Tag: 152nd Open Championship

Now that the 2024 men’s major season is over, we ask — are they packed together too tightly?

The Masters has always benefitted from this prolonged sense of anticipation. But the others?

I’m not sure where the time goes but I’ve just racked up my 25th Open Championship. I thought the R&A would’ve commissioned a limited-edition commemorative dish rag to flog in the merchandise tent at Royal Troon. But they didn’t. Maybe for my 50th, eh?

Anyway, if you were to document this glorious longevity in visual form then it would probably look a bit like that old illustration that portrayed the ascent of man. You know, that one that starts with an ape-like figure shuffling around on all fours and slowly morphs into a striding, upright human?

Of course, my evolution at The Open has slithered the other way. The descent of man if you please.

After a quarter-of-a-century spent hunched, slumped and contorted over the laptop, your correspondent now resembles some primitive, grunting, knuckle-dragging ancestor of the bloomin’ gibbon line.

The 152nd Open is done and dusted. In fact, the tin lid has been shoved onto men’s major season for another year. You’ve only got about nine months to wait until it all starts up again at the Masters.

The interminable previews of the Augusta showpiece will probably start tomorrow. Oh look, there’s a panning shot of Amen Corner and some syrupy schmaltz about a few flowers to get you in the mood.

The Masters, of course, has always benefitted from this prolonged sense of anticipation. As for the three other majors? Well, they come at us so quickly these days you half expect to hear a panicked shriek of ‘fore’ before ducking for cover.

Everything is a complete frenzy, isn’t it? Before a ball had been struck in anger at Royal Troon, all and sundry were being implored to enter the ticket ballot for the 2025 Open at Royal Portrush before the deadline at the end of this month. These are breathless times, folks.

The final men’s major of the year arrived amid a riot of sport on the other side of the pond. Thank goodness England’s football team didn’t win the Euros. The Open would’ve been relegated to the news in brief. Golf’s ongoing fight for relevance in this frantic environment goes on.

2024 Masters
Scottie Scheffler speaks during the trophy ceremony after winning the 2024 Masters Tournament. (Photo: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports)

I don’t know about you, but there’s a nagging feeling of unfulfillment as I chisel away at this column. You probably have the same niggle reading the thing.

The rotten summer hasn’t helped. Let’s face it, the last few weeks, by and large, have been as dank as Sawney Bean’s cave. If you were at Troon on a sodden Saturday, you’re probably still nursing a debilitating dose of trench foot.

Sun-soaked TV footage displayed in the media center, meanwhile, of yellow, crisp fairways, sideburns and flares from Opens of yore generated a certain wistfulness.

Weather-wise, certainly in this unfailingly disappointing country, it feels like the golf season hasn’t even started, yet the men’s majors are already consigned to the history books. In a jam-packed schedule, there’s a hectic desire to get them all out of the way as quickly as possible. I’m not really sure who benefits.

You’ve had just 98 days between Scottie Scheffler slipping into the green jacket at the Masters and Xander Schauffele kissing the Claret Jug at The Open on Sunday.

Some folk have probably forgotten what happened at the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open such is the crash, bang, wallop nature of the calendar. Before you can say, ‘let’s sit back, reflect on the latest major and savor its majesty’ you’re mired in a gloop of build-up for the next one.

The scheduling of tournaments around the world can be a complex, flustered palaver on par with transferring various items into a different suitcase at an airport check-in when you’ve just been informed that one of the bags exceeds the weight limit.

More: An early look at the 2025 men’s major championship venues

The high and mighty PGA Tour, of course, has to get its FedEx Cup playoff series shoehorned into the prime time before the American football season consumes everything on this side of the pond. The rest of the golfing world has to pander to the demands of Uncle Sam.

The DP World Tour, with a closing swing of decent events coming up after a lengthy break, has desires of its own while golf’s return to the Olympics – the stroke-play event starts in Paris next week – has added another layer of complexity to this scheduling lark. In the years when there’s not a Ryder Cup, there’s a Presidents Cup. Yet more stuff to squeeze in.

To be honest, I wouldn’t mind if The Open got dunted back a few weeks into August. Or we could just cut the whole field to eight players and hold it in October like the very first one at Prestwick in 1860?

The weather would probably be better than flippin’ July. I’m getting carried away there but I’m just not a great fan of this April to July, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it major maelstrom.

The golf writers will always find something to grumble about. It could be worse, I suppose. When Jack Nicklaus won his first PGA Championship in Dallas back in 1963, he achieved it just seven days after finishing third in The Open at Royal Lytham.

