Tag: 2024 British Open

2024 British Open merchandise shop: Postage stamps, Claret Jugs and ‘Quiet Please’ among gear that overwhelm the senses

Here’s the best gear at Royal Troon.

TROON, Scotland — Bigger doesn’t always mean better but in the case of the merchandise shop at the 152nd British Open, a colossal structure situated in the vicinity of the third and 16th holes at Royal Troon, it could’ve been bigger but not sure it could’ve been much better. It has to rival Augusta National for the best shop in golf.

The line on Wednesday afternoon on a day baked in glorious sunshine —a good day for ice cream sales nearby —had a Disney-esque feel to it that nearly scared me off but it moved quicker than TSA at Edinburgh International Airport. Inside, Boss, the official apparel company of the Open, receives the best real estate in the front entrance but the championship is otherwise very brand agnostic. The list of companies hawking their wares is too long to name but the point is you had options. Actually, options galore and such items as a logoed doggy bowl for the pets, an assortment of stuffed animals for the kiddos and limited-edition whiskey for the thirsty.

They also leaned into the traditional yellow and blue of its scoreboard, the Claret Jug logo, tartan, the ever-popular “Quiet Please” signs and the Postage Stamp, which is a nice touch.

Other than feeling a bit claustrophobic, it was an enjoyable shopping experience right down to the lady who volunteered to run back behind the curtain and find my size.

Here are some of the best items at the 2024 British Open merchandise shop.

The Open: Tournament hub | Thursday tee times | Photos

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.”

Stamped with greatness: Royal Troon’s par-3 8th is short but tough as nails

“You don’t need a 240-yard par-3 for it to be hard,” Tiger Woods said.

TROON, Scotland – As past U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland opened his sand wedge wide and practiced in the sand, Brennan Little, his caddie, took one look at the bunker with three steps to help golfers descend into the pit and said, “That must be the coffin bunker. It really does look like a coffin.”

Colin Beard, a hole marshal and a member at nearby Troon Welbeck Golf Club, nodded in agreement and shot back, “It’s death to the average player. It’s a killer.”

“There’s no death for these guys,” Little responded. “They’re too good.”

“Just tell your guy, don’t hit it there,” advised Beard.

The eighth hole at Royal Troon is nicknamed The Postage Stamp, which sounds all warm and fuzzy, except it should come with one of those warnings on the side of a pack of cigarettes because it can be dangerous to a player’s health and his scorecard this week. At 123 yards, it measures as the shortest hole in the Open rota and as the fifth shortest hole in major championship history. It plays essentially the same distance – to a green 33-paces in width and almost 3,600-square feet in size – as it did 101 years ago when Troon first hosted the British Open. The L-shaped tee plays slightly downhill, with an elevation drop of 20 feet, and depending on the direction and strength of the wind it can be hit with just a flick of a wedge.

“It looks smaller than it really is as we stand trembling on the tee with some form of pitching club in hand,” wrote Bernard Darwin several years ago.

The Open: Tournament hub | Thursday tee times | Photos

And yet players may prefer a 3 o’clock root canal to trying to escape its fortress of bunkers, surrounding the front, right and left of the green. Architect and Troon club pro Willie Fernie, who won the British Open in 1883 at Musselbergh and was runner-up four times, is credited with creating the Postage Stamp, shortening a blind one-shotter over a dune with the Ailsa Craig in the distance. Players formerly used the hill to the left as a backboard but James Braid, a five-time British Open champ, put an end to that practice by installing the coffin bunker in 1922-23.

Willie Park Jr., who won the Open twice, gave the hole its moniker. Writing about the eighth hole for Golf Illustrated, he called the shortie “a pitching surface skimmed down to the size of a postage stamp.”

“It’s an unusual little hole that serves as a great anecdote to the power game of today,” said World Golf Hall of Fame member and noted course architect Ben Crenshaw.

The hole played to a scoring average of 3.09 in both 2004 and 2016, the two most recent times the Open was played here. It has given fits to some of the greatest, including Greg Norman, who shot a final-round 64 in 1989, but made his lone bogey of the day at No. 8. Three golfers have enjoyed exhilaration, acing the hole in the championship – Gene Sarazen in 1973 in his penultimate Open, little-known pro Dennis Edlund and past champion Ernie Els.

