The silver Claret Jug, which Schauffele will have custody of for one year, is even sweeter to Stefan.
TROON, Scotland – Xander Schauffele drank whiskey out of the Wanamaker Trophy after his victory at the PGA Championship in May. What will he drink out of the Claret Jug after winning the 152nd British Open? He said he’d leave that up to his father, Stefan.
“I’m just curious to see what my dad is going to pick as a first drink to drink out of this,” Xander said at his winner’s press conference on Sunday after shooting 6-under 65 to win by two strokes over Justin Rose and Billy Horschel. “He’s going to have to figure out what he wants to put in there because he’s taking the first gulp out of it.”
“Red wine,” he said. “We’re trying to find good wine. It’s a Claret Jug, no beer, that’s sacrilege. I’d rather put cider in it.”
Xander, for his part, noted that he rarely drinks alcohol but he’ll be making an exception to celebrate winning his second major championship in nine weeks.
“I don’t really get to celebrate too many things ever. This game is cruel at times,” he said. “So I have my whole family and most of my team here.”
Schauffele’s father, who was in Hawaii when his son won the PGA, said he took part in enjoying the Wanamaker Trophy and has it in his possession.
Xander Schauffele captures his SECOND major of the year! 🏆🔥
The lid is off now and Schauffele is going to try to keep stacking majors.
TROON, Scotland – After Xander Schauffele won his first major championship at the PGA Championship in May and finished all of his media obligations, he and his caddie and wife and some close friends retired to their rental house to celebrate. Nothing was open at that hour so they found two bottles of whiskey and nearly polished them off between the six of them.
“It was a rough next morning,” Schauffele’s caddie Austin Kaiser said. “But we’re having drinks afterwards and one of our buddies is like, ‘You feel lighter?’ And he smiled. He was like, ‘Yeah, I do,’ ” Kaiser recalled Schauffele saying.
Victory at Valhalla removed the proverbial monkey from his back. No longer stuck with the label of being the best golfer never to win a major, Schauffele said he felt relief. At the 152nd British Open, Schauffele doubled his pleasure and validated his major moment, shooting 6-under 65 in the final round at Royal Troon Golf Club on Sunday to win the Claret Jug by two strokes over Justin Rose and Billy Horschel.
“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 said.
In doing so, he became the first player since Brooks Koepka in 2018 to win two majors in a season. Schauffele carded four birdies on the final nine to turn a taut competition in which any of seven golfers seemed capable of hoisting the trophy to sucking all the drama out of the closing stretch and claiming his ninth career PGA Tour title with a 72-hole total of 9-under 275.
“Best round I’ve ever played,” said Schauffele, whose score was the best round of the day by two strokes and one of only two bogey-free rounds on the day.
“Now that he’s won two, it’s all up from here,” Kaiser said. “I told him, we got the lid off. Let’s just stack’em.”
Kaiser and Schauffele, 30, both transferred to San Diego State at the same time in 2012 and Kaiser has been on his bag since he turned pro in 2015. Kaiser remembers their humble beginnings when they were playing mini-tour events on the Golden State Golf Tour and traveling together in Kaiser’s Honda Accord, staying in Candlewood Suites and cooking sausage and eggs on a hot plate.
Schauffele quickly proved to be a player of great promise but as he piled up 12 top-10 finishes and six top-5s in his first 27 major starts without a victory, questions emerged whether he was a closer. In 2018, Schauffele was tied for the lead heading into the final round of the 2018 British Open at Carnoustie Golf Links in Scotland but carded a 2-over 72 in the final round and lost to Italy’s Francesco Molinari by 2.
“There’s calmness and super-stressful moments when you’re trying to win a major championship. I felt them in the past, the ones I didn’t win, and I let them get to me,” Schauffele said. “Today I felt like I did a pretty good job of weathering the storm when I needed to.”
Xander Schauffele celebrates with his caddie Austin Kaiser on the 18th green at the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon. (Warren Little/Getty Images)
In tricky conditions all week that turned Troon into a survival of the fittest, Schauffele was a model of plodding consistency, shooting rounds of 67-72-69 before his final-round brilliance. Conditions turned nastiest on Saturday afternoon with wind whipping and rain falling, but Schauffele managed to card four birdies in his first 10 holes before giving back shots at Nos. 11 and 18 to join a six-way logjam in second place, one stroke back.
