Showing posts with label The Open. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Open. Show all posts
Monday, 20 July 2026
Sunday, 19 July 2026
Saturday, 18 July 2026
RYAN FOX MATCHES MAJOR CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD WITH A 62 IN THE BRITISH OPEN
Ryan Fox has joined the list of players with a major championship scoring record
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| Ryan Fox of New Zealand acknowledges the crowd on the 188th green after completing his third round during the third day of the British Open Golf championships at Royal Birkdale golf club, in Southport, England, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super) |
SOUTHPORT, England — Ryan Fox added his name Saturday to the growing list of players who share the major championship scoring record when he became the third player this week with a record-tying 62 in the British Open at Royal Birkdale .
Fox started early with barely a trace of wind, and he took advantage. He made five birdies on the front nine, and birdied two of his last three holes for 62 on the par-70 Birkdale links. Lucas Herbert and Sam Burns each had 62 some 20 minutes apart on Friday.
There now have been eight rounds of 62 in major championship history, half of them at Royal Birkdale. Branden Grace was the first to set the record with a 62 at Royal Birkdale in 2017.
Fox was in a pot bunker off the fairway on the 18th and still managed to find the green, leaving a birdie putt of nearly 50 feet for a 61. He left it short by about 5 feet and holed the par putt.
“When I got to 6 under through 14 I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve got a chance.’ I would have liked to give myself a birdie chance at the last, but happy to make par,” Fox said.
He played alongside Xander Schauffele, the only player with 62 twice in a major. Schauffele and Rickie Fowler each shot 62 in the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club — like Herbert and Burns, they were playing two groups apart — and Schauffele and Shane Lowry each shot 62 in the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla.
Haeran Ryu set the record in women's majors last week with a 60 in the final round of the Evian Championship, which has yielded all the top scores in LPGA majors since it was designated one 13 years ago.
Schauffele is the only player with 62 in a major to win. Fox, who made the cut with one shot to spared, finished atop the leaderboard with Herbert, who was still more than an hour away from teeing off in the third round.
The links have rarely been this brown and fast, but it’s the wind — or lack of it — that has allowed for such low scoring this week.
Fox, one of the strongest players in golf with his rugby heritage, leaned on his driver for much of the round and set up good scoring chances.
“The game plan was to be aggressive,” Fox said. “I was aggressive on a lot of good wedge shots. Pretty happy with 62 at the end.”
All but one of his nine birdies — Fox made his lone bogey on the 13th with a drive into a pot bunker — came from about 10 feet or closer. His drive on the 321-yard fifth hole was about 30 feet from the hole, and his most important shot was a wedge from the rough on the par-5 17th that rolled out to about 4 feet.
Herbert also had a bogey on his card during his 62 on Friday.
There have been weeks of soft conditions or little wind — two elements that lead to low scores — at previous majors. Seven major courses — three of them links courses — have yielded two rounds of 63 or lower in the same championship.
Royal Birkdale is the first to give up three of them — with half of the field Saturday and the final round still to come.
- Doug Ferguson | AP
Monday, 21 July 2025
Monday, 22 July 2024
XANDER SCHAUFFELE WINS THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER FINAL-ROUND 65
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| AP Photo |
TROON, Scotland -- Xander Schauffele's critics used to say he didn't have the nerves or backbone to win one of golf's major championships.
Now, the 30-year-old PGA Tour star from San Diego can't stop winning them.
Two months after Schauffele captured his first major championship victory at the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, he added a second one Sunday at the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon Golf Club.
"There's calmness and super stressful moments when you're trying to win a major championship," Schauffele said. "I felt them in the past -- the ones I didn't win -- and I let them get to me. Today, I felt like I did a pretty good job of weathering the storm when I needed to."
On a day when seven golfers started the final round within one shot of leader Billy Horschel, Schauffele was the man holding the Claret Jug at the iconic links course on Scotland's west coast. He posted a 6-under 65 on Sunday, just like he did in the final round of the PGA Championship, and his 72-hole total of 9-under 275 put him two strokes ahead of Horschel and England's Justin Rose.
South Africa's Thriston Lawrence was another stroke back.
"It was hard," Schauffele said. "It was very difficult. I think winning the first one helped me a lot today on the back nine. I had some feeling of calmness come through. It was very helpful on what has been one of the hardest back nines I've ever played in a tournament.
"I mean, it's a dream come true to win two majors in one year. It took me forever just to win one, and to have two now is something else."