Justin Thomas, Tiger Woods and Max Homa play the eighth green, the Postage Stamp hole, during practice ahead of the 152nd British Open at Royal Troon in Scotland. (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)

Jim “Bones” Mackay, who was on the bag for Phil Mickelson when he finished second in 2016 and will be working as an on-course reporter for NBC Sports this week, tabbed the Postage Stamp one of the top-five spectator holes in golf.

“And I may be underselling it. It may be one or two,” he said. “If I was a patron there this week and the gates opened, I’d be sprinting out there to spend the day. I just think it’s an incredible hole.”

Mackay said it may be short in stature but it will derail the dreams of someone in the field of 156 in quest of claiming the Claret Jug.

“I got really lucky that I didn’t caddie for anybody that had any train wrecks there. But as we go through the week, we’re going to see quite a few 2s and also some 5 or 6s,” Mackay said. “I can’t wait to see how it plays out this year, especially if we get a little bit of wind.”

Mackay’s NBC colleague, analyst Brad Faxon, seconded the motion.

“If you were going to put together your top 10 list of the best par-3s in the world, I don’t think anybody could leave the Postage Stamp out as one of the best holes in the world,” Faxon said. “It could be No. 1. It could be No. 3 or 5, but it can’t be outside the top 10.”

Indeed, the Postage Stamp is renowned as one of the great short holes, along the likes of No. 12 at Augusta National and No. 17 at TPC Sawgrass, but doesn’t quite get the attention those famed holes do mainly because disaster isn’t captured on TV for all to see every year. But the Postage Stamp does have one leg up on those other notable short par-3s: In 1994, the Royal Mail issued a postage stamp of The Postage Stamp. High praise for a hole that Tiger Woods described as a very simple hole.

“Hit the ball on the green. That’s it,” said Woods. “Green good, miss green bad. It doesn’t get any more simple than that.

“You don’t need a 240-yard par-3 for it to be hard.”

Lynch: Among Bryson DeChambeau’s many strengths, a glaring weakness remains — his intense need to be loved

DeChambeau is the most fascinating character in a game over-served with vanilla.

TROON, Scotland — There are umpteen ways in which Bryson DeChambeau has outmaneuvered his peers, not least in building the game’s most individualistic and powerful swing, and in tackling age-old equipment quandries with solutions that are as innovative as they are effective. He’s proven himself a thoroughly modern problem solver, but there’s one glaring Achilles that lurks near the surface, and which is also a decidedly modern trait.

DeChambeau desperately needs to be liked. Many people do, to be fair, moreso in a social media age when clicks on the ‘like’ button and reposts often impact self-worth. But it’s noteworthy to see a desire so obvious in a professional athlete, and potentially compromising in a man who is indisputably the most engaging figure in his sport.

On Tuesday at Royal Troon, DeChambeau was asked if the public perception of him has altered over the past year. “I think I’ve always been who I’ve been,” he said, before quickly contradicting himself. “I’ve definitely matured a lot. It’s been a growing process for me over the course of time. YouTube has massively helped, I can tell you that, being able to just release the emotions in the way that I know I can. When I was a kid, I was super emotional obviously, but I got frustrated on the golf course, I got really excited on the golf course.”

Open Championship: Thursday tee times | Odds, picks | Photos

DeChambeau says he was urged to suppress that emotion when he reached the PGA Tour, which has always prized conformity. “I don’t want to be someone that I’m not. Just really defining that and refining that to a place where I am today has been a lot of work in progress,” he explained. “It’s just taken time for me to have a better, bigger perspective on life and also having a platform where I can showcase that and refine it to a really cool, cool level and give people some great entertainment.”

Those words suggest that DeChambeau sees personality and platform as inseparable, that he found a safe space to be his authentic self via highly curated social media content. Yet the harsh reality of being in the public eye is that the message can’t always be controlled, a reminder delivered last week when Golfweek’s report on an acrimonious split with his former coach, Mike Schy, pierced the sterilized world he has constructed and stocked with paid staff and sycophants. “Look, it’s an unfortunate situation. I’ve loved that man for all of my life, and it’s a private matter that went public, unfortunately,” he said. “We tried to figure it out and make it make sense for everyone, and it just didn’t come out that way.”