On Sunday, with a brisk southwesterly wind blowing off the Firth of Clyde and gray skies, Schauffele showed great patience, starting with five pars before he went on the attack.
With nine holes to go, South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence held the lead, which was all the more remarkable given that he started the weekend 10 strokes back before shooting 65 on Saturday, tying for the low round of the week. He played his way into the final group and surged into the lead at 7 under with four more birdies on the front nine. But the 27-year-old cooled off on the back nine, losing the lead with a bogey at No. 12. The four-time winner on the DP World Tour settled for his best career finish in a major, a solo fourth that earned him a spot in next year’s Masters.
The 43-year-old Rose was attempting to win his second major more than a decade after winning the 2013 U.S. Open. He had to go through final qualifying just to make the field and put up a valiant fight until he made bogey at No. 12. He closed with a birdie at the last and posted 4-under 67.
“I left it all out there,” Rose said. “I’m super proud of how I competed.”
Horschel, the 54-hole leader, pictured himself hoisting the Claret Jug before he went to bed but hit into a pot bunker off the tee at the third, found the sand at the famed Postage Par-3 eighth and short-sided himself at No. 10, leading to bogey each time.
“Ah, Billy, Billy, Billy, you’ve made three mistakes today,” he said to himself aloud as he headed to the 11th tee. “Let’s clean it up.”
He did, signing for 68, but birdies on the final three holes came too late. Still, his T-2 finish is his best result in 43 majors.
Callum Scott won the Silver Medal for the low amateur at the Open, the first Scot to win the award since 2018.
But it was Schauffele who outshined the field, picking apart Troon’s vaunted back nine with birdies at the 11th, 13th, 14th and 16th to seal the deal. Kaiser labeled the birdie at No. 11, the second-hardest hole of the day, as the turning point. That’s where Schauffele uncorked a drive that veered left and had Kaiser praying for a good break.
“Please cut, please cut or get a good ground kick,” he recalled thinking. “Luckily it did a little bit, I guess.”
Schauffele took advantage, planting a wedge inside 3 feet and knocking in the birdie putt — he was the only player in the field to make birdie there on Sunday — to climb to 6 under. He jarred a 16-foot birdie putt at 13 to reach 7 under and never relinquished the lead once Lawrence made bogey.
“Winning the first one helped me a lot today on the back nine,” Schauffele said. “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.”
Xander Schauffele celebrates on the 18th green in celebration of victory at the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon. (Jack Gruber-USA TODAY Sports)
Until this season, Schauffele’s most notable title had been capturing a gold medal at the Olympics held in 2021 in Toyko. In May, he canned a 5-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to outlast Bryson DeChambeau and win the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. With Scottie Scheffler, who finished T-7 after shooting 72, winning the Masters in April and DeChambeau the U.S. Open last month, this marks the first time since 1982 that all four majors were won by Americans and the first time since Tiger Woods won consecutive Opens in 2006-07 that Americans went back-to-back in the Open Championship. (Brian Harman won in 2023.) Schauffele said he watched the highlights of the last time the Open was played here in 2016 as motivation and it proved effective.
“He’s obviously now learning that the winning is easy,” said Rose, who played alongside Schauffele on Sunday. “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.”
Added Rose’s caddie Mark Fulcher: “When you see a round that good you take your hat off. He didn’t put a foot wrong. It was nice to be able to watch it and not have to buy a ticket because it was fantastic…You’d almost like him to be a bit of a wanker but he really couldn’t be nicer.”
In just a matter of nine weeks, Schauffele has flipped the narrative from being the nearly man who can’t close to being a serious contender for PGA Tour Player of the Year and bona fide Hall of Fame candidate. He possesses both the Wanamaker Trophy and the Claret Jug and earned the distinction of Champion Golfer of the Year. The lid is off and now Schauffele and Kaiser are going to try to keep stacking majors.
Moving Day at the 2024 British Open has come and gone and the top of the leaderboard at Royal Troon is loaded with star power.
After a third-round 2-under 69, Billy Horschel holds the outright lead at 4 under, his first 54-hole lead or co-lead in a major championship. There’s a pack of players one shot back of the Florida Gator, including Sam Burns, Xander Schauffele and Justin Rose.
Royal Troon is a par-71 golf course measuring 7,385 yards.
