It wasn't always this easy for Jon Rahm.
Before the Phoenix Open and seven tournament victories, he was an immature 17-year-old freshman trying to learn English and adapt to a new culture.
He was technically recruited by Tim Mickelson, but it was Ricardo Relinque of the Spanish Golf Federation who helped Rahm make it on the ASU men's golf team. Relinque recommended Rahm, a Spaniard, to Mickelson.
"We were in a position where we had money available and we needed a good player, so I took the faith in that guy and his world ranking and said, ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ " Mickelson said.
When Rahm first met the man in charge of ASU, it was after he had committed. But he wasn't supposed to meet because of NCAA rules. At a tournament, Rahm was disqualified for having 15 clubs instead of 14 in his bag. Rahm tried to talk to Mickelson at the first tee, just being polite, beforehand.
"The first time I’m like, ‘Wow, he does not like me at all already,’" Rahm said.
When Rahm first came to Tempe, he struggled with English. He had taken English classes in Spain, but it wasn't enough to fully understand it.
He didn't turn in early grade checks and he had anger issues early on, breaking a rule by knocking down the golf bag in his first tournament. Rahm finished 41st in the tournament, which included an 81 first round.
But the struggles quickly evaporated and he found comfort in his teammates who spoke Spanish, though he said Mickelson then made a rule that anyone talking in Spanish would have to complete 15 burpees. Burpees are an exercise that requires one to drop down into push-up position, complete a push-up and then get up and jump in the air.
"The transition for a 17-year-old takes time," Mickelson said. "Once he started becoming more and more comfortable, enjoying his teammates more, and being able to understand what they were saying, that basically helped the transition."
He finished second at the Pac-12 Preview that fall (even after a 77 first round), and won the Bill Cullum Invitational, but it wasn't until he shot a 61 in the first round of the NCAA championship that ASU knew the special talent it had.
Rahm, now a junior, has won seven collegiate tournaments in his career, and is finally putting it together in a special spring that began with a fifth-place finish at the Phoenix Open.
"If he feels he can finish fifth in the PGA Tour event, why shouldn’t he be able to be top-five in every college event?" Mickelson said. "So I think that helped with the consistency, he know knows he can compete at the highest level."
His 2014-15 season has been impressive: a 68.78 stroke average, four tournament victories, 10 top-10 finishes (in 12 tournaments).
But that's severely understating it.
On Monday, Rahm became the first Sun Devil to ever win the Ben Hogan Award, which is given to the best men's college golfer of the season, though admittedly Phil Mickelson would have won it under the current criteria. It used to include academics and athletics, but now is just focuses on the golf.
On the day of the banquet, Rahm was a nervous wreck, saying the only time he wasn't nervous was when he got to play a little golf that day. The finalists were him, Stanford's Maverick McNealy and Washington's Cheng-Tsung Pan.
McNealy is the No. 1 college player according to Golfstat and Golfweek, and had just beat Rahm by 18 strokes at the Pac-12 championship, so it might have seemed like McNealy was going to win it. However, the award also encompasses non-collegiate events like the Phoenix Open. Tim Mickelson said he told Rahm he had an 80 percent shot at winning it, but still the nerves were there.
"I was writing down the speech and the people I had to thank too and I was like, 'Why am I doing this, am I even going to win, what if I don’t win, why am I even writing this, but I have to write it just in case I win,'" Rahm said.
During Rahm's speech, he said, this day, he doesn't know why Mickelson took a risk on him.
I think we now know.
And he'll be rewarded with Rahm coming back another season.
Reach the reporter at jmjanss1@asu.edu or follow @jjanssen11 on Twitter.
Like State Press Sports on Facebook and follow @statepresssport on Twitter.