There was barely a spare moment to wash undergarments through the mangle for the fraught transatlantic turnaround.

Here in 2024, the men’s majors have passed in a flash. As my 25 Opens prove, time really does fly.

Lynch: Tiger Woods has never been less competitive, but he’s also never been more relevant

In a bitterly divided sport, Woods will play the role of pied piper.

TROON, Scotland — A fine line separates optimism from delusion, a narrow DMZ where the belief that things will improve collides with immovable facts that simply won’t support buoyancy. That’s the space where Tiger Woods’ fans have been living for years, and his early but not unexpected departure from the 152nd Open can only render as hollow casuistry the arguments of the diehard faithful. It was a performance that leaves a lot of available real estate on the island of believers in Woods’ prospects as an elite force.

By the time he rolled out of this overcast village on Scotland’s western shore, he was at the arse end of the leaderboard atop which he once presided. Only five men in the field had a worse two-round total than his 156, a glum number he reached when a Friday 77 was added to his opening 79. He made just three birdies in 36 holes. His Strokes Gained Total statistic shows he lost almost eight strokes to the field, 3.68 with the putter and more than 4 with his approach play. Only around the greens did he creep (barely) into positive numbers.

“Well, it wasn’t very good. Just was fighting it pretty much all day,” Woods said, displaying an admirable gift for understatement.

In the two years since the 150th Open in St. Andrews, Woods has made seven competitive starts. The ledger shows two withdrawals, two missed cuts, a tie for 45th at the Genesis Invitational 17 months ago, and two dead-last finishes, one of which was in his own 18-man Hero World Challenge. His latest effort at Royal Troon continues a well-established chicken-egg conversation.

British Open: Leaderboard | Photos | How to watch

“I’d like to have played more but I just wanted to make sure I was able to play the major championships this year,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of time off to get better physically better. I’ve gotten better, even though my results haven’t really shown it. But physically I’ve gotten better, which is great. Just need to keep progressing like that and eventually start playing more, start getting into the competitive flow again.”

That narrative has been dispiritingly familiar to golf fans since Woods re-emerged from a 2021 car wreck. At every major he talks about the need for more reps, but the reps never come. He has reasons, of course, none of them unreasonable: young kids, global business, boardroom responsibilities, broken body. Mostly it’s the body. All but the most feverish understand that he’s at the stage of needing to catch two lightning bolts in a thimble in order to win.

After his second round, Woods admitted he doesn’t even plan to compete again for five months, not until December, when he appears at the Hero and the PNC Championship, his annual outing with his son, Charlie. “I’m not going to play again until then and keep working on it. And just come back for our fifth major, the father-son,” he said.

The chicken-egg cycle begins another lap.

Tiger Woods chips to the 12th green during the second round of the Open Championship golf tournament at Royal Troon. Mandatory Credit: Jack Gruber-USA TODAY Sports

Woods has been irrelevant as a competitor for years, certainly since the crash. So in that respect, Colin Montgomerie wasn’t off-base in expressing befuddlement that Woods stays out here, a pale shadow of his once resplendent self. But Monty was myopic in thinking that competitiveness is the measure of Woods’ relevance. What he does inside the ropes is no longer the metric by which his contribution to the product is assessed, and as we know, what matters most these days is “the product.”

In a bitterly divided sport, Woods will play the role of pied piper. He’s on the PGA Tour’s transaction subcommittee that negotiates directly with the Saudis. He’s on the Tour’s Policy Board, the only member with no expiration date on his term. He will help shape the future of the men’s professional game, and be instrumental in selling it to both fans and fellow players. That’s why he was added to both bodies. His public voice matters, perhaps because he hasn’t used it often.

Regardless of the numbers he posts, Woods’ presence is additive to the business, just as Arnold Palmer was even when telecasts stopped showing his scores. The Tour admitted as much last month when it voted him a lifetime exemption into signature events, for which he would not otherwise be eligible. Now, when the whim strikes him, the 874th-ranked player in the world has a guaranteed spot in elite limited fields. It was dressed up in the language of lifetime achievement for those who’ve won more than 80 times on Tour, but if the win total was 79 the line would simply have been moved. And that’s defensible.

Woods is a proud man and his scores must settle somewhere between embarrassing and irksome, but he seems to maintain a belief that there’s another run in him. It’s highly improbable, yet still possible. What isn’t speculative is his value in the here and now. When Woods shows up, he adds eyeballs and bolsters the Tour’s chief constituents — sponsors being asked to pay more, broadcasters airing a diluted product and fans expected to overlook the absence of a handful of engaging stars. Even if his appearances in actual Tour events are scarce.