DeChambeau’s play in the majors this year—a win at the U.S. Open, a near-win at the PGA Championship and a T-6 at the Masters—reminded fans of just why they were engaged by him before he went to LIV. Of course, engagement is a double-edged sword. There’s plenty of love—from fans, and often a fawning media corp—but also hate. The face-to-face world is mostly love, whereas hate dominates the social media sphere. The ability to tune out negativity is essential for public figures to retain some degree of sanity. DeChambeau clearly struggled with that, which is why going to LIV was probably good for him. He removed himself from the often toxic public square and found an audience, albeit minuscule, that was overwhelmingly welcoming of his presence.

DeChambeau admitted being criticized bothered him once, and in doing so inadvertently acknowledged it still matters. “You could say it’s bothered, but it was more of like, dang, I’m disappointed that people don’t see who I am,” he said. “It’s cool to get people to see who I am now. I’m just going to keep entertaining and showcasing to the fans what this great game is all about.”

DeChambeau gives the impression of a man who defines himself as a product—eager to change consumer sentiment and hopeful for kind reviews. It’s a smart way to sell, but less so a way to live. That perception of a manufactured man wasn’t helped when he offered this: “My social media team has been fantastic. They’re my best friends as well.”

For all his problem-solving skills, DeChambeau has yet to figure out the particular puzzle of links golf. If he does so this week and wins the 152nd Open, it would perhaps be the most impressive of his accomplishments. And yet he addressed that possibility in terms not of personal joy but of consumer reaction. “It would be awesome to let everybody touch the Claret Jug. That would be a dream come true,” he said.

DeChambeau is the most fascinating character in a game over-served with vanilla, and his re-emergence as a central character should be welcomed. There’s an obvious caveat though: he has performed well in the only three tournaments this year that exposed him to an audience of scale. That same audience he entertained at Augusta National, Valhalla and Pinehurst No. 2 will follow him to Royal Troon but hasn’t trailed him to LIV where viewing figures are so desultory they’re no longer made public. That helps explain the importance DeChambeau places on YouTube as a platform for keeping him relevant.

After this Open ends, a huge swathe of the fans who enthusiastically embraced him this spring and summer—many of them older and analog—will have to wait 260 days until the opening round of the Masters to get another fix. That’s a huge problem, both for the sport and for DeChambeau.

Scottie Scheffler takes different approach into 2024 British Open with history on the line

The first time Scottie Scheffler played links golf was 2021. Now he’s the favorite.

The first time Scottie Scheffler played links golf was 2021.

That’s right, the World No. 1 who is having one of the best seasons since Tiger Woods, didn’t play links golf until the Scottish Open in 2021. Now, he’s the favorite to win the 2024 British Open at Royal Troon, which begins Thursday in Scotland.

“Our Walker Cup was in the States. I never made the Palmer Cup to come over here and play,” Scheffler said Tuesday during his pre-tournament press conference. “Didn’t play any junior tournaments or anything like that over here.”

That means Scheffler is still learning, and it’s why he switched his preparation up heading into the final major championship of the year.

Scheffler’s last start came nearly a month ago at the Travelers Championship, which he won, topping Tom Kim in a playoff. Since then, it’s been time at home with Meredith and Bennett, trying to rest up before a busy stretch of golf that includes the British Open, Olympics and FedEx Cup Playoffs.

So instead of teeing it up last week at the Scottish Open, like most of the top players on the PGA Tour did, he spent time playing other courses in Scotland and then got in early at Troon to begin his chase for major No. 3.

“I felt like it was more important for me to get over here to this golf course and prepare, getting used to the conditions of the grass, the bunkers over here,” Scheffler said of his decision to skip the Scottish. “I just feel like you have to be more creative here. I love that part of it. I feel like, when I do come over here, this is really how golf was intended to be played.”

Creativity is something Scheffler knows all about, with his mesmerizing foot motion when he swings to his tantalizing ability to dominate any golf course.

At Troon, bunkers and wind are the main culprits of high scores. Both things are something Scheffler is familiar with handling.

“One of the things I liked that the R&A changed this year from last year was the bunkering. Last year I thought it was a bit silly how they flattened out each bunker,” Scheffler said. “The bunkers are still a penalty enough when the ball isn’t up against the lip. It was a bit of luck whether or not your ball would bury into the face because you have a flat bunker and a wall that’s going to go right into it.”

One of the things Scheffler has spent time working on is his ability to control the trajectory and spin of his shots into the wind. It’s something he has had practice at growing up and living in Texas, but the Scottish turf is another variable added to the ball-striking equation of links golf.

