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Jon Rahm’s Masters victory eradicated a long-held fear: He was jinxed.
Getty Photos/Patrick Smith
Lately, Jon Rahm receives loads of autograph requests.
“Each time I obtained to my locker, each single week, there’s fairly a few Masters flags from someone concerned with the event that wishes a signature,” he says to me on a heat day in August 2023, a number of months after his first-ever triumph at Augusta Nationwide. “That didn’t occur earlier than with the U.S. Open.”
A lot is anticipated from the reigning Masters winner. Ask any Masters champ and so they’ll inform you: Your life adjustments if you win the Masters. Out of the blue you’re in possession of a brand new jacket, dinner plans on the second Tuesday in each April, and a tee time at Augusta Nationwide each spring for so long as you need it.
“The Masters is one thing that kinda transcends the sport slightly bit,” Rahm stated. “It’s the largest event that you could win, and other people acknowledge that.”
However the adjustments tackle a number of types outdoors the gates of Augusta. Masters champions at the moment are golf celebrities — interview topics on nightly discuss reveals, press convention mainstays on their dwelling excursions, and, sure, autograph targets by memorabilia hounds the world over.
There’s a purpose for that final distinction. Per long-standing membership custom, solely Masters champions can signal inside the Augusta Nationwide brand, which makes an autograph from a champion all of the extra useful.
And what occurs to those that don’t abide by the custom? Nicely, Rahm can inform you firsthand.
“Individuals ask you to signal the brand [before you’ve won],” he advised me. “Early in my profession — it was 2017 — I signed a pair [inside the logo]. It wasn’t till someone advised me, ‘Hey man, you’re not imagined to do this.’ I used to be like, ‘Why not?‘ And so they have been like, ‘It’s for champions solely.’”
Rahm says he was instantly spooked.
“I believed, ‘Nicely there you go, I’m jinxed for all times. I’m by no means profitable the Masters,” he stated with amusing.
He lived with the load of that revelation for six lengthy years earlier than he lastly nabbed a victory on the occasion in 2023.
“Fortunately sufficient it’s simply superstition. I meant nicely. Persons are asking me, so I did it,” he stated. “For six years, I advised individuals I couldn’t, and now fortunately I can.”
Now, thankfully, he can signal as many flags as he likes — offered they’re from his triumph in ’23.
“2023,” he says. “That’s endlessly my spot. At the least now if I do it on the fallacious 12 months, it’s considerably all proper.”
Considerably all proper. However possibly greatest to keep away from tempting the golf gods. Once more.
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