY2CrsnM

— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) October 14, 2021

When Jon Rahm & Rafa Cabrera Bello are on the range, the Spanish fans come out in force to watch.#EDAM2021pic.twitter.com/Hu2mkfKbZK

— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) October 15, 2021

The post A missed cut at Valderrama was hardly a lost week for Jon Rahm appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Jordan Smith withdrew from this week’s Andalucía Masters during the first round, citing mental exhaustion with the European Tour’s bubble.

Smith, 27, was 11 over through 14 holes on Day 1 at Valderrama Golf Club. The former Ryder Cup venue is proving a formidable test, with just five players out of the 132-man field breaking par on Thursday. However, Smith let it known it was more than firm and fast conditions that spurred his WD.

“If people are wondering why I withdrew from this week’s event, the main fact was it was my 7th week in a row and ‘the bubble’ has gotten the better of me,” Smith wrote on Twitter. “Feeling like being in lockdown again not being allowed out the hotel does get to you after a while and mentally I had enough.”

Smith followed by saying it is the first time he’s pulled out from a tournament mid-round, and apologized to his team and the European Tour.

The European Tour’s protocols and restrictions returning from the pandemic have been uncompromising relative to the PGA Tour’s restart framework; in August, player John Catlin was disqualified when caught having dinner outside tournament grounds. In that same breath, the Euro Tour’s plan has worked, as it’s kept its constituents safe through the circuit’s return from the pandemic.

Smith entered the week 57th in the Euro Tour’s Race to Dubai, and No. 184 in the World Ranking.

The post European Tour player WDs mid-event, citing mental fatigue with Euro Tour bubble appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.