Jon Rahm ignored his caddie Adam Hayes and cost himself $1.9 million more dollars

Jon Rahm hopefully learned a valuable lesson on Sunday during the final round of the Players Championship. On the par-5 11th hole, Rahm pulled his tee shot left into the fairway bunker. He was tied for the lead when he arrived at his ball and it was clear that he wasn’t going to have a very easy shot to get to the green despite the fact that he has plenty of power to do so.

He was in the bunker, didn’t have a direct line thanks to the trees down the left side of the fairway, had water in front of him, and was dealing with gusting winds.

Rahm’s caddie Adam Hayes got to work and did his job in trying to convince the 24-year-old Spaniard to lay up considering all of the issues facing him and the fact that his playing partner, Tommy Fleetwood, had also just put one in the water from the fairway.

“I’m gonna get you flat over here,” Hayes said, pointing over to the fairway. “You’ll have a flat lie, you’ll have 100—”

“The problem is, I’m not confident hitting that shot. If you hit it too far down there you’ll have a very tough angle.”

Hayes shook his head and said, “Ok, yep.”

“If I hit the green, great — I was going anywhere left that was grass or sand. So there was a big amount of land to hit there.

“Adam was trying to convince me to go right, and when I first got to the ball I was really sure I could do it. I mean if you give me 10 balls besides that one I’ll hit the other one on land. But unfortunately I got a little bit of doubt in me.

“I didn’t hit my best shot but it wasn’t that far off, so I knew I could pull it off. I guess it’s easy to think of that as the point that I lost the tournament, but I could have hit a good drive on 12.”

Yes, it was that far off and everyone, including myself, could easily see that at the time.

Fleetwood into the water. Rahm has to think this through. Doesn't look like he's got an angle.

— Michael Shamburger (@mshamburger1) March 17, 2019

This decision cost Rahm a chance at winning nearly $2.25 million dollars. Instead, Rahm walked away with $253,125, which is a difference of $1,996,875 dollars.

It was a very perplexing decision for him to decide to go for it when laying up would have set up for a much easier par even if the angle wasn’t what he desired.

Brandel Chamblee called it the most baffling decision ever struck at the Players: “I think this will go down in history as the most baffling decision ever struck here at this event.”

Rahm would go on to find the water on the 17th and end up finishing in a tie for 12th.

Players Championship payout