Jon Rahm Gets His Wish, Will Play Dustin Johnson in Finals of WGC-Dell Match Play

Jon Rahm advanced to face Dustin Johnson in the finals of the WGC-Dell Match Play. The 22-year-old Rahm has been a force to reckon with this season. In the eight events, he’s played in this season, he’s finished below 16th only twice and has a win, a T3, T5, and T8 to boot.

Rahm wanted this match-up. After finishing in a tie for third behind winner Dustin Johnson at the WGC-Mexico Championship, Rahm tweeted the following:

Now Rahm gets his wish:

"“I want to play who is playing the best right now. But honestly it would be great to play DJ. Ever since Mexico I’ve been wanting kind of that rematch. I’ve put it on social media and I think it would be a great match. Just for how great of a player he is. Everybody who’s made it this far is obviously a great competitor. It will take my best, and that’s all I’m focused on.”"

Johnson has won his last two events, the Genesis Open at Riviera and the WGC-Mexico Championship. Before that he finished T3 at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, tied for sixth at the SBS Tournament of Champions, and tied for third at the Hero World Challenge. The 2016 PGA Tour player of the year has been nothing short of dominant this season, and that showed during his matches this week.

Entering his semi-final match, Johnson had not played the 17th hole this week. Needing a good shot on the par-3 to take the lead over Tanihara, Johnson did this:

Johnson’s win set up a dream match for Rahm, who seems to feed off the match play format.

Should Rahm win, he would have climbed into the top 10 in the world rankings in 39 weeks; becoming the third fastest player to do so behind Tiger Woods (33 weeks) and Sergio (37 weeks).