Rahm, who held a share of the lead on day one and was two shots clear after 36 and 54 holes, carded a final round of 69 at Vidanta Vallarta to finish 17-under-par, a shot ahead of Tony Finau, Brandon Wu and Kurt Kitayama.

Finau and Wu both shot 63 to set the clubhouse target, but Rahm made a crucial birdie on the par-5 14th and parred the last four holes to secure the win.

Rahm had not tasted victory since claiming his maiden major title in last year's U.S. Open, a barren run which saw him replaced as World No.1 by Scottie Scheffler, whose Masters triumph was his fourth win in the space of 57 days.

A tie for 27th was the joint worst performance of Rahm's career at Augusta National after four straight top-10s, but the 27-year-old Spaniard was still made a strong favourite at the Mexico Open where he was the only player from the top-15 in the rankings.

"Fortunately, I got my seventh PGA Tour win. It was a pretty stressful weekend all the way to the end." - Jon Rahm.

Rahm has 14 victories worldwide. He had gone 17 starts without winning

“It was a pretty stressful weekend, all the way to the end. I don't really look at bets or anything like that, I like to think every time I tee it up I'm the favourite because I'm out there to win and I've been playing pretty good the last few years," Rahm told CBS.

"Fortunately, I got my seventh PGA Tour win. It was a pretty stressful weekend all the way to the end. I didn't think having a par-5 (18th) where a fade off the tee was required I would be stressing this much, but I got it done at the end.

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"I was confident in what I was doing, I had faith in every part of my game. A couple of those great par putts early on helped out a lot and the one putt from outside five feet that finally went in on 14 was a huge booster."

Matt Jones was the leading Australian, tied for 59th at four-under.