“The ball spins a touch more off this turf,” he said. “It was getting used to how much the ball will actually fly into the wind because when it blows that hard at home, let’s say typically when it does it’s a bit warmer.

“But with the ball being spinnier off the turf, if I tried to hit the shot that I did at home, it would almost spin even more off the turf and then go even shorter. So I had to learn to adjust and shallow out a little bit and hit it low without as much spin.”

He has six victories this season, the first player since Woods to do so on the PGA Tour. With a seventh win, it would further stake his claim on one of the greatest PGA Tour seasons of all-time.

In 1962, Arnold Palmer came to the Open Championship at Troon with six wins on the season. He left with seven and the Claret Jug.

“I love the history of the game, and there’s certain things that I know and certain things that I don’t. That was something that for some reason I just never stumbled across,” Scheffler said. “So I had no idea that that was a thing.”

And with another strong performance this week, it will just be another piece of history Scheffler has etched his name into from his spectacular season.

FootJoy x Harris Tweed collaboration for the 2024 British Open

Check out the limited-edition FJ x Harris Tweed golf shoes made special for the 2024 Open Championship

The most iconic hole at Royal Troon is also its shortest, the eighth hole, which measures just 123 yards. Known as the Postage Stamp, the green is surrounded by five bunkers and plays downhill, and it has been frustrating golfers for over a century.

Using the Postage Stamp hole as inspiration, FootJoy has collaborated with Harris Tweed to create a limited-edition Premiere Field and Premiere Wilcox shoe to celebrate the season’s final men’s major.

This limited-edition collaboration has hand-woven tweed with a ‘basket weave’ pattern that is designed to resemble a postage stamp, and each pair of shoes comes with a special bag made from the same cloth as featured on the footwear.

And so we are clear, this is no ordinary wool or pattern that has been added to the shoes. The Harris Tweed Act states that the fabric must be handwoven in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, which are islands off the western coast, using truly traditional methods. Harris Tweed is designed to stand up to the elements in Scotland, which any golfer who has played links like Royal Troon, St. Andrews or Carnoustie will tell you, is usually no day at the beach.

SHOP: FootJoy x Harris Tweed limited-edition golf shoe

Footjoy x Harris Tweed Field
The Footjoy x Harris Tweed Field shoes. (FootJoy)

Like the standard Field and Wilcox, the FJ x Harris Tweed Premiere Series shoes come with a two-year waterproof warranty and feature the VersaTrax+ outsole that combines nine replaceable cleats with scores of traction elements to keep a golfer’s foot firmly connected to the ground throughout the swing. For added cushioning and comfort, FootJoy designed the Field and Wilcox shoes with a OrthoLite EcoPlush Fit-Bed that molds to your foot while you wear the shoes but retains it shape when you take the shoes off.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C9cpTZKOjBj/

The limited-edition FJ x Harris Tweed Premiere Series field shoes are $240 and the FJ x Harris Tweed Premiere Series Wilcox is available for $260 while supplies last on FootJoy.com and select retailers.

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Why Rory McIlroy changed his phone number after U.S. Open heartbreak, and a text he never received from Tiger

McIlroy said he was touched that Woods would take the time to reach out to him.

TROON, Scotland — After his heart-breaking defeat at the U.S. Open last month, Rory McIlroy received texts message from three of the greatest athletes of all-time: Michael Jordan, Rafael Nadal and Tiger Woods.

“MJ was maybe the first person to text me after I missed the putt on the 18th but both of them got in touch very, very quickly,” McIlroy told The Guardian of messages from Jordan and Nadal. “They just told me to keep going. MJ reminded me of how many game-winning shots he missed. Really nice.”

McIlroy didn’t mention the message from Woods and for good reason. Speaking at his press conference ahead of the 2024 British Open on Tuesday, Woods detailed how he waited a week before sending a text to McIlroy, who he knew from experience would be, he put it, “besieged by a lot of things going on,” and chose “to let things cool down.”

Woods shared the gist of his message to McIlroy. “We’ve all been there as champions. We all lose. Unfortunately, it just happened, and the raw emotion of it, it’s still there, and it’s going to be there for, I’m sure, some time,” Woods said. “The faster he’s able to get back on a horse and get back into contention, like he did last week, the better it is for him.”

Only thing is, McIlroy never got the message.

