Charity of the gods

 Those golf gods. They are a fickle lot.

They giveth, they taketh away, they giveth again, and the only explanation for any of it is that they must spend an inordinate amount of time at the 19th hole, gettin' communal with the sippin' whiskey. 

"I know!" one of them says, looking down on the mortals. "Let's make Bryson DeChambeau shoot a 77!"

And then they all giggle.

"Hey!" another one says. "Why don't we screw Louis Oosthuizen AGAIN!"

And they practically fall on the floor laughing.

Finally, after they've settled down, yet another golf god takes a sip and says this: "What do say, guys? Have we tortured Jon Rahm enough?"

Because two weeks ago, the golf gods kicked poor Rahm right in the man place. Had him six strokes clear heading into the last round of the Memorial over in Ohio, then yanked the rug out from under him when a positive Bastard Plague test forced him from the tournament and robbed him of an almost certain win.

Fast forward to yesterday, and finally the gods acknowledged what so many had taken as an article of faith: That the question was not if Jon Rahm would ever win a major, but when.

And so there was the Spaniard who played his collegiate golf at Arizona State and lives now in Scottsdale, standing at the 17th tee a stroke behind Oosthuizen with two holes to play. And there was his golf ball, bending gently into the jar from 25 feet away for one birdie.

And there it was again, lying in a greenside bunker on 18 before Rahm blasted it out and then curled in another sidewinding Rand McNally putt for a second birdie, unleashing a fusillade of fist pumps as the gallery thundered around him.

The second birdie gave him a one-stroke lead, and it held up after Oosthuizen bogied 17 and birdied 18 to again come up just short in a major.

Rahm, on the other hand, became the first man ever to birdie the last two holes of a U.S. Open to win by one shot. On Father's Day. With his father, his wife and their10-week-old baby on hand to see it. And with an acknowledgment, after it was done, that he'd done it for Seve -- i.e., Seve Ballesteros, spirit father of every Spanish golfer everywhere.

And somewhere the golf gods raised their glasses, toasted their work and agreed they'd done a good thing this day.