His value isn’t diminished by the scores at Royal Troon. Not for Tour executives, not for its private equity investors at Strategic Sports Group, and not for the gaggle of pasty-faced kids chasing him around a wet, blustery Scottish links in hopes of a glimpse or an autograph. The kids didn’t seem to care about the number on his scorecard. And the others? They’re focused on the number he adds to a valuation. That’s the long-term outlook that still holds promise.

This U.S. course most reminds PGA champ Xander Schauffele of a Scottish links

When the landscape is a links course, the mysteries are many, and the bounces good and bad, but rarely anything in between.

TROON, Scotland – Count PGA Championship winner Xander Schauffele among the American golfers who love crossing the pond to play some authentic links golf, that band of earth where land and sea come together, in the summertime.

Schauffele, 30, is set to make his seventh appearance at the British Open this week here at Royal Troon. His best result is T-2 at the 2018 Open at Carnoustie. When the landscape is a links course, the mysteries are many, and the bounces good and bad, but rarely anything in between.

“I think links golf, there’s a certain attitude that you need to have to play at a high level. That comes with playing links golf. That’s sort of the first thing I learned when I was here,” Schauffele said on Tuesday during the pre-championship interview. “When you play parkland golf a lot, you feel like you need to be perfect and on. Not that you need to be perfect or on, but on a typical links golf course, there’s always several ways to play a hole. If the weather gets really bad, you just have to, as always, take the bunkers out of play and really try and plot your way around the property. It doesn’t have to be super pretty. You don’t have to hit the center of the face all the time. When it’s 50 degrees and raining, center contact doesn’t even feel like it anyways.”

Schauffele was asked to describe his first experience playing links golf and recalled a visit he made to Bandon Dunes in Oregon, which is home to five of the top 25 modern designs on Golfweek’s Best Modern list.

The Open: Tournament hub | Thursday tee times | Photos

“That’s probably the closest thing to links that I’ve ever played. Maybe it’s a little bit better now since it’s a lot older. I played it – shoot, I’m old now – probably 15 years ago. Makes me feel really old saying that,” he said. “Bandon Dunes was rather new when I went. You played the ball down, and the ball was running and Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes were the two courses built. Now there’s 10.

Bandon Dunes
Bandon Dunes, the original and eponymous course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort)

“It was cold and rainy, and I remember playing every hole in the wind and rain. My rain gear was completely irrelevant at some point, and I just kept going. I was 13 or 14 or 15 years old-ish and had the time of my life. It was something that I’d never experienced. I just expect it when I go to play links golf. I expect bad weather for it to play tough and for people to complain and whine. If you have a good attitude, you get that edge.”

Indeed, Bandon is about as good as it gets on this side of the pond.

Schauffele, the world No. 3, is one of two players along with Bryson DeChambeau to finish inside the top 10 in the first three majors this season – he also finished T-8 at the Masters and T-7 at the U.S. Open to go along with his victory at the PGA at Valhalla. Schauffele’s fondness for links golf makes him an ideal candidate to share the sentiments of five-time British Open winner Tom Watson.

“I’ve always hoped,” Watson once said, “that the last day of golf I play before I die will be 36 holes on the links of Scotland.”

Tiger Woods barbecues Colin Montgomerie in war of words over retirement talk

“As a past champion, I’m exempt until I’m 60. Colin’s not. He’s not a past champion, so he’s not exempt.”

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TROON, Scotland — Tiger Woods hasn’t been able to muster anything resembling his former brilliance this season, but he still has a stare that strikes fear in golfers.

On Tuesday at the 2024 British Open, he was asked whether it was time to consider retirement. Colin Montgomerie, the 61-year-old fellow member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, broached the ‘R-word’ in an interview last week, and suggested it was time for Woods to hang it up.

“Aren’t we there? I’d have thought we were past there,” Montgomerie told the Times of London. “There is a time for all sportsmen to say goodbye, but it’s very difficult to tell Tiger it’s time to go. Obviously, he still feels he can win. We are more realistic.”

Woods, 48, has played just nine competitive rounds this season on the PGA Tour, withdrawing from the Genesis Invitational in February during the second round, finishing dead last of those players to make the cut at the Masters and missing the cut at the PGA Championship and U.S. Open. But Woods insisted better days may be ahead.

“I’ll play as long as I can play and I feel like I can still win the event,” he said.

Asked if his belief that he can still do so has wavered, Woods said simply, “No.”

And he stared stone-faced at the questioner. No more words were needed.