This week’s winner, on top of being crowned the Champion Golfer of the Year, will earn $3.1 million of the $17 million purse and 700 FedEx Cup points.
From tee times to TV and streaming information, here’s everything you need to know for the final round of the 2024 British Open at Royal Troon. All times listed ET.
The left-hander celebrated long into the night after triumphing in his home Scottish Open.
TROON, Scotland — Robert MacIntyre admitted Royal Troon had brought him back down to earth as he struggled to replicate last week’s heroics.
The Oban-based left-hander celebrated long into the night after triumphing in his home Scottish Open last Sunday but it has been a different story in Ayrshire this week.
After battling to make the Open cut on Friday, the 27-year-old again found the going tough in the third round, carding a 1-over 72 to sit on six over.
The back nine proved particularly challenging as he registered three bogeys, although he escaped with a par on the 18th after being forced to innovate and play a shot right-handed.
MacIntyre said: “A lot of people have been struggling this week.
“After yesterday’s (first) four holes, I thought I’d be sitting on my couch in Oban right now, not playing golf. It was a big effort last night and, coming out today, I didn’t have everything going.
“But that’s golf. Last week you were the champion and this week you’re just bottom of the pack.”
MacIntyre was pleased to take four on the last after his tee shot landed just to the left of a deep fairway bunker.
Playing conventionally would have meant having to stand in the sand trap, well below the level of the ball, and so he decided to play right-handed with the clubhead turned around.
He struck his shot cleanly enough to get close to the green, albeit with aid of a ricochet off the grandstand, and from there he got up and down.
MacIntyre said: “I got a good bit of luck to miss the bunker but then you get up there and you’ve got no shot.
“I couldn’t even stand in the bunker and hit it. I just thought, why not hit it right-handed?
“As long as it was up the right, it was fine. The only place I couldn’t go was left, so I kind of aimed at the right TV tower.”
MacIntyre admitted such a trick was not something he had practiced.
“Full swipe at it – I’ve not done one, I don’t think, in my life,” he said.
Canter said he would be strictly playing the DP World Tour and honor its rules.
TROON, Scotland – Not even the rain that fell as he played the back nine at Royal Troon Golf Club could dampen the spirits of Laurie Canter after shooting 1-under 70 in the third round of the 152nd British Open. Canter smiled wide at the thought of earning a PGA Tour card through the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai standings.
“That would be awesome, wouldn’t it? To play on the PGA Tour is something I would love to do at some point,” he said.
Canter, a 34-year-old Englishman, is trying to do a first: go from LIV Golf to the DP World Tour and then earn a spot on the PGA Tour via a pathway opened for players last year to procure status on the PGA Tour with their play on the DP World Tour.
Before Canter could return to the DP World Tour, he had to pay his fines which he said LIV Golf took care of and totaled £725,000. How that money would be used, he didn’t know.
What Canter did next could be life-changing: he won the European Open in Germany and entered the week No. 13 in the DP World Tour Race to Dubai rankings. Ten PGA Tour cards are available to the highest-ranked players in the final Race to Dubai standings who don’t already hold Tour status for finishing in the top 125 of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The likes of Rory McIlroy, Robert MacIntyre, Ludvig Aberg, Adam Scott and Tommy Fleetwood therefore wouldn’t count in the top 10, meaning he’s currently eighth, though there is a long way to go.
But even if he were to earn his PGA Tour card, Canter said he’s been notified that even though he’s a non-member (and thus not suspended) he’s ineligible for PGA Tour competition for playing on LIV.
Canter was a founding member of LIV Golf and played on the Cleeks in 2022. But he lost his roster spot in 2023 and played as a reserve. He managed to compete in 11 of the 14 events and finished 44th in the standings. He lost out in a 3-for-2 playoff to join a team this season. Nevertheless, he played in the first two events this season at Mayakoba and Las Vegas, but has since returned to the DP World Tour.
“It’s been amazing to come back and play full time on the DP World Tour, and I’m thankful I can do that,” Canter said Saturday. “In that respect I’m one of the lucky ones, and I’ll just keep chasing it the rest of the year and hopefully try and finish as high up the list as I can.”
Canter said he would be strictly playing the DP World Tour and honor its rules.