“Full disclosure, I changed my number two days after the U.S. Open, so I didn’t get it until he told me about it today,” McIlroy said at his press conference. “I was like, ‘Oh, thanks very much.’ So I blanked Tiger Woods, which is probably not a good thing.”

McIlroy said he was touched that Woods would take the time to reach out to him and appreciated that he waited to do so – if only he hadn’t switched numbers.

British Open: Tournament hub | Odds, picks | Photos

“If he hadn’t have waited that long, I probably would have got it,” McIlroy said. “But I caught up with him earlier. It’s always nice when your hero and the guy that you had on your bedroom wall is reaching out and offering words of encouragement.”

And why exactly did McIlroy feel the need to change his phone number just days after he made bogey on three of the final four holes to lose by one at Pinehurst No. 2?

“From the time I left Pinehurst to the time I walked through my front door on Sunday night, I probably got about 10 or 15 text messages from media members, and I was like, it’s probably time to get a new number,” McIlroy explained. “Create a bit of space.”

McIlroy laughed at the suggestion that he officially made changing phone numbers the sixth stage of grief, but when asked when he finally reached the acceptance stage of his latest setback to end his nearly 10-year winless drought in the majors, he noted people would be surprised how quickly he got over it and moved on.

“I would say maybe like three or four days after, went from being very disappointed and dejected to trying to focus on the positives to then wanting to learn from the negatives and then getting to the point where you become enthusiastic and motivated to go again,” he said. “It’s funny how your mindset can go from I don’t want to see a golf course for a month to like four days later being can’t wait to get another shot at it. When that disappointment turns to motivation, that’s when it’s time to go again.”

But the 35-year-old McIlroy, who missed two putts inside of four feet in the final three holes, also pointed out that this Pinehurst pain paled in comparison to some other defeats, none more so in recent years than letting a three-shot lead on 10 slip away at St. Andrews in 2022, site of the 150th Open, when he was left reduced to tears.

“St. Andrews hurt way more than this one,” McIlroy told The Guardian. “Oh, my God, I didn’t cry after this.”

When McIlroy issued his first public remarks after speeding away from the Pinehurst parking lot without speaking to the media, he ended with a shot across the bow to the doubters who suggest he will be scarred by Pinehurst. “I feel closer to winning my next major championship than I ever have,” he wrote on social media.

When McIlroy fell short of Wyndham Clark at the 2023 U.S. Open, he said he would endure 100 Sundays like that just to win another major championship. Well, it can’t get much worse than Pinehurst. And he’s right when he says that if the tournament ended after 68 holes, “people would be calling me the best golfer in the world.”

In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. Open, he withdrew from the Travelers Championship and went to New York to decompress. He walked the High Line in Manhattan on Tuesday with headphones in his ears and while he was recognized by a few people, he enjoyed blending in and spending about an hour on the phone with mental coach Bob Rotella, who noted McIlroy’s pre-shot routine had become too long.

“The positives far outweigh the negatives but the negatives were pretty big,” he said. “You have to learn from it.”

So McIlroy got back on the horse last week at the Genesis Scottish Open, where he finished T-4 in his title defense, and heads into the final major with a new phone number, a shorter pre-shot routine and a renewed desire to claim a fifth major title.

“I’d love to be able to play the golf and get one over the line, but as soon as I do that, people are going to say, well, when are you going to win your sixth?” he said. “So it’s never-ending.”

After WD at U.S. Open, Jon Rahm says he feels close to early 2023 form at British Open

Is Rahm due at Troon?

Jon Rahm wishes he could post a video of his foot infection that forced him to withdraw from the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2. The way he describes it, it may be better off no one sees it.

“(The podiatrist) basically cut part of that callus out, and the second he put a little bit of pressure, which still hurt a lot, and you could still see some wanting to come out,” Rahm explained Tuesday during his 2024 British Open pre-tournament press conference. “He’s like, all right, Jon, we have to do it. There’s an abscess in there, and we have to see how much and how deep. I’m like, oh, boy.”

Doctors took the infection out of his foot, which Rahm came to find out is common among athletes and military members. He decided to withdraw, which he said was the right decision after waking up in pain the next morning, and retreated home to watch the action on TV.

