MADRID (AP) \u2014 Jon Rahm and Shane Lowry struggled in their return to action after helping Europe win the Ryder Cup, with Rahm briefly arguing with a marshal who tried to cheer him up during the Spanish Open on Thursday.<\/p>\n
After his drive found the left rough on the par-4 eighth hole, Rahm saw his lie and started complaining: \u201cWhat a day, what a day,\u201d he said, followed by an expletive.<\/p>\n
The marshal who marked his ball said \u201cIt\u2019s OK,\u201d and Rahm immediately looked at him and said: \u201cDon\u2019t tell me it\u2019s OK, please. Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The marshal apologized as he walked away, while Rahm continued complaining: \u201cIt\u2019s not OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rahm made a par on the hole, but then bogeyed the next \u2014 his last of the day \u2014 to finish with a round of 1-over 72. He holed a bunker shot for an eagle on the par-5 14th, but his round included only one birdie and four bogeys.<\/p>\n
Rahm played in the same group as Lowry, who made the clinching Ryder Cup putt for the Europeans in New York last month, when the raucous home crowd tormented the European players from the start. Rahm said while in Madrid that the Ryder Cup was the toughest week mentally of his career.<\/p>\n
Lowry shot a 4-over 75 in his opening round at the Club de Campo Villa de Madrid. The Irishman had six bogeys and two birdies.<\/p>\n
The clubhouse leaders were Englishman Marco Penge and Frenchman Frederic Lacroix, who shot rounds of 5-under 66.<\/p>\n
Rahm is trying to win a record fourth Spanish Open title and surpass Seve Ballesteros as the tournament\u2019s most successful golfer since the creation of the European tour in 1972. Rahm is making his seventh appearance in Madrid, with his victories coming in 2018, 2019 and 2022. He was runner-up to fellow Spaniard \u00c1ngel Hidalgo in a playoff last year.<\/p>\n
Ballesteros won the last of his 50 titles on the European tour at the Spanish Open in 1995.<\/p>\n
It is the first time the tournament offers an automatic spot in next year\u2019s Masters and the British Open to the winner.<\/p>\n
World No. 1 tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, also a Spaniard, was among those following Rahm in Thursday\u2019s opening round in Madrid.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
Tales Azzoni, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID (AP) \u2014 Jon Rahm and Shane Lowry struggled in their return to action after helping Europe win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-200627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}