ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Dominance stands on the other side of the door that Jon Rahm is knocking on.
Rahm, the 28-year-old Spaniard who’s ranked No. 1 in the world, is a PGA Championship victory this week away from separating himself from the rest of the top players in golf.
It’s a dance with dominance that many of the top players in the sport have made and so few — other than Tiger Woods — are able to sustain.
Brooks Koepka won four majors in a three-year span, but failed to keep the fire burning, in part because of injuries. Jordan Spieth, winning two majors in 2015, had his dalliance with dominance but fell back. More recently, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler have spent time ranked No. 1, but were unable to stay there.
Rahm enters this week’s PGA at Oak Hill having played in 12 tournaments this season and won four, including last month’s Masters. He has $14.5 million in tournament earnings this season, which is a PGA Tour record. And we’re still a month away from the official beginning of summer.
The guy is quietly eating the rest of the golf world for lunch.
Now, he has a chance to win a second consecutive major championship and inch one step closer to a career Grand Slam. Rahm already has a U.S. Open and the Masters checked off the list.
“It doesn’t happen often that a player wins more than one major in a year, so it would be amazing to be able to join my name to that list,’’ Rahm said Tuesday.
The last to do it was Koepka in 2018 with U.S. Open and PGA Championship wins. Before that, Spieth won a Masters and U.S. Open in 2015 and McIlroy won the British Open and PGA in 2014.
“It just doesn’t happen often,’’ Rahm said.
Complete packages like Rahm don’t come around that often. He has everything in terms of golf, and he’s mature and well-read and wise beyond his years. This is a young man who, when he first went to Arizona State to play golf, didn’t speak English. Now he speaks it more beautifully and with better life perspective than most who grew up speaking English as their native language.
Rahm is special, and a win this week would place him in a different stratosphere as a golfer. Three major championships by age 29 would be eye-opening. And it would separate Rahm from the other top players who’ve recently touched the No. 1 world ranking — No. 2 Scheffler and No. 3 McIlroy.
Rahm spoke of “riding the wave’’ of success he’s on and trying to sustain it as long as he can, knowing it won’t last forever.
“It’s the best metaphor I could find,’’ he said. “It’s sports, right? And the path to success … I think Arnie [Palmer] said it: ‘The road to success is always under construction.’ It’s not a linear, constant path of improvement. It’s ups and downs. It’s not only in golf. That’s just life. The next day is not always better than the previous one.
“I think it would be ludicrous to think that you can always keep increasing your level of performance. That’s just impossible. There’s going to be downs. Even Tiger had downs. Maybe his downs were shorter, maybe his downs were different in his mind, but everybody had them. It is part of sports. I guess as a player, you’ve got to hope that your low is not as low as others.’’
The career Grand Slam, because he’s only halfway there, isn’t at the forefront of Rahm’s mind, but it’s in there somewhere.
“Obviously, if I were to win this week or the Open Championship [in July] it really becomes a true reality,’’ he said. “But winning two majors is not easy, and picking which ones you win is a little ludicrous to think about. Obviously, winning the Grand Slam would absolutely be amazing, but without sounding too conceited or arrogant, I’d rather focus on the number of majors you win than having the Grand Slam per se.
“The more you put yourself in the position to be able to win majors, the more likely you might be to get it done. It’s a very small number of players to do it, last one being Tiger. It’s obviously not an easy thing to accomplish.’’
Based on form, Rahm looks like the most likely to be the man to do it next.