"To make the putt was important," Rahm said after shooting a 3-under 68 on Friday to keep himself in contention after two rounds of the Mexico Open, where he is defending his championship.
I've been on a serious roll for the last two days. The punctuation at the end worked really well.
Rahm said that he made "two to three swings that were bad," which resulted to a double bogey at the par-3 ninth (after a water ball off the tee) and bogeys at Nos. 10 and 16.
As Rahm played the ninth hole, the winds began to pick up, and one could argue that he was forced to drop shots.
Four of Rahm's final eight holes were birdies, and that was in harder circumstances.
"I think I did a good job on those final eight holes after I made a mistake to still make some birdies and stay aggressive," Rahm said.
"because you have generous fairways, generous greens, they're not as firm and fast as they could be, so you can still be aggressive and make some birdies, but this golf course requires quite a bit of precision with the irons."
Rahm will not participate in the scheduled tournament at Quail Hollow next week, since he is playing for the second time in three weeks after his Masters victory.
After Sunday's Wells Fargo Championship, Rahm has to finish in the top five if he wants to maintain his No. 1 ranking and play in the Mexican Open.
He's in a tie for 12th place and has lost some of his downward momentum heading into the weekend.
"I don't think I'm playing bad," Rahm said. To paraphrase, "I think I've given away a couple more shots to some of the leaders, and that's why I'm quite a bit away."