FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton were both Ryder Cup rookies at Paris’ Le Golf National in 2018. They weren’t exactly fast friends, barely speaking until Team Europe had the trophy in hand on Sunday.
“I don’t think Tyrrell and I said a word to each other in Paris till Sunday night,” Rahm said Thursday at Bethpage Black. “We both together might have said 10 words all week. We were both extremely quiet.”
Perhaps they weren’t too familiar with each other yet — Rahm being a Spaniard who played college golf in the United States, Hatton, an Englishman three years Rahm’s senior who plugged away on the European Tour.
It would have been hard to predict how their companionship has evolved into one of the fiercest duos Team Europe can field this week. Rahm traced it back to 2021 at Whistling Straits, where they were paired for Friday fourballs and halved their match with Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau.
“We had some shared interests in that sense and played golf with the same intensity, so that’s when we got put together for the first time and had a great time on the golf course,” Rahm said. “Did really well with that great birdie from Tyrrell on 18 to tie the match. So I think that’s when it all started.”
Captain Luke Donald used them in foursomes two years ago in Rome, and they got the Cup started off brilliantly for Europe with a 4-and-3 win over Scheffler and Sam Burns. So Donald trotted them back out the next morning, resulting in a 2-and-1 win over a formidable duo of Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay.
Both Rahm and Hatton have had their moments of frustration show through at high-profile events. Their similar temperaments might have scared off another captain from playing them together, but Donald was rewarded in 2023 and has every reason to use them again this week.
“Going into Rome that week is when I think our friendship really started, sharing those foursome matches with him, and then obviously the last two years,” Rahm said.
“I mean, he’s a heck of a guy. I think he gets widely misunderstood on the golf course. He is one of the funniest people you’ll ever meet off the golf course who is not afraid to make fun of himself.”
Hatton, who rarely cracks a smile during tournaments, joked at the 2023 Ryder Cup that he would beat Rahm in a “swear-off.”
“I guess we’re quite similar in some ways,” Hatton said Thursday. “We’re both very fiery and passionate people. And yeah, we have a mutual respect for one another. Certainly over the last few years, we’ve spent a lot of time together, which has been great.”
A few months after Europe prevailed in Rome, Rahm stunned the golf world by ditching the PGA Tour for LIV Golf. Rahm was given the league’s 13th franchise and needed to fill out a team. Hatton was right behind him.
LIV Golf doesn’t utilize match play until the team championships, but they’ve grown much closer as teammates on Legion XIII.
“Before (LIV), at a regular PGA Tour event, we didn’t often play practice rounds together. We weren’t out for dinner most nights, say,” Hatton said. “So we obviously paired well at previous Ryder Cups. And then, yeah, it’s only over the last few years where we’ve got to know each other a lot better.”
Now 2-0-1 when paired together at the Ryder Cup, Rahm and Hatton had cause to celebrate together when they were named captain’s picks for Bethpage in spite of not earning qualifying points at LIV events. Hatton had previously shared a story of blacking out and waking up in his own sick on a hotel bed.
“The problem was the amount of things we mixed,” Rahm recalled. “I’m not going to get into amounts. I’m sure he did. But between wine, gin and tonic, Amaretto sours, one margarita for some reason, and then this strawberry lemonade vodka thing that we don’t know what it was.
“The bartender was very creative.”
Rahm and Hatton were in the same practice pairings here Tuesday and Wednesday. They weren’t grouped together Thursday, but then again, their interpersonal chemistry no longer needs building.
“Obviously (Hatton) competes the way he does, and I fully understand the way that he competes because our thought process is very much similar,” Rahm said. “But the more I get to know him, the more of a better person he truly is. You see that in many different ways than just being around the boys. It’s the way that he treats the people around him, the way he treats his wife. He’s a great human being.”
