Rahm's Remarkable Shots Highlight his Opening Round at Aronimink

The Majors seem to bring out the best in Spain’s Jon Rahm and Thursday was no exception.

Rahm, who has 15 top 10s in 37 Major starts, shot a 1-under 69 in Round 1 of the 108th PGA Championship at Aronimink and he had two remarkable shots on his back nine to thank for that.

The first came at the 406-yard, par-4 second hole, his 11th hole of the day.

After Rahm bogeyed No. 1, he ripped a drive over 300 yards at No. 2 and was left with 101 yards to the hole. With a wedge in hand, Rahm two-bounced the ball into the hole for an unlikely eagle to jumpstart the round.

“I mean, what can I say?” said the two-time Major Champion. “It was a phenomenal shot, really good wedge shot. I came off that first green kicking myself because it was a wrong choice of shot for such a good drive. 105 yards away downwind, it was the wrong shot choice. Go to the next hole, and I have a very similar number, at least I have to play it the same number into the wind. Obviously a lot more committed with the right decision, and hit a great shot, obviously the luck of seeing it go in, right? It was funny, I was like -- I think we were on 16 or 17 when somebody holed out on 11. I kind of thought, man, how often you see hole-outs in majors on TV and how rarely I've ever seen one in person. Then about an hour later I get to do it myself, right? So that's just one of the funny moments in golf.”

After making four consecutive pars, Rahm’s tee shot at the par-4, 7th found the left rough and his approach sailed over the green back into the rough again. He failed to get up and down and took bogey to fall back to 1 over.

Then the magic happened again.

Rahm’s tee shot on the 245-yard, par-3 eighth rolled through the green into a collection area. Rahm's played a chip from 20 yards perfectly for an unlikely birdie to pull back to even on the round.

Rahm nearly had his second eagle of the day at the par-5 ninth when his 85-foot chip slipped just past the hole. He settled for a short birdie to finish under par.

After the round, Rahm was asked if he was surprised scores weren’t lower and quickly shut that down, but understood the reasoning.

“If you just go by some of the numbers, some of the fairways are wide, the greens aren't crazy firm,” he said. “But a lot of those fairways are sloped in a way that they play very narrow. Like 15 today, I thought I was going to be in the fairway undoubtedly, and I was off the fairway. Same on 10, same on 4. It can easily roll off.”

Rahm said that while the rough doesn’t look too long, the thick blades of grass can make for some difficult lies.

“I can see how in appearance it might be easier, but it's not,” Rahm said. “You need to play really good golf to shoot lower than 3-under. And then on top of that, those pin locations today are good ones. I mean, they're tucked. They're not easy. There was somebody earlier in the week where there was some chatter where people thought 15- to 20-under was going to win... if the golf course stays like this and it keeps firming up, yeah, obviously it's not going to be anything like that.”