When we last visited with John Daly, he was (very briefly) leading the 2022 PGA Championship and showing off his usual wild sartorial choices.
And this week, at the 2022 British Open at St. Andrews, the 1995 British Open champion is back, getting ready to tee it up at the Old Course.
So far, on Monday and Tuesday, we’ve only seen a couple of his iconic fits, but they’ve been eye-popping with a pink-patterned pair of pants to go with a blue shirt, and a pair of black and white skull-and-flower shorts.
We’ll see what he’s got cooked up for later this week soon enough. Just enjoy what he wore so far:
Nicklaus won two of his British Open titles at The Old Course and played eight Opens in all there.
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Benjamin Franklin. Bobby Jones. Jack Nicklaus.
That’s the full extent of the Americans bestowed honorary citizenship in the Royal Burgh of St. Andrews.
It’s something special to be in company with Jones, the great amateur golfer who won the 1927 British Open here and boyhood hero of Nicklaus, and Franklin, known as the first American, the Newton of Electricity and the Prophet of Tolerance. It made Nicklaus, an 18-time major champion and three-time Champion Golfer of the Year, choked up and teary-eyed.
“When I won the Open in 1966 at Muirfield I couldn’t speak and I can’t speak right now,” said Nicklaus as he wiped away a tear with a handkerchief Tuesday at Younger Hall at St. Andrews University upon receiving the one-of-a-kind distinction.
Nicklaus, 82, won two of his British Open titles at The Old Course – in 1970 and 1978 – and played eight Opens in all here. He planned to walk across the famed Swilcan Burn Bridge, located on the course’s 18th hole, one last time during the 2000 Open and for that to be his farewell to the championship until he asked then-executive director of the R&A Peter Dawson when the next Open would be held at St. Andrews.
When told it was slated for 2006, Nicklaus replied that was too bad. By then he would be 66, one year past the maximum age exemption permitted for past champions. Dawson wondered if Nicklaus would consider playing one more time if the Open was held there in 2005. “Be here in a heartbeat,” Nicklaus said.
And that’s all it took for the schedule to change to accommodate Nicklaus’s swan song in 2005. At age 65, he sank a birdie putt on the final hole to end his career at the Home of Golf.
Winner of The Open Championship in 1966, 1970 and 1978, Jack Nicklaus gestures as he is driven through the streets of St Andrews with his wife Barbara after having been made an Honorary Citizen of St. Andrews by The Royal Burgh of St. Andrews Community Council on July 12, 2022. (Photo: Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)
“I declined to come back the last couple of times to St. Andrews,” Nicklaus explained. “I didn’t want to come back and dilute that for what it was.”
But he made an exception when his invitation arrived this time to be made an honorary citizen of St. Andrews.
“To follow Bobby Jones and Benjamin Franklin, I’ve got to come back,” he said. “We’re back actually at the same hotel room I was in, Barbara and I stayed in every time we’ve been at St. Andrews.”
The St. Andrews Community Council considered making Nicklaus an honorary citizen during the 2005 Open, but the measure failed to receive enough votes. When the resolution was proposed again, this time the council passed it unanimously.
Franklin received the Freedom of the City award in 1759 from the St. Andrews town council, while Jones was presented the distinction in 1958 and famously said, “I could take out of my life everything except my experiences at St. Andrews and I would still have had a rich and full life.” (Nicklaus quoted Jones during his acceptance speech and added, “I feel exactly the same way.”) The town council was dissolved in 1974. The honorary citizen distinction for non-residents awarded to Nicklaus was created in 2000, and it is deemed to be the equivalent of the Freedom of the City.
Nicklaus made his first foray to Scotland as a 19-year-old Ohio State student to compete in the 1959 Walker Cup at Muirfield, during which time his father made his way to St. Andrews with a couple of friends and came back raving about it. Nicklaus fell hard for St. Andrews instantly when he made his maiden voyage there in 1964.
“And I’ve had a love affair with it ever since,” he said.
