Weekly Recap: D-Rahm-a in Dublin

It's hard to not begin the Memorial recap without discussing Jon Rahm. He was the eye of a perfect storm of events that led to one of the Tour's worst nightmares in relation to the pandemic. One of the worst? Yeah. What if there is an outbreak in two weeks at the U.S. Open? As bad as the Rahm situation was, that would be far worse.

The outcry over Rahm having to withdraw after testing positive for COVID-19 of course would've been no outcry at all had he been in, say, 43rd place instead of holding a six-stroke lead heading into Sunday. And of course, despite whatever Golf Twitter wants to believe, the two situations are exactly the same: test positive, you have to withdraw. That's the PGA Tour's rule and every golfer knew it.

This is not to say there is no empathy for Rahm. How can there not be? And for his caddie, too. Rahm reportedly had received the first of his two vaccinations.

The fact that Rahm made it all the way to Saturday is not without its own controversy, after he entered contact tracing way back on Monday for coming in contact with someone who tested positive.

From a purely golf standpoint, this will have huge ramifications far beyond Dublin, Ohio. They will extend all the way to San Diego in two weeks and likely beyond. Rahm has to self-quarantine for 10 days, unless he tests negative twice and more than 24 hours part. The 10-day period won't end until two days before the U.S. Open starts. Even if he remains asymptomatic, his practice regimen -- likely painstakingly mapped out -- leading up to the start of the next major, has been shredded.

Rahm was a real threat to win, but now, not so much. He was obviously playing well and Torrey Pines is a track where he's won before. You have to figure his entire year was centered around the U.S. Open, perhaps his best chance to win his first major.

Beyond the golf itself, what will this situation do in betting circles? Rahm was and, as of now, is still the betting favorite at 12-1 on golfodds.com. It's hard to believe that number won't change. His price in DFS contests will surely be impacted. It says here that Rahm went from a strong chase to win the U.S. Open to a pretty strong fade. He's too much of an unknown now.

One last word on bets before moving on. The major sportsbooks decided to pay out on Rahm win bets. Look, it's great P.R., but the hit was probably not too severe. It was a six-stroke lead -- very comfy indeed, but hardly insurmountable. Winning was a great bet but not a certainty. We can prove it in two words. No, the words are not "Greg" and "Norman." They are "Lexi" and "Thompson."

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Patrick Cantlay
Cantlay and Collin Morikawa both looked tentative at the start, and understandably so. That could've been the case in normal conditions, but suddenly going from a six-stroke deficit to a tie for the lead had to be, at minimum, awkward. Cantlay alluded to that but then said that once the round got going, the focus was all on winning. He clearly has put his mini-slump behind him. After three straight missed cuts, including at the Masters, he turned it around with a top-25 at the PGA. Cantlay is from Long Beach, not too far from Torrey Pines. Interestingly, he's played the tournament only three times, lastly in 2019, when he missed the cut for the second time. Still, he has to be considered among the top dozen or so favorites for the U.S. Open.

Collin Morikawa
Morikawa missed a six-footer for par on the first playoff hole that would've extended the match. The reaction is to blame things on his weak putting. But it's hard to blame his putting this time; he ranked sixth in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting, statistically one of his best weeks ever on the greens. He also ranked fourth in the field in SG: Tee-to-Green, so this loss is a tough one. No matter, it only reinforces his position as one of the U.S. Open favorites, even more so than Cantlay.

Scottie Scheffler
The tournament was there for the taking by Scheffler but he couldn't grab hold. He bogeyed 18 and, while it ended up not mattering with Cantlay and Morikawa two shots clear, it was not a good sign for him in a highly pressurized situation. He's a top-20 golfer and could have a great week at Torrey Pines, but he just looks like he needs a little more seasoning before truly starting to contend for majors.

Branden Grace
2019 and 2020 were pretty terrible years for the one-time top-10 player. He did win in Puerto Rico earlier this year, but that's an opposite-field event. So finishing solo fourth in an elite Memorial field came out of left field. Furthermore, Grace had missed the Memorial cut the two previous years, so as of now it's hard to think of this result as anything more than an outlier. He also missed the cut in his Farmers Insurance Open debut in January.

Patrick Reed
Reed has already won in 2021 – at Torrey Pines, no less – but he's also had a number of dicey weeks. So seeing him finish solo fifth so close to the U.S. Open is a good sign. Even before his Farmers win, he had a great track record there.

Max Homa
Homa ended in a three-way tie for sixth. It was his second such finish in his past five starts, with the other three being missed cuts. That's some full house. Homa was 18th at Torrey Pines in January and ninth the year before, not unexpected for a Southern California native. He could make some noise at the U.S. Open.

Shane Lowry
Lowry tied for sixth, which comes on the heels of a tie for fourth at the PGA, which followed soon after a tie for ninth at Harbour Town. Seems he's ready for the U.S. Open.

Jimmy Walker
Walker is two weeks away from what likely will be his final U.S. Open, as his five-year exemption for winning the 2016 PGA expires. Now in his 40s, having fallen outside the top-500 OWGR and having had missed the cut in 20 of his 34 events since the beginning of 2020, his tie for sixth at the Memorial was a stunner. He hadn't had a top-10 since 2018. At least it will give him some hope heading to Torrey Pines, where he missed the cut in January.

Xander Schauffele
Schauffele went toe-to-toe with the leaders on Thursday and Friday but faded to T11. A top-10 putter on Tour, he curiously switched putters and his putting style this week – and wound up ranked 35th in putting. It's too soon to tell whether this move will backfire, but to give yourself just one tournament to practice it before a major seems … odd. After years of struggling at his hometown Torrey Pines, Schauffele was runner-up there in January.
. 
Rickie Fowler
He's still not in the U.S. Open field as of now, but Fowler is getting his game back. After a top-10 at the PGA he just missed another with a tie for 11th at Muirfield Village.

Adam Scott
Scott tied for 16th in his final U.S. Open tuneup. He's played the Farmers only twice but they were good ones: runner-up in 2019 and a tie for 10th in January.

Jordan Spieth
Spieth tied for 18th and, while a top-20 looks kind of good, it wasn't a great week for him. He has missed only one cut in all of 2021, but it happened to have come at Torrey Pines. The length could make contending at the U.S. Open difficult for Spieth.

Rory McIlroy
Following a so-so tie for 18th, McIlroy will return to a Torrey Pines track that he only recently started playing but took an instant liking to. He was top-5 in 2019 and 2020, then 16th in January. With his recent win at uber-long Quail Hollow, McIlroy warrants strong consideration at the U.S. Open.

Bryson DeChambeau
DeChambeau also tied for 18th, which was one of his better weeks of late. He's the defending U.S. Open champion but is 0-for-2 in cuts at Torrey Pines.

Tony Finau
Finau had one of his worst weeks all year, tying for 32nd. He has been such a top-10 machine at the majors that it's hard to let this one result sway our thinking too much.

Justin Thomas
Thomas was in position to make some noise on the weekend, but then he went out and shot twin 75s to plummet to 42nd place. In the seven tournaments since his PLAYERS win, he has zero top-10s and only one top-20. He also hasn't played Torrey Pines since 2015.

Viktor Hovland
Like Thomas, Hovland was on the periphery of getting into contention on the weekend only to have a bad final two rounds. He tied for 47th. In his past 14 starts beginning with his win at Mayakoba, he has seven finishes inside the top-6 and seven outside the top-20 -- nothing in between. One of those top-6s was a tie for second at the Farmers in January.