Jon Rahm reveals genius ritual he'll be using at PGA Championship after cheating incident

Jon Rahm will likely be marking his golf balls with his initials at the PGA Championship. The two-time major winning golf star, who is yet to taste victory at the US PGA, initially started carrying out the practice as a junior, after witnessing cheating by fellow competitors.

During one tournament, in particular, noted that he saw a ball on the green that he thought was his, but as it had no distinguishable markings, his competitors questioned how he could be sure. As a result, the Spaniard started marking his balls with "JR" in red pen, to prevent any doubt going forward. Speaking on the Andrew Santino show about his reasoning, he said: "So, you know, when you don't have people watching or officials refereeing everywhere, right?

"It's very easy to cheat if you want to. It's very easy to cheat." However, Rahm isn't the only player who believes that cheating is rife in the amateur leagues, with a survey conducted in 2023 among amateur golfers revealing that 15 per cent of participants had witnessed others cheating on the greens and fairways through moving their ball closer to the hole, or secretly dropping a ball when they had lost their original one.

Thankfully, with the amount of coverage that professional golf gets, as well as the amount of marshalls on the course, cheating is less frequent in the professional game. However, that hasn't stopped Rahm himself from being on the wrong end of a scandal throughout his own career.

At the Irish Open in 2017, Rahm had to move his ball as it was on Daniel Im's putting line - but when he put his ball back down, it appeared to be slightly closer to the hole. Despite fans of the competition emailing to point out what they had seen, European Tour chief referee, Andy McFee, did not penalise the player after deeming that he didn't intentionally misplace his ball on the green.

Rahm is one of 156 players taking part in the 2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow as of Thursday, as he hopes to bolster his trophy cabinet. The 30-year-old lifted his first major at the 2021 US Open, before doubling down two years later at .

However, his best result to date at the US PGA comes in the form of a T4 finish in 2018 alongside Stewart Cink, where he finished five strokes behind tournament winner with a total score of 11-under-par. After achieving 11 wins on the , Rahm announced that he had switched allegiance to in December 2023, despite his past criticisms of the controversial banner.

Fast forward to May 2025, and Rahm is the captain of the Legion XIII team, and holds two event wins with LIV. And he isn't the only star from the roster who will take part in the US PGA either.

Crushers GC captain is set to tee off at 6.47pm, while Fireballs head Sergio Garcia, HyFlyers leader Phil Mickelson, and Smash GC star Koepka are also taking part. All eyes, of course, will undoubtedly be on PGA Tour star however, who could complete the career Grand Slam with a win at Quail Hollow come Sunday.

With wins at the Masters, the , and the , the Wanamaker Trophy is the only major that Spieth hasn't achieved to date. And if he is able to top the leaderboards by the end of play, it would be the second time in the space of a month that the golfing world has seen a career Grand Slam come to completion, with bagging his own by .

To date, only six men have won all four majors, in Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, , and McIlroy, and should Spieth join that list come Sunday, it would only add to an already incredible year for golf.