He recalled winning the title in 1978 when fans were hanging off rooftops and out of windows. Tears rolled down his face as he walked the fairway on the verge of clinching his second title there.
“I get pretty sentimental about that kind of stuff,” he said. “I remember my caddie Jimmy (Dickinson) hit me on the back, and he said, ‘We’ve got another hole to finish. Get with it.’ ”
In his acceptance speech, Nicklaus cited famed sportswriter Grantland Rice. “You start from nothing, win, gain fame and soon will be forgotten.”
But not the latter for Nicklaus. With his voice cracking, Nicklaus noted how much it meant to him still to be remembered 44 years after his last win at the Open in the Home of Golf.
“Thank you, St. Andrews,” he said.
When the ovation finally died down, one of the faculty members from St. Andrews University spoke for all when he said, “As long as the game is played, you’ll never be forgotten in this place.”
Tiger Woods will take it easy before the start of the 2022 British Open at St. Andrews.
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – And now he will rest.
Until Thursday.
Tiger Woods, the 15-time major champion and three-time Champion Golfer of the Year, has played 58 holes in practice rounds and an exhibition ahead of Thursday’s start of the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews. In his only other two starts this year – the Masters and PGA Championship – Woods played 27 practice holes at each event.
But seeing as the Old Course is his favorite track in the world, Woods emptied his tank despite favoring his surgically repaired right leg, ankle and foot, with all three not close to being 100 percent and needing constant attention.
Woods chipped, putted and hit a few wedges over 18 holes on Saturday evening with Justin Thomas. He played 18 on Sunday with Justin Thomas, 9 holes more on Monday and 9 more on Tuesday. He also played in the four-hole Celebration of Champions exhibition on Monday.
“So that was going to be it for me,” Woods said Tuesday after his practice round. “I’ll take tomorrow off. I’ll practice, keep my feels. But I wanted to get a good sense of how the golf course is going to be playing but also conserve my energy, so that’s why I’m taking tomorrow off.”
Woods’ first encounter with the Old Course came in the 1995 Open Championship, when he tied for 68th as an amateur. He won his first Claret Jug in 2000 on the Old Course, completing the career Grand Slam, added another in 2005 at the Home of Golf and his third at Hoylake the following year.
“This is where it all began for me as an amateur. My first chance to play in the Open Championship was here. I’ll never forget I played with Ernie Els and Peter Jacobsen the first two days,” he said. “We had a chance to play with some greats in practice rounds – Freddie (Couples), Raymond (Floyd), (Jose Maria Olazabal), Bernhard (Langer). I had a great time as a young little kid, and they showed me the ropes of how to play this golf course and how many different options there were. It was eye opening how this golf course can play as easily as it can be played and also as difficult it can play just by the wind changing.
“This is my sixth Open Championship here. Just to have that experience and have the ability to play here at the Home of Golf is always quite special.”
So he had a little extra adrenaline pushing him through.
“I’m just trying to get used to the speed of the fairways and getting used to hitting the ball down and also giving more wide berth on shots, allowing for more drift on the wind,” Woods said. “The ball just gets eaten up here when you play on links courses and seaside courses. The air is heavier, and you’ve just got to give it more room. And sometimes it’s just hard to see that and hard to understand. You’ve got to give it a little more 30 yards because obviously it’s going to bounce, it’s going to roll and then it’s going to roll out another 40 yards once it lands. And that’s just with a 7-iron in your hand.
“So trying to get my mind right for that, I’ve been trying to do that, but the only way you can truly do it actually is to get out here and experience it.”
As for his body, it’s good enough to give it a go.
“Well, my body certainly can get better, but realistically, not a whole lot,” he said. “It’s been through a lot, and at 46 you don’t quite heal as well as you do at 26. So it is what it is. Just lucky enough to, in our sport, to be able to play as long as we are able to play late into the 40s, especially on links golf courses like this, you can continue into your 50s.