Schauffele described Sunday's bogey-free round as the "best round I've played."
According to ESPN Stats & Information, Schauffele is the first golfer in the Masters era (since 1934) to have multiple final rounds of 65 or better in majors in the same year.
It's the seventh consecutive major won by an American golfer, the longest such streak since they captured 13 straight from 1974 to 1977.
It's the first year since 1982 that U.S. golfers claimed all four majors -- Scottie Scheffler won the Masters, and Bryson DeChambeau captured the U.S. Open.
Schauffele is the first golfer since Brooks Koepka in 2018 (U.S. Open and PGA Championship) to claim two majors in one season. It's only the seventh time a player has won the PGA Championship and The Open in the same year; Rory McIlroy was the last to do it, in 2014.
Schauffele's victory Sunday required patience. He opened his final round with five straight pars, and he fell behind Horschel, Lawrence and Rose. Schauffele kick-started his round with back-to-back birdies on Nos. 6 and 7 and made the turn at 2-under 34.
Although the difficult par-4 11th, known as The Railway, ended plenty of golfers' hopes this week, Schauffele avoided trouble off the tee and hit his approach from 171 yards to 2½ feet for another birdie to get to 6 under. He moved into a tie for first when Lawrence made a bogey on the 12th.
Schauffele then seized control with another pair of birdies, making a 16-foot uphill putt on the par-4 13th and a 12½-footer on the par-3 14th. He moved to 8 under and had a two-stroke lead with four holes to play.
Schauffele added another birdie on the par-5 16th to stretch his lead to three shots.
He will head to next month's Olympics tournament outside Paris to defend his gold medal.
"He's obviously now learning that the winning is easy," Rose said of Schauffele. "He has a lot of horsepower, do you know what I mean? In the sense of he's good with a wedge, he's great with a putter, he hits the ball a long way, obviously his iron play is strong. So he's got a lot of weapons out there.
"I think probably one of his most unappreciated ones is his mentality. He's such a calm guy out there. I don't know what he's feeling, but he certainly makes it look very easy. He plays with a freedom, which kind of tells you as a competitor that he's probably not feeling a ton of the bad stuff. He's got a lot of runway ahead and a lot of exciting stuff ahead, I'm sure."
Even after waiting so long to win a major, Schauffele admits he can't help but think about the career Grand Slam after moving a step closer. He only needs to win the Masters and U.S. Open now to do it.
"I mean, before I had any majors, it's something I've always wanted," Schauffele said. "I'm one step closer and still have a long way to go. But if you don't see yourself doing it, you're never going to do it."
Several other golfers, including Scheffler, the No. 1-ranked player in the world, faltered down the stretch. Scheffler was looking for his seventh victory and second major championship title this season. He moved into the mix with back-to-back birdies on Nos. 7 and 8.
Scheffler's chances of winning a Claret Jug ended on the par-4 ninth, though. His approach shot was 15 yards short of the green. He putted to 6½ feet and somehow three-putted from there, missing from 2 feet, 8 inches on the second attempt. Scheffler carded a double-bogey 6, dropping him to 2 under, four shots behind the leaders as he made the turn.
Scheffler also had a double bogey on the 18th. He posted a 1-over 72 and tied for seventh at 1-under 283.
Spain's Jon Rahm made one of the biggest moves after starting the day six shots behind Horschel. The two-time major champion made four birdies in his first seven holes to get to 2 under.
On the par-4 11th hole, Rahm pushed his tee shot toward the railway on the right. He hit a provisional tee shot but ended up finding his ball in a gorse bush. After a one-stroke penalty for an unplayable lie, Rahm made a bogey 5, dropping him to 1 under. He posted a 3-under 68 and finished at 1-under 283.
England's Daniel Brown, who grew up on a pig and cow farm and nearly gave up golf four years ago, carded four bogeys in his first six holes to fall back to even, five strokes behind the early leaders.
It was the end of one of the more remarkable stories in recent Open history. Brown made the field by draining a 20-foot putt in final qualifying. After missing the cut in six of his previous eight starts on the DP World Tour, he started the day only one shot behind Horschel. Brown was attempting to become only the fourth golfer since 1900 to win a major championship in his debut.
Brown was 3-over 74 in the final 18 holes, finishing at even-par 284, which tied him for 10th.
"Poor front nine, that's basically it," Brown said. "I struggled on the front nine, really. I don't think I scored as well as the guys around me on the front nine. The right-to-left wind, I couldn't really get to grips with that, but then felt a lot more comfortable when the wind was off the left on the back nine. A little bit to work on with a strong right-to-left breeze."
