Former champion Jon Rahm admits he is unsure if he will be able to compete in the 124th US Open due to injury.
Rahm withdrew from the LIV Golf League event in Houston during Saturday's second round because of an infection in his left foot and arrived for his pre-tournament press conference at Pinehurst wearing one shoe and one flip-flop.
"It’s a concern," the 2021 winner said. "It’s doing better. But definitely still in pain.
"Could I have dragged myself out there (on Saturday) and posted some kind of a score? Yeah.
"But it was getting to a point where I wasn’t making the swings I wanted to make, and I could have hurt other parts of my swing just because of the pain. As to right now (playing) this week, I don’t know."
Asked how he had suffered the injury, Rahm added: "We’ve been trying to figure it out because I think that the closest term would be a lesion on the skin. If I were to show you, it’s a little hole in between my pinky toe and the next toe.
"I don’t know how or what happened, but it got infected. The pain was high. On the Saturday round, Saturday morning, I did get a (painkilling) shot to numb the area.
"It was supposed to last the whole round and by my second hole I was in pain already.
"The infection was the worrisome part. The infection is now controlled, but there's still swelling and there’s still pain.
"There’s a reason I walked out here in a shoe and a flip-flop, trying to keep the area dry and trying to get that to heal as soon as possible.
"But I can only do what I can do. The human body can only work so fast."
Rahm, who is paired with Hideki Matsuyama and Jordan Spieth for the first two rounds at Pinehurst, will not play a practice round until Wednesday but can at least rely on his experience of playing the course a few weeks ago as he bids to improve on some poor results in this season’s majors.
"I’m in a happy place," insisted the former world number one, who was 45th in the defence of his Masters title and missed the cut in the US PGA.
"It’s not like I’ve been playing bad, even though a lot of you make it sound like I’m playing bad. I’ve had two bad weeks.
"I’ve been top 10 and had a chance to win in most of the tournaments I’ve played, and then unfortunately Augusta and PGA wasn’t my best showings. But, yeah, I’m happy.
"I mean, it’s been a wonderful career so far. And, yeah, it hasn’t been the best first half of the year, but there’s been many times where I haven’t had a great start, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a great finish."
Woods: PGA/LIV peace talks prove 'productive'
Tiger Woods has described the latest talks between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) as "productive" as golf’s civil war rumbles on.
An initial "framework agreement" between the PIF – which bankrolls the breakaway LIV Golf league – the PGA Tour and DP World Tour was announced on June 6 last year and had a deadline of December 31, but that was subsequently extended.
During February, the US-based PGA Tour circuit secured an investment deal with Strategic Sports Group (SSG), which would see its players benefit from equity of more than £1.1billion and also allows for a future "co-investment" from the PIF.
The latest in-person meeting, involving PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Woods and fellow PGA Tour subcommittee members, took place in New York on Friday.
"It was productive. And is there light at the end of tunnel? I think we’re closer to that point than we were pre-meeting," Woods said ahead of the US Open at Pinehurst.
"We discussed a lot of different endings and how we get there. I think that both sides walked away from the meeting, we all felt very positive in that meeting.
"As I said, both sides were looking at different ways to get to the end game. I think that both sides shared a deep passion for how we need to get there.
"And yes, there are going to be differences of opinion, but we all want the same thing."
Follow our Live US Open Blog from Thursday afternoon on rte.ie/sport
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
