For Jon Rahm, COVID downtime had a silver lining: more family time

Jon Rahm still can’t believe that he’s reached the end of a season in which six majors counted toward the beginning of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He’ll miss having so many majors in a season, Rahm said Tuesday ahead of The Northern Trust, but there’s arguably a fatigue factor at play, too.

Some guys have racked up an obscene amount of sky miles these past few weeks – Patrick Reed and Justin Thomas, both Olympians, talked of mileage totals upwards of 20,000 upon returning from Tokyo earlier this month. That’s one trip that Rahm didn’t take.

Rahm spoke for the first time on Tuesday since another series of positive COVID-19 tests prevented him from representing Spain in the Summer Games.

His season already took a COVID hit in early June when he was forced to withdraw from the Memorial despite having the third-round lead because he tested positive for the virus. He came back the next week to win the U.S. Open.

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The positive test that knocked him out of the Olympics was tougher to take, he admitted.

“I understand it’s a weird case because I tested negative so quickly and tested negative and tested negative all throughout the UK, and I get here and the test is positive,” he said of the pre-Olympic testing cycle. “It really is unfortunate. It sucked because I wanted to represent Spain. I wanted to play that one. I wanted to hopefully give Spain a medal. I was wishing for a gold medal, but just being part of that medal count for the country would have been huge. It was more devastating in that sense. I was more in the mindset of playing for them more than me.”

Rahm confirmed he was never ill but knowing people close to him who did suffer with COVID, he understands the seriousness of the virus.

“That’s why I don’t take it lightly.”

While his medal chances were dashed, Rahm did point to one silver lining in the form of some unexpected downtime: the new dad got the opportunity – a scarce one for Tour players – to remain home for a month with baby Kepa. He hasn’t competed since a T-3 at the British Open four weeks ago.

That translates to rejuvenation.

“I was with my family. I was with my wife and our son and had a great time, also trained hard and practiced hard,” he said. “Yeah, I feel like I’m a little – I’m probably going to be a little bit more rested than most people, but at the same time, I haven’t played competitively in four weeks. So there might be a slight bit of rust, but I’m pretty sure that’s going to go quickly just because of how happy and how excited I am to be back and be competing.”

For the next three weeks, the obvious goal is to win, but Rahm also wants to make sure he sticks around for the whole stretch. He’ll take it week by week to get there.

“The important one is the last one,” he said, “so it’s a bit of kind of like a qualifying few rounds where you’re just trying to get ready and get positioned for the Tour Championship.”