“Once the arbitration business, it was like them the rules,” Canter said of the legal battle that allowed the Euro Tour to be able to suspend and fine LIV Golf players who featured in conflicting events without permission.
Canter’s victory at the European Open, his first on the DP World Tour, has him in position to earn a PGA Tour card much the way that MacIntyre and Matthieu Pavon played their way onto the American-based circuit and parlayed status into victories as rookies this season. But the PGA Tour has blocked LIV golfers from playing on the tour and hasn’t been clear in sharing what the path back might be. Asked if he knew if he would be allowed to play on the PGA Tour should he earn his card, Canter said he was sent an email detailing that his dream to compete there would be deferred and his start date on the Tour would be backdated from his last unauthorized start. The Tour confirmed that to be accurate.
“I would have to serve a year from the time of my final LIV event,” he said. “That would be a year after this year’s LIV Las Vegas (in February during Super Bowl weekend).”
“I thought it was absurd,” he added. “I’ve never played on the PGA Tour.”
But thanks to his win in Germany, Canter may have to serve a suspension for his LIV participation anyway. Still, a Tour card has never seemed more possible.
“It’s kind of slightly moved the goal posts for me,” he said of being in the mix for one of the 10 cards through the Strategic Alliance between the two tours. “I’ve got something to aim for, and that would be great, yeah.”
Canter has a unique perspective having played both LIV and DP World Tour and he said there is room for both.
“I like both formats. Can I say that? Are you allowed to say that these days, like you actually like both things? I really do,” he said. “I think the four-round, what we grew up watching, the kind of hearty cuts, and you see (Max) Homa’s reaction yesterday, that’s awesome. As a professional when I see that, I think that’s amazing, that something like that still happens in golf. That should always be the staple of the big tournaments.
“But I love the LIV stuff. I love the three rounds, and you’re bringing a kind of different energy. I think it has the potential to be so exciting for fans, especially if the team thing can keep picking up some momentum. I really think it could be cool. I’m firmly on the middle of the fence because I actually like both.”
TROON, Scotland – It used to be that if you asked Phil Mickelson a question, you were bound to get a lengthy answer of some sort. He loved to expound on a variety of topics and any time he was scheduled to speak to the press you wanted to be there to listen, uncapped pen at the ready knowing you could count on him to fill a notebook and provide snappy quotes and anecdotes that would jump off the page. In short, he was good copy.
But these days, ever since he went to LIV and really dating to the moment he got burned by some of what he believed to be off-the-record remarks being published, Mickelson has gone mute.
He rarely does pre-tournament press conferences anymore, even this week at the return to the site of his famous duel with Henrik Stenson in 2016 he was not one of the players to participate, and he declined to speak to the media after the first two rounds. But on Saturday, after posting a 1-over 72 in the third round of the 152nd British Open, Mickelson agreed to stop and field questions from the media.
He said he enjoyed the round and always loves coming to Troon, a place with fond memories despite coming up short in 2004 and 2016.
He detailed his adventures at the Postage Stamp, where he found The Coffin Bunker and had to contort his legs and aim away from the flag to extricate himself from a dreadful lie.
“That hole is one of the greats,” he said. “I’m trying to make par. I’m not trying to make two. If I make four, I’m not that upset. It’s a hole that you’ve seen it dismantle a bunch of opportunities for players to win, and you just don’t want to make the big number. Bogeys are fine there if it happens, but it’s just one of the great holes in the game.”
Asked to name where this week’s test ranked among the British Opens he’s played in, he said it was premature to say with another round to go. “I’ve played this course in all different winds, and it’s like playing the course for the first time,” he said. “Every time you get a different wind. It’s incredible. It’s just one of the best designs in the world.”
On the subject of his wearing joggers after losing a bet to YouTube star Grant Horvath, Mickelson waxed on and on about discovering the YouTube audience and over several follow-up questions blathered on about why a 54-year-old man would be wearing joggers again for Sunday’s final round.
“Out here where the wind is blowing and my pants are getting caught on the socks, whatever, they’re not. I really do like them,” he said.
But when the subject shifted to Tiger Woods and PGA Tour and LIV Mickelson suddenly became reticent. Asked if he conversed with Tiger on the range earlier this week when the two greats were set up next to each other, he said, “We said hi. Yeah, we said hi, but we were both preparing. It’s not like we’re going to sit there and chat. But we said hello, yeah.”