“I went back home and watched the Open. I think I posted on social media on Thursday morning I had the baby monitor, the coffee, and was ready to watch,” Rahm said. “Once I accepted the fact I couldn’t play, I think it was quite enjoyable. I think, as much as any other, I kind of enjoyed watching some of the best players in the world struggle. Weirdly, it was fun to just see. It was fun for people, to see people play well, and it was a lot of fun to almost be a spectator again, a fan, and just enjoy it.

“I could at least give a little bit of a better commentary to my friends and family that were watching with me because I could put into perspective certain shots that they might not be able to appreciate on TV.”

Among the shots were Rory McIlroy’s missed putts down the stretch that helped fellow LIV Golf player Bryson DeChambeau take home his second U.S. Open title.

Rahm returned the next week at LIV’s event in Nashville, and this week, he’s fully healthy ready to chase down a Claret Jug at Royal Troon. However, the two-time major champion has faced plenty of questions about his move from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf, and those questions continue to grow each week he doesn’t win.

British Open: Practice round photos | Tournament hub

He hasn’t won since he slid on the green jacket last year at Augusta National. For a player of Rahm’s caliber, that’s too long without a victory. And it’s not that he has played bad on LIV Golf: he’s second in the season-long individual standings and hasn’t finished worse than T-10 in the nine events he has finished (he withdrew from the Houston event before the U.S. Open because of his foot injury).

Where does he feel his game is?

“This year the first half hasn’t been my best, but I would say it started in Houston where I kind of started feeling that comfort with the swing again. And I’m talking about such a small margin,” Rahm said. “I still have been playing good golf all throughout that time. Too bad I couldn’t play in Houston, obviously in the U.S. Open.

“But Nashville and last week, I felt closer to getting to a higher level of golf where maybe there isn’t as many thoughts on my process. Maybe I’m playing a little bit more freely and seeing the ball flight that I want to see more often.

“Yeah, I’m getting much closer to what it might have been early last year.”

That could be bad news for the rest of the field at Royal Troon, as Rahm is more than due for a victory. And with the recent run of Spanish success, from Carlos Alcaraz winning Wimbledon to the Spanish soccer team capturing the Euro final and even Sergio Garcia and his LIV Golf team winning at Valderrama on Sunday, Rahm’s hoping to ride the wave of momentum to a Claret Jug.

“Quite special, quite special,” Rahm said. “Coming back to a venue like this with so much history, it would be quite incredible to earn an Open Championship on this golf course in this tournament. It’s arguably my favorite week in golf, and to maybe even continue that, this stretch of great Spanish sports, it would be absolutely fantastic on top of all the many things that would make this week or this championship incredible.”

2024 British Open Thursday tee times, pairings and how to watch at Royal Troon

Time for some coffee golf.

Tee times for the final men’s major championship of the year were announced Tuesday, and there are plenty of stellar pairings who will take on Royal Troon in the 2024 British Open beginning Thursday morning.

From 1:35 a.m. EST until 11:27 a.m., players will head off the first tee at Royal Troon and begin their quest to win the Claret Jug and more than $3 million. Brian Harman is the defending British Open champion, but he hasn’t won since his victory at Royal Liverpool last July.

This year, the favorites are Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Bryson DeChambeau (winners of the first three majors) and Rory McIlroy, but there are plenty of other stars in the field who are poised to strike in Scotland.

Marquee groups

  • Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood, Robert MacIntyre
  • Ludvig Aberg, Bryson DeChambeau, Tom Kim
  • Rory McIlroy, Max Homa, Tyrrell Hatton
  • Wyndham Clark, Hideki Matsuyama, Brooks Koepka
  • Tiger Woods, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay
  • Jordan Spieth, Scottie Scheffler, Cameron Young

Here’s a look at the first round tee times for the 2024 British Open, as well as Thursday’s TV information.