British Open: Tiger Woods at Royal Troon | Tournament hub

This has become standard practice at Tiger press conferences for the last several years as he has mounted various comebacks from various injuries, the most serious of which were the result of a single-car crash in February 2021.

The very next questioner got straight to the point and asked Woods, a three-time British Open champion, about what Montgomerie, who grew up a stone’s throw from Royal Troon but never won the Claret Jug, had said and he didn’t hold back. “Well, as a past champion, I’m exempt until I’m 60. Colin’s not. He’s not a past champion, so he’s not exempt. So he doesn’t get the opportunity to make that decision. I do.”

The questioner asked, “You feel like you’ve earned that? You deserve that?”

Tiger Woods of the United States putts on the 18th green prior to The 152nd Open championship at Royal Troon on July 15, 2024 in Troon, Scotland. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

Woods ignored the question and simply continued piling on Montgomerie. “So when I get to his age, I get to still make that decision, where he doesn’t.”

Woods smirked in delight.

That round goes to Woods, who barbecued Monty. But can Woods salvage what appears to be another lost year in his quest to win a 16th major and 83rd career Tour title? Woods said he’s been able to train a lot of better and insinuated that could make a difference in his performance.

“We’ve been busting it pretty hard in the gym, which has been good. Body’s been feeling better to be able to do such things, and it translates on being able to hit the ball better,” he said. “Can’t quite stay out there during a practice session as long as I’d like, but I’m able to do some things that I haven’t done all year, which is nice.”

One observer who jumped to Woods’s defense was Hank Haney, one of Tiger’s former coaches. “A lot of people thought Augusta was Tiger’s best chance to ever win again, it’s wasn’t, it was always the Open Championship for multiple reasons,” wrote Haney on X, responding to a social media post on Woods’s swing. “He can hit shots like this, slower greens mean fewer 3 putts and no one has more knowledge about playing links golf. Based on what he’s done so far this year it’s kind of looking like now or never. His swing looks really good in practice.”

Woods also noted he has made or is considering making the following changes to his bag for the test at Troon.

“I’m monkeying around with the bounce on my 60. I got a couple 60s I’m kind of experimenting right now, one with a little bit less bounce for the chipping areas,” he said. “I bent my 3-iron yesterday one degree stronger just to be able to hit it off the deck and get that thing down and flighted and running. And I added lead tape to my putter just because the greens are so slow.”

Woods is returning to Troon for the first time in 20 years. He finished T-24 here in 1997 and T-9 in 2004, but was sidelined with injury in 2016. He hasn’t been called Champion Golfer of the Year since 2006, but said he’s always enjoyed the challenge of Troon.

“It’s one of those courses where you’re going to get it on one of the nines,” he said. “It’s either going out it’s going to be downwind, or coming home it’s going to be into the wind or vice versa. Half of the holes are going to be playing really difficult, and the other ones are definitely gettable.”

2024 British Open field is set. See who will tee it up at Royal Troon

The 152nd Open Championship is right around the corner.

The 152nd Open Championship is here.

As of Sunday, the field was finalized at 158 players who will tee it up at Royal Troon.

Three spots were available for those not already qualified at this week’s Genesis Scottish Open, the final event in the Open Qualifying Series. Those went to Aaron Rai, Alex Noren and Richard Mansell. David Duval has withdrawn from the Open, which begins Thursday in Scotland, with 158 players if no one else withdraws. There will not be alternates entered into the field except to keep the total number of players at 156.

Only twice in the last 20 years – 2012 and 1995 – has the Open been played with more than 156 golfers.

Here’s the full list golfers currently in the field:

Players in the 152nd Open Championship

Ludvig Aberg

Byeong Hun An

Abraham Ancer

Mason Andersen

Christiaan Bezuidenhout

Akshay Bhatia

Alexander Bjork

Denwit Boriboonsub

Dan Bradbury

Keegan Bradley

Daniel Brown

Dean Burmester

Sam Burns

Jorge Campillo

Laurie Canter

Patrick Cantlay

John Catlin

Alex Cejka

Stewart Cink

Wyndham Clark

Darren Clarke

Dominic Clemons (a)

Eric Cole

Corey Conners

Sean Crocker

John Daly

Jason Day

Santiago de la Fuente (a)

Joe Dean

Bryson DeChambeau

Matthew Dodd-Berry (a)