“It just takes a lot of knowledge and understanding of how to play this type of golf. And with the fairways being fast and firm, it allows players who are older to run the ball out there and have a chance.”
Good luck getting the ball on the tee Thursday, Max.
Every once in a while, old tweets resurface. Sometimes they’re bad takes, sometimes they’re miraculous predictions that somehow come true, and sometimes they’re heartwarming things like this.
In 2013, Max Homa, a then collegiate golfer at Cal, sent out a tweet asking Tiger Woods for a practice round at that year’s U.S. Open (Homa qualified for the event at Merion).
Like many professional golfers in this era, Woods was Homa’s hero.
Fast forward to 2021 and the California native took home the hardware at the Genesis Invitational, an event hosted by Woods and his foundation. So, after receiving the trophy, Homa took a picture with the 15-time major champion to mark the victory.
@TigerWoods just won PAC 12s, NCAA championship, and qualified for the us open. Any chance I can get a practice round with u?? #hero
Now, 507 days later, it was announced the four-time Tour winner will tee it up with Woods and Matthew Fitzpatrick for the first two rounds at the Old Course for the 150th Open Championship.
The threesome with tee off at 9:59 a.m. ET on Thursday and 4:59 a.m. ET on Friday.
Homa was asked about the dream pairing: “Unreal times a million.”
In 2018, the then Korn Ferry Tour player went on the No Laying Up podcast and discussed the 2013 tweet.
Here's @maxhoma23 in 2018 talking about trying to track Tiger down for a practice round.
This was when he was playing on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Now he's gonna tee it up with Tiger f'n Woods at the Old Course in The Open Championship. pic.twitter.com/YQ4ojyuJRF
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Tiger Woods wouldn’t have invited Greg Norman to the 150th playing of the Open Championship at St. Andrews.
The 15-time major champion and three-time Champion Golfer of the Year agreed with the R&A’s decision to reach out to Norman, who is heading the Saudi Arabia-backed rival league called LIV Golf, to tell him his presence at the Celebration on Champions on Monday and the Champions’ Dinner on Tuesday was not welcomed. Norman did not journey to this seaside village.
“Greg has done some things that I don’t think (are) in the best interest of our game, and we’re coming back to probably the most historic and traditional place in our sport,” Woods said Tuesday after a practice round. “I believe it’s the right thing.
“I know what the PGA Tour stands for and what we have done and what the Tour has given us, the ability to chase after our careers and to earn what we get and the trophies we have been able to play for and the history that has been a part of this game. I know Greg tried to do this back in the early ’90s. It didn’t work then, and he’s trying to make it work now.
“I still don’t see how that’s in the best interests of the game.”
LIV Golf has disrupted the golf world order just two events into its existence. With exorbitant signing bonuses – some as high as $200 million – and $25 million purses, LIV Golf has lured away some big names and players from the PGA Tour – Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Sergio Garcia and many others.
LIV Golf will contest eight tournaments this year featuring team play, 54 holes, no cuts and shotgun starts.
“About the players who have chosen to go to LIV, I disagree with it,” Woods said. “I think that what they’ve done is they’ve turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position. Some players have never got a chance to even experience it. They’ve gone right from the amateur ranks right into that organization and never really got a chance to play out here and what it feels like to play a Tour schedule or to play in some big events.
“And who knows what’s going to happen in the near future with world ranking points, the criteria for entering major championships. Some of these players may not ever get a chance to play in major championships. That is a possibility.”
It’s all very puzzling to Woods.
“I just don’t understand it. I understand what Jack (Nicklaus) and Arnold (Palmer) did because playing professional golf at a Tour level versus a club pro is different, and I understand that transition and that move and the recognition that a touring pro versus a club pro is,” he said. “But what these players are doing for guaranteed money, what is the incentive to practice? What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt? You’re just getting paid a lot of money upfront and playing a few events and playing 54 holes. They’re playing blaring music and have all these atmospheres that are different.