Could he and Tiger work out the golf world’s problems?
“I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see,” said Mickelson.
Two timeless competitors. 💪
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson warm up next to each other on the range at Royal Troon. pic.twitter.com/p67aAqb4yo
Asked what he would say if he’d been told a year ago that the PGA Tour-PIF negotiations hadn’t resulted in any changes or resolution yet, he said, “ Look, I don’t know about that stuff. I’m not involved. I’m not sitting in those rooms. I am enjoying where I’m at and what I’m doing and playing. I’ll let other people figure that stuff out. “
Another reporter wondered if Mickelson would prefer there to be peace in the pro golf ranks, “that everybody was happy about it?”
Mickelson paused and considered his words. A man who used to love to hear himself speak said simply, “You know, it would be great. It would be great.”
And with that Mickelson was done engaging, although it’s debatable whether he had ever started at all.
In the real estate world, the saying is, location, location, location!
TROON, Scotland – In the real estate world, the saying is, location, location, location!
For a golf fan, it doesn’t get much better than “Blackrock House,” a semi-detached house in the center of Royal Troon Golf Club, and it recently went on the market for the princely sum of £1.5 million.
Situated on Crosbie Road and with views of five holes of the course hosting its 10th British Open this week, the home has been put on the market this week by the children of David and Isabel Kelly, who lived there for the last four Opens at Troon, dating to Mark Calcavecchia’s playoff victory in 1989.
David died less than two years ago at age 91. Isabel died recently.
“This is a different Open for us because our mother has just passed away in the last month,” Andrew Kelly told The Associated Press.
The house, which appears on maps as early as 1878, when Troon was established as a six-hole course, is located between the second and 16th holes. It also offers views of the third, 17th and 18th tee.
“And seeing them teeing on the 18th as well,” Andrew Kelly said of the last tee, directly in front of the house. “It’s fantastic, you’re right here and you’ve got everything going on around you. You’re spoiled for choice, to be honest.”
Blackrock House is actually two semi-detached houses – 14 and 16 Crosbie Road, Troon. The Gregorys bought No. 16 in 2007 and the Kelly house that is for sale is next door at No. 14.
For sale signs from realtor Strutt and Parker have drawn much interest but no showings this week, thank you very much.
Blackrock House is situated between the 2nd and 16th holes at Royal Troon GC (Adam Schupak/Golfweek)
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler said he noticed the property but that it didn’t stand out quite as much this week with corporate tents and oversized merchandise shop in the vicinity.
“If I came here six months from now when all the tents and all the build-out is gone, I think it would be a lot more unusual,” he said.
Troon doesn’t officially have another Open booked in the future just yet but expect an 11th edition to be held here on Scotland’s west coast somewhere between 8-12 years from now and for the next owner of Blackrock House, no tickets required.
“It was a long night and that’s all we watched the entire time on the way over here.”
Tiger Woods returned to his home on Jupiter Island much sooner than he hoped after another failed attempt to play into the weekend at a major championship.
But the 15-time major winner had a notable week beyond posting a two-day total 14-over 156 at Scotland’s Royal Troon Golf Course.
Tiger has missed the cut in three consecutive majors for just the second time in his career, and he’s failed to finish six of eight majors he’s entered since his February 2021 accident.
But before revealing Friday he’s done playing competitive golf until the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas in early December, and confirming he will return to the PNC Championship in Orlando on Dec. 20 to once again play with his son, Charlie — Tiger called the tournament once known as the “father-son” the “fifth major” — Tiger had an eventful week.
Tiger was impacted by the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, telling the BBC he watched coverage of the shooting the entire flight to Scotland and was not in the “right frame of mind” when he arrived. Trump emerged from the shooting with a bloodied right ear.
“I didn’t accomplish a lot because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind,” he said. “It was a long night and that’s all we watched the entire time on the way over here.
“I didn’t sleep at all on the flight, and then we just got on the golf course.”
Tiger and Trump, who lives in Palm Beach, are on friendly terms. The two have played golf together and in 2019 Trump awarded Tiger the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Tiger, though, did not arrive at the first tee wearing a large bandage on his right ear like some of Trump’s followers at the Republican National Convention.
