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Jon Rahm Hit an Aronimink Volunteer in the Face With a Divot and Wants to Apologize By Giving Him a Present
By Matt Schultz
Published:
By all accounts, the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square has been a great event so far, but we can probably assume at least one guy in attendance hasn’t had that much fun. On Thursday, Jon Rahm apparently took a swing at the grass in frustration, and a divot of dirt shot up and hit a volunteer in the face:
“I got a flyer on my second shot that went long, it’s not a good spot and just out of frustration I tried to make an air-swing, just over the grass, and I wasn’t looking, took a divot and unfortunately (it) hit a volunteer. Yeah. It hit him, and unfortunately it hit him in the shoulder and then the face, which, ah – I couldn’t feel any worse. I was there apologizing. I need to somehow track him down to give him a present, cause that’s inexcusable, and – for something that could be completely avoidable. Whether it was my intention or not is – it was just not good.”
Lot to unpack here. First off, I don’t buy that Rahm intended to do an air swing. I think he was definitely throwing a little tantrum and knowingly swung at the grass. If he didn’t want to hit the ground with his club, you gotta think he has enough club control not to. He’s so good at golf. To accidentally shoot up a bunch of ground while swinging around sounds like something I’d do with a mini-golf club at Pirate Island in Ocean City. Little-ass rocks flying everywhere, spraying nearby children in the shins. I’m not very good at golf. Jon Rahm is.
Second, how bad could this scene have been to make Rahm sound this somber? He seems like he could cry. Sounds like he’s resigning from political office after some very private and odd photos of him were leaked. With this level of sorrow in his voice, you can’t help but wonder… Did the volunteer lose an eye? Is he an eyepatch guy now? Or maybe the volunteer was old as hell, and that made it all way worse than it should’ve been? Was the guy like 86 years old, and because of how soft old people’s bones are, the divot chunk turned his jaw bone into dust? Did the volunteer scream in a very haunting, undignified way, and perhaps that’s what Rahm seems so shaken up? Can he still hear the harrowing screech of the volunteer in his mind? And, maybe most importantly, why isn’t their video of this? Did the Rahm camp bury it? Did the PGA classify the tape? How high does this thing go?
Last thing here that really stood out to me: I love that Rahm believes he can fix all of this by giving the volunteer a present. Wish I could be there when he hands over the gift –
“Go ahead, open it… Yeah, you gotta unwrap it… Sorry for the Christmas gift wrapping, it was all I had… Yeah, no, open the box, take it out, try it on… Looks so awesome on you. Do you love it?… What do you mean ‘What is it?’ It’s an Oculus. You can play The Sims on that.”
Anyway, prayers up that this volunteer is okay. At least he got an interesting story out of it. And potentially an Oculus.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…)