“I can understand 54 holes is almost like a mandate when you get to the (PGA Champions) Tour. The guys are a little bit older and a little more banged up. But when you’re at this young age and some of these kids – they really are kids who have gone from amateur golf into that organization – 72-hole tests are part of it,” Woods said. “I just don’t see how that move is positive in the long term for a lot of these players.”
Rory McIlroy: “I don’t know if a golfer’s career isn’t complete if you don’t, but I think it’s the Holy Grail of our sport”
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Rory McIlroy called winning the Claret Jug at The Old Course at St. Andrews, “one of the greatest things you can do in our game.”
“I don’t know if a golfer’s career isn’t complete if you don’t, but I think it’s the Holy Grail of our sport,” McIlroy said during his pre-tournament press conference ahead of the 150th British Open. “Not a lot of people are going to get that opportunity to achieve that, but that’s what winning an Open at St. Andrews is. It’s one of the highest achievements that you can have in golf.”
But is winning another Claret Jug the Holy Grail for McIlroy or is it a Green Jacket awarded to the Masters champion, which would complete the elusive career Grand Slam for the Northern Irishman?
“I guess it’s both,” he said. “Obviously I’d love to win both. And I’ll be greedy and say that I’ll take both.”
To do so, McIlroy, 33, will need to master the famed and fabled fairways at The Old Course to end a winless drought in the majors which dates to the 2014 PGA Championship, a span of 29 major starts.
Rory McIlroy poses with the Open Golf Claret Jug trophy at halftime of the Premier League match between Manchester United and Swansea City at Old Trafford on August 16, 2014, in Manchester, England. (Photo by John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)
This season McIlroy has shown moments of brilliance in the majors – a final-round 64 at the Masters to finish second, the 18-hole leader at the PGA en route to finishing three strokes shy of a playoff and a disappointing eighth at the PGA Championship and in the trophy hunt until the latter stages at the U.S. Open before settling for a T-5. Victories at the CJ Cup in October and the RBC Canadian Open have been nice, but it is last call to add to his major total of four or else endure the nearly nine-month wait until the Masters in April when he will face the same questions all over again.
This marks McIlroy’s 13th appearance at The Open, dating to when he first played the major as an amateur in 2007. The 2014 Champion Golfer of the Year finished T-3 in 2010, when he posted a record-tying 63 in the first round only to be swept away by the wind a day later and ballooned to 80. McIlroy said his memories of that best of times, worst of times week are minimal and he’d have to review the highlights (and lowlights, presumably).
“This is sort of a good lesson in human behavior, but the only thing I remember about the 63 is hitting a 6-iron into 3 feet at 17 and missing the putt,” he recalled. “That’s the one thing that sticks out in my mind because I remember coming off the golf course thinking that was a really good opportunity (to be) the first person ever to shoot 62 in a major, and I didn’t quite get it done. So you can always be better.”
McIlroy never got to defend his 2014 Open title at St. Andrews due to rupturing a ligament in his left ankle kicking a soccer ball with friends. (He noted there would be no soccer this week.) McIlroy, who has returned to World No. 2, said he was surprised to see the fairways playing so fast and firm this week thanks to an unusual spell of dry summer weather, and found the greens quite receptive.
“Still have a very firm first bounce, but they’re receptive if you hit a well-enough-struck iron shot,” McIlroy said.
“Apart from that, didn’t really do too much,” McIlroy said. “Hung around Adare for a couple of days, did a little bit of practice, got in here Sunday. Then, yeah, played whatever I played. Played the first five and the last five yesterday in a practice round.”
McIlroy said his confidence in his game is as high as it it’s been in quite some time, but he won’t fall into the trap of simply believing it is “his time.”
“It’s going to be a game of chess this week,” he said of The Old Course, which he believes has stood the test of time. But the weight of chasing the Holy Grail will never be far from his mind.