Tiger Woods of the United States reacts after a bunker shot on the fifth green on day one of The 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon on July 18, 2024 in Troon, Scotland. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
By Tuesday, though, Tiger was slam dunking on Scottish golfer Colin Montgomerie, who suggested last week the 48-year-old might want to consider retiring in wake of his recent underwhelming results in major championships.
“You think, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ ” said Montgomerie, 61, while adding that Tiger has lost his enjoyment and passion for the game.
Montgomerie, by the way, has won exactly 15 fewer major championships than Tiger, and Tiger let the world know that in his retort.
“As a past champion, I’m exempt until I’m 60,” Woods, who has won three Claret Jugs, said Tuesday.
“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.”
Montgomerie can have his opinion when it comes to one of the greatest athletes — and still one of the most popular — of all time. But he has to expect blowback, and he cannot expect anyone to take seriously the age-old excuse of saying he was taken out of context, which he did on social media.
Because what we saw this week as Tiger continued his determined quest to regain his form after more injuries than Montgomerie has PGA Tour wins — actually, anyone with one injury has more than Montgomerie has won on the PGA Tour — and that horrific accident more than three years ago, suggests once again nobody moves the needle in this sport like Tiger.
Even with Tiger ranked No. 874 in the world.
Tiger preparing for next event
So for those wondering where Tiger goes next … he made it clear he’s heading to the range and the gym the rest of year. That is, after watching son Charlie make his U.S. Junior Amateur debut next week at Oakland Hills Country Club in Michigan.
In fact, Tiger was asked this week about Charlie, a rising sophomore at The Benjamin School, and if he was thinking about his son’s next step.
“Not when I’m playing, no,” he said. “When I’m working, I’m working. When I’m at home, away from the golf course, yeah, I do talk to him. We’re working on getting his game right.”
That makes two in the Woods family because Tiger has a long way to go to get his game back on track. And that does not mean back to the most dominant player on the planet. No, that title now belongs to Scottie Scheffler.
But at least back to a spot where a man who has won 82 times on the PGA Tour, tied with Sam Snead for the most, can play on the weekend again. Tiger likely will enter 2025 with a similar goal he set for 2024, but did not accomplish, of playing one event a month, through at least the four majors.
Since the 2021 accident, Tiger has played 26 rounds in 10 official PGA Tour events, eight being majors. Of those, he has finished three, withdrawn from three and missed the cut four times. He has not placed higher than 45th.
“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,” Tiger said Friday following his 77. Tiger had 11 bogeys, three doubles and three birdies in the two days.
“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 haven’t shown it, but physically I’ve gotten better, which is great.
“I seem to keep progressing like that and eventually start playing more competitively and start getting into the competitive flow again.”
That does not sound like a man ready to take advice from Colin Montgomerie.
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and golf reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
Shane Lowry, one back after 18 holes, holds a two-shot lead after 36 after his second-round 69 at Royal Troon’s Old Course in Scotland.
Daniel Brown, the first-round solo leader, is tied for second alongside Justin Rose, who drew one of the biggest roars Friday after making birdie on 18.
Joaquin Niemann had perhaps the most amazing even-par round in a while. He took an eight on the eighth hole, the famed Postage Stamp par 3 before going four under his final 10 holes to get into a tie for 11th halfway through.
Here’s a look at the complete list of third round tee times for the 2024 British Open, as well as Saturday’s TV and streaming information. Note: All times listed are ET.
This was ugly but give him credit for rallying on the back nine.
The Postage Stamp at Royal Troon is one of the most famed par 3s in the world — for good reason. Playing around 120 yards, the eighth hole at this week’s 2024 British Open can pose quite the challenge but on Frida it was rated the third easiest hole.
Just ask LIV Golf member Joaquin Niemann, who was 1 under for the day when he stepped to the eighth tee box.
Then his round went south in a hurry.
His tee shot found the right greenside bunker. His second was sent into the back left bunker. His third didn’t get out. His fourth ended up in the front greenside bunker. Niemann hit his fifth to 26 feet.
Then he three-putted.
In the end, it was a quintuple-bogey eight for the Chilean, who battled back big-time after that (more on that in a minute).
Niemann would par the ninth to make the turn in 40 but then he went on a tear, making birdie on Nos. 10, 12, 14 and 15 to close in 31 to post a 71. Remarkably, he’s tied for 11th after 36 holes at even par, seven shots behind leader Shane Lowry.
