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Arizona State alum Jon Rahm is officially the No. 1 golfer in the world, earning the ranking by passing Rory McIlroy for the top spot after winning at the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio on Sunday.
Rahm shot a three-over 75 yesterday, fending off the competition to take home the victory. It was his fourth PGA Tour win.
2016: Jack Nicklaus Award winner
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 20, 2020
2020: @MemorialGolf winner pic.twitter.com/M7HeiyIAc8
A native of Spain, Rahm is the first Spaniard to be ranked No. 1 since 1989, and he’s the third youngest to achieve the feat at just the age of 25-years-old, following behind only Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth.
Rahm attended ASU from 2012-2016, and in that span, he made his presence felt at the NCAA level. He earned Pac-12 First Team honors multiple times, and was named the Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year as a senior in 2016.
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Furthermore, Rahm took home the Ben Hogan Award, which goes out to the best college golfer in the country, twice in 2015 and 2016. He had 11 collegiate tournament wins, which was second only to Phil Mickelson when he donned the maroon and gold.
And speaking of Mickelson, he backed a fellow Sun Devil in Rahm, as a story was released by Jason Sobel of Action Network on Sunday highlighting a wager that Mickelson made with fellow pro golfer Colt Knost in 2016.
Four years ago, Phil Mickelson made a bet with fellow pro Colt Knost that an amateur named Jon Rahm would be top-10 in the world within a year. Here's the never-before-told story of how this wager played out.https://t.co/IdrW5L6V1K
— Jason Sobel (@JasonSobelTAN) July 20, 2020
The bet made by “lefty” was that Rahm would become a top-10 player in the world by June of 2017. Rahm accomplished that, and is now off to even bigger things as the No. 1 in the world in July 2020.