Thursday tee times

Time Players
1:35 a.m.
Justin Leonard, Todd Hamilton, Jack McDonald
1:46 a.m.
Alex Noren, Tom McKibbin, Calum Scott
1:57 a.m.
Jesper Svensson, Vincent Norrman, Michael Hendry
2:08 a.m.
Younghan Song, Daniel Hillier, Ryosuke Kinoshita
2:19 a.m.
Min Woo Lee, Ryo Hisatsune, Abraham Ancer
2:30 a.m.
Nicolai Hojgaard, Adam Scott, Keita Nakajima
2:41 a.m.
Francesco Molinari, Justin Rose, Jasper Stubbs
2:52 a.m.
Justin Thomas, Sungjae Im, Matthew Southgate
3:03 a.m.
Nick Taylor, Matt Wallace, Laurie Canter
3:14 a.m.
Sebastian Soderberg, Matteo Manassero, Shubhankar Sharma
3:25 a.m.
Zach Johnson, Austin Eckroat, Thornjorn Oleson
3:36 a.m.
John Daly, Santiago de la Fuente, Aaron Rai
3:47 a.m.
Stewart Cink, Chris Kirk, Dominic Clemons
4:03 a.m.
Stephan Jaeger, Adam Schenk, Joaquin Niemann
4:14 a.m.
Adam Hadwin, Lucas Glover, Christiaan Bezuidenhout
4:25 a.m.
Tony Finau, Russell Henley, Matthieu Pavon
4:36 a.m.
Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood, Robert MacIntyre
4:47 a.m.
Ludvig Aberg, Bryson DeChambeau, Tom Kim
4:58 a.m.
Brian Harman, Viktor Hovland, Sahith Theegala
5:09 a.m.
Rory McIlroy, Max Homa, Tyrrell Hatton
5:20 a.m.
Keegan Bradley, Will Zalatoris, Gordon Sargent
5:31 a.m.
Harris English, Maverick McNealy, Alexander Bjork
5:42 a.m.
Guido Migliozzi, Sean Crocker, Tommy Morrison
5:53 a.m.
David Puig, John Catlin, Gun-Tack Koh
6:04 a.m.
Thriston Lawrence, Dan Bradbury, Elvis Smylie
6:15 a.m.
Nacho Elvira, Minkyu Kim, Darren Fichardt
6:26 a.m.
Mason Anderson, Masahiro Kawamura, Sam Hutsby
6:47 a.m.
Ewen Ferguson, Marcel Siem
6:58 a.m.
C.T. Pan, Romain Langasque, Yuto Katsuragawa
7:09 a.m.
Rikuya Hoshino, Angel Hidalgo, Richard Mansell
7:20 a.m.
Corey Conners, Ryan Fox, Jorge Campillo
7:31 a.m.
Ernie Els, Gary Woodland, Altin Van der Merwe
7:42 a.m.
Henrik Stenson, Rasmus Hojgaard, Jacob Skov Oleson
7:53 a.m.
Louis Oothuizen, Billy Horschel, Victor Perez
8:04 a.m.
Sepp Straka, Brendon Todd, Jordan Smith
8:15 a.m.
Denny McCarthy, Taylor Moore, Adrian Meronk
8:26 a.m.
Jason Day, Ben An, Rickie Fowler
8:37 a.m.
Alex Cejka, Eric Cole, Kurt Kitayama
8:48 a.m.
Darren Clarke, J.T. Poston, Dean Burmester
9:04 a.m.
Phil Mickelson, Joost Luiten, Dustin Johnson
9:15 a.m.
Padraig Harrington, Davis Thompson, Matthew Jordan
9:26 a.m.
Wyndham Clark, Hideki Matsuyama, Brooks Koepka
9:37 a.m.
Tiger Woods, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay
9:48 a.m.
Collin Morikawa, Sam Burns, Si Woo Kim
9:59 a.m.
Shane Lowry, Cameron Smith, Matt Fitzpatrick
10:10 a.m.
Jordan Spieth, Scottie Scheffler, Cameron Young
10:21 a.m.
Akshay Bhatia, Tom Hoge, Sami Valimaki
10:32 a.m.
Emiliano Grillo, Ben Griffin, Mackenzie Hughes
10:43 a.m.
Yannik Paul, Joe Dean, Andy Ogletree
10:54 a.m.
Ryan van Velzen, Charlie Lindh, Luis Masaveu
11:05 a.m.
Kazuma Kobori, Jaime Montojo, Liam Nolan
11:16 a.m.
Daniel Brown, Denwit Boriboonsub, Matthew Dodd-Berry
11:27 a.m.
Jeung-Hun Wang, Aguri Iwasaki, Sam Horsfield

How to watch

Thursday, July 18 (all times EST)

First round, 1:30 a.m.- 4 a.m., Peacock

First round, 4 a.m.-3 p.m., USA Network

First round, 3 p.m.-4:15 p.m., Peacock

Live from the Open, 3 p.m., Golf Channel

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.”