Two-time major champion Justin Thomas, who started the final round four strokes behind Horschel, took himself out of the hunt when he hit a wild tee shot and had to re-tee on the opening hole, resulting in a triple-bogey 7. Thomas tied for 31st at 6 over after posting a 6-over 77 in the final round.
Scotland's Calum Scott, an All-Big 12 selection last season at Texas Tech, won the Silver Medal as the low amateur. He carded a 5-over 76 on Sunday to finish at 8-over 292.
- Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer
Saturday, 20 July 2024
TIGER WOODS 14 OVER AT OPEN, MISSES ANOTHER MAJOR CUT
TROON, Scotland -- Tiger Woods' major championship season ended with another missed cut in the 152nd Open Championship on Friday, and golf fans won't see him again on the PGA Tour this season.
Woods carded a 6-over 77 in the second round at Royal Troon Golf Club, leaving him with a 36-hole total of 14-over 156. The cut line was 6 over.
Woods has now missed the cut or withdrawn in six of his past seven majors.
It was Woods' worst score to par after the first two rounds in 23 starts at The Open; his previous worst was 9 over after 36 holes at St. Andrews in Scotland in 2022.
It was his second-worst score to par after 36 holes in a major -- he was 16 over in two rounds at the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay in University Place, Washington, during the only other stretch in his career when he has missed the cut in three straight majors.
The fifteen-time major champion was tied for 149th when he walked off the course, ahead of only four of the 153 other golfers competing in the last major of the season.
"Well, it wasn't very good," Woods said. "I made a double there at 2 right out of the hopper when I needed to go the other way. Just was fighting it pretty much all day. I never really hit it close enough to make birdies and consequently made a lot of bogeys."
Woods, 48, said he won't compete again until the Hero World Challenge, an unofficial event he hosts in the Bahamas, Dec. 5-8. He also plans to compete in the PNC Championship -- another unofficial event -- in Orlando, Florida, with his son, Charlie, Dec. 19-22. Woods was able to compete in each of the four majors this season but didn't get the results he was hoping for. After setting a Masters record with his 24th consecutive made cut and finishing 60th at Augusta National Golf Club in April, he missed the cut at the PGA Championship, U.S. Open and The Open.
"I loved it," Woods said. "I've always loved playing major championships. I just wish I was more physically sharp coming into the majors. Obviously, it tests you mentally, physically, emotionally, and I just wasn't as sharp as I needed to be. I was hoping that I would find it somehow, just never did."
Woods competed in just one other PGA Tour event this season, the Genesis Invitational outside Los Angeles in February, and he had to withdraw in the second round there because of illness.
"I'd like to have played more, but I just wanted to make sure that I was able to play the major championships this year," Woods said. "I got a lot of time off to get better, to be better physically, which has been the case all year.
"I've gotten better, even though my results really haven't shown it, but physically I've gotten better, which is great. I just need to keep progressing like that and then eventually start playing more competitively and start getting into kind of the competitive flow again."
After posting an 8-over 79 in the first round, Woods wasn't much better Friday. He made a double bogey on the par-4 second after missing a 4-foot bogey putt. After draining a 22-foot birdie on No. 6, Woods picked up another bogey when he missed a 5-footer on No. 9.
After making the turn at 3-over 39, Woods made three more bogeys on Nos. 12, 14 and 17. He missed a 3½-foot par putt on the par-3 14th.
Over two rounds, Woods was 7 over on the par-3s, which ranked next-to-last in the field. He lost 3.77 strokes to the field in putting and 4.19 on approach.
"Yeah, anytime being out with Tiger is great," said Patrick Cantlay, who played with Woods and PGA Championship winner Xander Schauffele in the first two rounds. "He's a great competitor and fun to be with. We had a great pairing, especially having my buddy Xander in the group. The three of us had fun."
Cantlay, who was 1 under after carding a 3-under 68 on Friday, was asked whether he had any sympathy for Woods' plight since returning to competition after serious injuries he suffered in a car wreck in February 2021.
"I wasn't out on tour [in the] early 2000s," Cantlay said. "I'm sure those guys don't have any sympathy after going through what they went through. I'm always pulling for him, as I think the rest of the world of golf is."
- Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer
Saturday, 22 July 2023
Monday, 18 July 2022
Sunday, 17 July 2022
Saturday, 16 July 2022
Thursday, 14 July 2022
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