“This was the major championship, it was the first one I ever attended as a kid. Yeah, it just means a little bit more,” he said. “To hear your name and winner of the gold medal, Champion Golfer of the Year, it’s what dreams are made of. I still remember that pretty vividly. I’d love to replicate that on Sunday evening.”
“I still can play,” Norman said. “I know I can still play.
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — First, Greg Norman was told he was not invited to play the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews.
Then he received the letter saying he was not welcome to play in a four-hole exhibition at the Old Course and not to show up at the Champions’ Dinner.
The two-time Open champion and CEO of the LIV Golf Series chalked it up as another “petty” decision in the ongoing golf wars.
“There have been a lot of dumb decisions made, quite honestly, and this one seemed as if it was very petty,” Norman told the Palm Beach Post Monday. He was talking from LIV’s headquarters in West Palm Beach.
Norman’s request to play in this week’s tournament was not unusual.
Yes, he is 67, but he said he recently broke his age in a round at the Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound. But the Hall of Famer with 20 PGA Tour titles and more than 90 worldwide wins has become an outcast since joining the breakaway tour being financially backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
“Governing bodies should stay above the fray,” said Norman, who lives in Palm Beach Gardens. “They should be Switzerland. For them to stoop to this level … as a past Open champion and all I’ve done for the game of golf on a global basis, I fit the model of what the R&A is all about, right? The Royal and Ancient growing the game of golf on the grassroots level. They only have to look at what I’ve been doing in Vietnam growing the game of golf. That’s why it’s so petty.”
The Open was first played at the Old Course at St. Andrews in 1873 and this will be the 30th time at the venue. Norman won the 1986 Open at Turnberry in Scotland and the 1993 Open at Royal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich.
“I still can play,” Norman said. “I know I can still play.
“Looking at the weather conditions, it’s very hot and very dry so the ball is rolling, running out pretty good. That’s right up my alley. Who knows.”
Norman’s last competitive round of golf was the 2012 Senior Open Championship. His last major was the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry. He shot a 77-75 and missed the cut.
Tom D’Angelo is a journalist at the Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
How does St. Andrews, site of this week’s Open Championship, stack up against the rest of the course rota?
Each of the 10 layouts on the modern British Open course rota score highly in Golfweek’s Best ranking of top classic golf courses built before 1960 in Great Britain and Ireland, as would be expected. But that doesn’t mean they all are equals.
Check out the rankings of each course on the modern rota below. The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings, and they are included for each course below.
We know that most golf fans will spend the next week and more dreaming of hitting the Scottish links, so we here at Golfweek are doing everything within our power to make that dream a bit more real.
Last week we gave you some of the best U.K. golf vacations out there, but this week our focus narrows to Scotland and the 10 best courses that the home of golf has to offer.
These rankings come directly from the hundreds of Golfweek’s Best Raters for 2021 who continually evaluated courses and rated them based on our 10 criteria. They also filed a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course.
For more of Golfweek’s Best course lists, check out the most recent selection of course rankings:
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Norman won the Open Championship in 1986 at Turnberry and in 1993 at Royal St. George’s.
The R&A said no way to Greg Norman.
The ruler of the game’s Rules of Golf outside the U.S. and Mexico who also stage the Open Championship announced Saturday it had reached out to Norman to tell him he was not invited to play in the Celebration of Champions on Monday.
Norman, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, won the Open Championship in 1986 at Turnberry and in 1993 at Royal St. George’s. But Norman is the head of LIV Golf, the Saudi Arabia-backed rival league that has lured top stars away from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour and caused angst in golf’s world order.
“In response to enquiries regarding the R&A Celebration of Champions field and the Champions’ Dinner, we can confirm that we contacted Greg Norman to advise him that we decided not to invite him to attend on this occasion,” the R&A said in a statement. “The 150th Open is an extremely important milestone for golf and we want to ensure that the focus remains on celebrating the Championship and its heritage. Unfortunately, we do not believe that would be the case if Greg were to attend. We hope that when circumstances allow, Greg will be able to attend again in the future.”