Austin Eckroat

Ernie Els

Nacho Elvira

Harris English

Ewen Ferguson

Darren Fichardt

Tony Finau

Matt Fitzpatrick

Tommy Fleetwood

Rickie Fowler

Ryan Fox

Lucas Glover

Ben Griffin

Emiliano Grillo

Adam Hadwin

Todd Hamilton

Brian Harman

Padraig Harrington

Tyrrell Hatton

Michael Hendry

Russell Henley

Angel Hidalgo

Daniel Hillier

Ryo Hisatsune

Tom Hoge

Nicolai Hojgaard

Rasmus Hojgaard

Max Homa

Billy Horschel

Sam Horsfield

Rikuya Hoshino

Viktor Hovland

Mackenzie Hughes

Sam Hutsby

Sungjae Im

Aguri Iwasaki

Stephan Jaeger

Dustin Johnson

Zach Johnson

Matthew Jordan

Yuto Katsuragawa

Masahiro Kawamura

Minkyu Kim

Si Woo Kim

Tom Kim

Ryosuke Kinoshita

Chris Kirk

Kurt Kitayama

Kazuma Kobori

Brooks Koepka

Gun-Taek Koh

Romain Langasque

Thriston Lawrence

Min Woo Lee

Justin Leonard

Charlie Lindh

Shane Lowry

Joost Luiten

Robert MacIntyre

Matteo Manassero

Richard Mansell

Luis Masaveu (a)

Hideki Matsuyama

Denny McCarthy

Jack McDonald

Rory McIlroy

Tom McKibbin

Maverick McNealy

Adrian Meronk

Phil Mickelson

Guido Migliozzi

Francesco Molinari

Jaime Montojo (a)

Taylor Moore

Collin Morikawa

Tommy Morrison (a)

Keita Nakajima

Joaquin Niemann

Liam Nolan (a)

Alex Noren

Vincent Norrman

Andy Ogletree

Thorbjorn Olesen

Jacob Skov Olesen (a)

Louis Oosthuizen

C.T. Pan

Yannik Paul

Matthieu Pavon

Victor Perez

.J.T. Poston

David Puig

Jon Rahm

Aaron Rai

Justin Rose

Gordon Sargent (a)

Xander Schauffele

Scottie Scheffler

Adam Schenk

Adam Scott

Calum Scott (a)

Shubhankar Sharma

Marcel Siem

Jordan Smith

Cameron Smith

Elvis Smylie

Sebastian Soderberg

Younghan Song

Matthew Southgate

Jordan Spieth

Henrik Stenson

Sepp Straka

Jasper Stubbs (a)

Jesper Svensson

Nick Taylor

Sahith Theegala

Justin Thomas

Davis Thompson

Brendon Todd

Sami Valimaki

Altin van der Merwe (a)

Ryan Van Velzen

Matt Wallace

Jeung-Hun Wang

Gary Woodland

Tiger Woods

Cameron Young

Will Zalatoris

Qualified but not playing

Ben Curtis

David Duval

Paul Lawrie

Why did Sergio Garcia snap back about a slow-play warning (and why he might have been right)

Garcia can be heard snapping back at the officials by saying, “You’re always right, we’re always wrong.”

After missing last year’s Open Championships, Sergio Garcia is attempting to get into this year’s event through local qualifying at West Lancashire Golf Club.

Since 1998, Garcia has made 24 starts at the Open, missing just four cuts and totaling 12 top-20 finishes, 10 of which were top 10s. His career-best finish came at Carnoustie in 2007 where he earned the silver medal. He finished T-68 in his most recent appearance, during the 2022 Open Championship at St. Andrews.

But on Tuesday, Garcia’s group was flagged by officials with a slow-play warning.

Garcia, through a Tweet from Bunkered’s Ben Parsons, can be heard snapping back at the officials by saying, “You’re always right, we’re always wrong.”

To be fair, Garcia’s complaint was that his group repeatedly had to wait because officials were having an issue clearing people out of the way, and his contention appears true by various images and videos.

Also, his group was one of 10 to be put on the clock, according to Parsons.

Garcia had mentioned before his round that playing in qualifiers offers a “unique perspective,” and added that it “drives you to give even more when you qualify.”

Of course, Garcia has had issues with officials before, including one at the 2022 Wells Fargo Championship, when Garcia blew his tee shot way left of the 10th fairway into a hazard. After several minutes of searching, he finally found his ball.

A rules official said he took too long. The official said he started the timer once Garcia arrived at the general location of his golf ball, while the Spaniard argued it should have started once he crossed the river as he knew his ball was on the other side and he was just looking for a way to cross.

Despite his persistence, Garcia was forced to take a drop.

After waving his hand in disgust, he said under his breath, “I can’t wait to leave this tour.”

His rant would continue.

“Can’t wait to get outta here. … just a couple more weeks until I don’t have to deal with you anymore.”

He left for LIV Golf soon after.