Jon Rahm did not hold back his feelings when asked ahead of this week’s Memorial if he will miss not having fellow Spaniard Sergio Garcia as his Ryder Cup team-mate later this year in Rome.
Rahm and Garcia were unbeaten team-mates, winning three-and-a-half points out of four, in a hapless European Team that were simply out-gunned by a superiour USA side in the 43rd Ryder Cup two years ago at Whistling Straits laid out along the shores of Lake Michigan.
However, when seperated both Rahm and Garcia were comprehensively beaten in the third and fourth Sunday Singles matches that would be the harbinger to the USA winning the final session 8 points to 4 points to win back the gleaming gold trophy with a 19 to 9 demolition of Padraig Harrington’s men.
Now with the emergence of LIV Golf we’ve seen the DP World Tour ban the likes of Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Graeme McDowell from ever again pulling on the European Team colours.
Joh Rahm laments Sergio Garcia will not be his Ryder Cup partner in Rome
Rahm expressed his disappointment that his undefeated partnership with Garcia is for the history books when speaking ahead of this week’s PGA Tour in Dublin, Ohio
“I’m going to miss him,” said Rahm in referring to Garcia.
“We had a great partnership at Whistling Straights. I’m going to mention history again one more time. A Spanish duo in the Ryder Cup I think to me is embedded into the roots of the Ryder Cup.
“Look with Seve (Ballesteros) and Ollie (Olazabal) were able to do throughout their partnership, right. So it’s a little sad to me that politics have gotten in the way of such a beautiful event. Again, it’s the best Europeans against the best American, period. And whatever is going on, who is playing LIV and who is not playing LIV to me shouldn’t matter. It’s whoever is best suited to represent the European side.
“Though I have a hard time to believe that the best player Europe has ever had, the most successful player Europe has had on the Ryder Cup isn’t fit to be on the team.
“So, it’s unfortunate. I will miss him”.
Despite the absence of Garcia, Rahm hopes another Spaniard will be able to join him Rome, with the likes of Adrián Otaegui, Jorge Campillo and last week’s KLM Open champ Pablo Larrazábal finding form at the right time. “I want to be hopeful, there’s a couple of Spanish guys playing really good right now, so hopefully they can join me on the team.”
Oteagui is currently lying 6th on the European Team points table, Campillo is eighth while Larrazabal jumped 10 spot to ninth of the back of last week’s Dutch triumph.
