Jon Rahm, second Spanish world number one golfer after Seve Ballesteros

GOLFER Jon Rahm is only the second Spaniard in history to have reached world number one after the late, great Severiano Ballesteros – and he has achieved this at the tender age of 25.

In what he described 'one of the best performances of his life', the Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio (USA) is the Basque prodigy's first title of this year's PGA Tour and his fourth overall - he has won one every year since turning professional - and the 11^th win of his career.

It followed a hard-fought battle that, by the 15^th tee in round four, saw his eight-shot lead over partner Ryan Palmer drop to three.

Drawing inspiration from his idol, Seve – who netted the world number one slot for the first time in 1986 – Rahm managed to keep his lead until the end, but with all the odds apparently stacked against him.

Clutch pars on holes 15, 17 and 18 were marred by a two-shot penalty on hole 16 after what was first thought to be a birdie.

He had knocked the ball without realising, making it move and failing to replace it before taking the shot.

But in the end, it made no difference; the sweating, palpitating Rahm ended three shots up after Sunday's final round at Muirfield Village, which was enough to clinch his number one ranking.

He told PGA Tour reporters: “I finished today with some clutch up-and-downs and, as a Spaniard, I'm kind of glad it happened that way – every shot counts, and I tried every shot and got those two last up-and-downs as a true Spaniard would.”

Handing in a card with 73 shots for the fourth round and 279 in total – nine under par – Rahm gets 76 points for his Memorial victory for an overall 460.82, knocking Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy (419) off the top slot where he has sat for the last 11 weeks.

Rahm is now also the ninth European golfer in history to become world number one – a position which Tiger Woods held for the longest, over 683 weeks, followed by Australia's Greg Norman, at 331 weeks.

Seve Ballesteros hung onto the number one position for the sixth-longest period in history, for 61 weeks.

After Rahm's rollercoaster ride at Muirfield Village – a course designed by legendary US golfer Jack Nicklaus – he took home the top prize of over a million dollars, plus 500 FedEx Cup qualifying points.

He already holds a record of his own: Rahm's 60 weeks at the top of the World Amateur Golf Ranking, before he turned pro after the 2016 US Open, has never yet been beaten.

Born in Barrika, Vizcaya province – of which the capital is Bilbao – and nicknamed 'Rahmbo', Jon lives in the USA and his alma mater is Arizona State University, where he met his wife, Kelley Cahill, but his parents, Ángela Rodríguez and Edorta Rahm, are both Spanish, from Madrid and Vizcaya respectively, although Edorta is a direct descendant of Swiss expat Georg Rahm who married a Spanish woman in Bilbao in 1821.

His granddad, Sabin Rahm, was delegate for FC Athletic de Bilbao, a team the family has supported for generations.

Jon's family had no golfing tradition at all until 1997, when his businessman father received a corporate invitation to the Ryder Cup, held that year in Valderrama, Madrid – Edorta was so transfixed after watching the European team win that he immediately joined Larrabea Golf Club in his home province, and his children took up his hobby later on.

Before taking up golf seriously – a sport he says 'best suits his competitive nature' – Jon played football and ping-pong and practised kung-fu and canoeing; but it turned out he had made the right choice when reports of his talent were so glowing that he won a scholarship to Arizona State University.

For the first time in history, this academic institution – home to one of the USA's most prestigious golfing academies and whose alumni include Phil Mickleson and Paul Casey – gave Jon a sports scholarship without even seeing him play.

The tradition of sports scholarships is a scheme that allows promising youngsters to study at a university with a good reputation in the activity concerned, covering all their fees, and is often a way to give talented footballers, soccer-players, basketball players and other sporting youths from poor families who would be unable to afford a college education the chance to earn a degree.

In Jon's case, his undergraduate golf trainer – now his manager – had serious doubts at first as to whether his protégé would ever, in fact, get through college, since his English was almost non-existent when he arrived, causing him huge educational and social problems and affecting his game.

But Jon worked tirelessly on learning the language – he says listening to Eminem's and Kendrick Lamar's records helped – and had a very sound working knowledge by his second year and, long before graduation, was speaking like a US native.

Even though he beat Jack Nicklaus' record at age 20 in the 2014 World Amateur Golf Championships – by finishing 23 shots under par – Jon's parents had made him promise before heading for his new life across the pond not to turn professional until he had completed his degree, and he stuck to that pledge, graduating from ASU in summer 2016, just five months before his 23^rd birthday.