Jon Rahm has issued his verdict on the start Tyrrell Hatton has made to his LIV Golf career, with the Englishman level par after the opening two rounds at Mayakoba.
Tyrrell Hatton was one of the final names confirmed for this season on LIV. The Englishman joined Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII team. Hatton has reportedly been paid £50 million to make the move to the Saudi-backed tour.
Rahm has opened his account by putting himself in contention in Mexico. The Spaniard is tied second, four shots behind Joaquin Niemann.
Jon Rahm shares his verdict on how Tyrrell Hatton has started on LIV
Unfortunately for the Masters champion, his teammates are yet to have the same success in the curtain-raiser.
Caleb Surratt is currently one-under, one shot clear of Hatton. The Ryder Cup hero is currently tied for 24th alongside the likes of Ian Poulter and Marc Leishman.
That leaves Legion XIII second in the team competition. However, they go into the final round five shots off the lead.
But speaking on LIV’s broadcast after his round, Rahm insisted that he is happy with his team is and explained why Hatton may not be too fast out of the blocks.
“I haven’t seen the scores yet. I think we’re tied for third. Really proud of my team. I keep saying it, we have a man in Tyrrell who’s a great player, but 10 days ago, was playing on the PGA Tour and just decided to change. So I can imagine these last few days have been a little stressful. So it’s understandable if he doesn’t play his best,” he said.
Lot of pressure on the Ryder Cup pair
With Surratt and Kieran Vincent hardly household names, you would imagine that there is going to be a lot of pressure on Rahm and Hatton this season.
Obviously, the pair are two of the very best in the world. In fact, you could not argue with anyone who puts Rahm as the number one right now.
But Rahm has had time to prepare for this new tour and new format. Meanwhile, Hatton’s defection came very late in the day. So he probably did have lower expectations for this week.
They probably will be encouraged to find themselves second on the team leaderboard in their first event.
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