Rory? Tiger? Spieth? There are plenty of targets for the Open this week.
With respect to the Masters and Augusta National Golf Club, when the Open Championship is held at the Old Course, it’s impossible to beat.
The best players in the world have arrived at the Home of Golf, including Tiger Woods, who is making his first start since the PGA Championship where he withdrew after the third round.
Rory McIlroy, who has finished in the top 10 in all three majors this season, is the betting favorite at +900. He wasn’t in the field the last time the Open has held at St. Andrews (2015) but did play in 2010 where he tied for third after an opening-round 63 (he’d shoot 80 in round two).
Golf course
The Old Course at St. Andrews | Par 70 | 7,189 yards
Tiger Woods putts on the first green during a practice round for the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews Old Course. (Photo: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports)
Like golf? How about two idiots talking PGA Tour, golf betting and everything in between? Oh, and a lot of laughs along the way. Listen to the Twilight 9 podcast!
Good luck getting the ball on the tee Thursday, Max.
Every once in a while, old tweets resurface. Sometimes they’re bad takes, sometimes they’re miraculous predictions that somehow come true, and sometimes they’re heartwarming things like this.
In 2013, Max Homa, a then collegiate golfer at Cal, sent out a tweet asking Tiger Woods for a practice round at that year’s U.S. Open (Homa qualified for the event at Merion).
Like many professional golfers in this era, Woods was Homa’s hero.
Fast forward to 2021 and the California native took home the hardware at the Genesis Invitational, an event hosted by Woods and his foundation. So, after receiving the trophy, Homa took a picture with the 15-time major champion to mark the victory.
@TigerWoods just won PAC 12s, NCAA championship, and qualified for the us open. Any chance I can get a practice round with u?? #hero
Now, 507 days later, it was announced the four-time Tour winner will tee it up with Woods and Matthew Fitzpatrick for the first two rounds at the Old Course for the 150th Open Championship.
The threesome with tee off at 9:59 a.m. ET on Thursday and 4:59 a.m. ET on Friday.
Homa was asked about the dream pairing: “Unreal times a million.”
In 2018, the then Korn Ferry Tour player went on the No Laying Up podcast and discussed the 2013 tweet.
Here's @maxhoma23 in 2018 talking about trying to track Tiger down for a practice round.
This was when he was playing on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Now he's gonna tee it up with Tiger f'n Woods at the Old Course in The Open Championship. pic.twitter.com/YQ4ojyuJRF
Rory McIlroy: “I don’t know if a golfer’s career isn’t complete if you don’t, but I think it’s the Holy Grail of our sport”
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Rory McIlroy called winning the Claret Jug at The Old Course at St. Andrews, “one of the greatest things you can do in our game.”
“I don’t know if a golfer’s career isn’t complete if you don’t, but I think it’s the Holy Grail of our sport,” McIlroy said during his pre-tournament press conference ahead of the 150th British Open. “Not a lot of people are going to get that opportunity to achieve that, but that’s what winning an Open at St. Andrews is. It’s one of the highest achievements that you can have in golf.”
But is winning another Claret Jug the Holy Grail for McIlroy or is it a Green Jacket awarded to the Masters champion, which would complete the elusive career Grand Slam for the Northern Irishman?
“I guess it’s both,” he said. “Obviously I’d love to win both. And I’ll be greedy and say that I’ll take both.”
To do so, McIlroy, 33, will need to master the famed and fabled fairways at The Old Course to end a winless drought in the majors which dates to the 2014 PGA Championship, a span of 29 major starts.
Rory McIlroy poses with the Open Golf Claret Jug trophy at halftime of the Premier League match between Manchester United and Swansea City at Old Trafford on August 16, 2014, in Manchester, England. (Photo by John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)
This season McIlroy has shown moments of brilliance in the majors – a final-round 64 at the Masters to finish second, the 18-hole leader at the PGA en route to finishing three strokes shy of a playoff and a disappointing eighth at the PGA Championship and in the trophy hunt until the latter stages at the U.S. Open before settling for a T-5. Victories at the CJ Cup in October and the RBC Canadian Open have been nice, but it is last call to add to his major total of four or else endure the nearly nine-month wait until the Masters in April when he will face the same questions all over again.
This marks McIlroy’s 13th appearance at The Open, dating to when he first played the major as an amateur in 2007. The 2014 Champion Golfer of the Year finished T-3 in 2010, when he posted a record-tying 63 in the first round only to be swept away by the wind a day later and ballooned to 80. McIlroy said his memories of that best of times, worst of times week are minimal and he’d have to review the highlights (and lowlights, presumably).
“This is sort of a good lesson in human behavior, but the only thing I remember about the 63 is hitting a 6-iron into 3 feet at 17 and missing the putt,” he recalled. “That’s the one thing that sticks out in my mind because I remember coming off the golf course thinking that was a really good opportunity (to be) the first person ever to shoot 62 in a major, and I didn’t quite get it done. So you can always be better.”
McIlroy never got to defend his 2014 Open title at St. Andrews due to rupturing a ligament in his left ankle kicking a soccer ball with friends. (He noted there would be no soccer this week.) McIlroy, who has returned to World No. 2, said he was surprised to see the fairways playing so fast and firm this week thanks to an unusual spell of dry summer weather, and found the greens quite receptive.
“Still have a very firm first bounce, but they’re receptive if you hit a well-enough-struck iron shot,” McIlroy said.
“Apart from that, didn’t really do too much,” McIlroy said. “Hung around Adare for a couple of days, did a little bit of practice, got in here Sunday. Then, yeah, played whatever I played. Played the first five and the last five yesterday in a practice round.”
McIlroy said his confidence in his game is as high as it it’s been in quite some time, but he won’t fall into the trap of simply believing it is “his time.”
“It’s going to be a game of chess this week,” he said of The Old Course, which he believes has stood the test of time. But the weight of chasing the Holy Grail will never be far from his mind.
“This was the major championship, it was the first one I ever attended as a kid. Yeah, it just means a little bit more,” he said. “To hear your name and winner of the gold medal, Champion Golfer of the Year, it’s what dreams are made of. I still remember that pretty vividly. I’d love to replicate that on Sunday evening.”
“I still can play,” Norman said. “I know I can still play.
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — First, Greg Norman was told he was not invited to play the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews.
Then he received the letter saying he was not welcome to play in a four-hole exhibition at the Old Course and not to show up at the Champions’ Dinner.
The two-time Open champion and CEO of the LIV Golf Series chalked it up as another “petty” decision in the ongoing golf wars.
“There have been a lot of dumb decisions made, quite honestly, and this one seemed as if it was very petty,” Norman told the Palm Beach Post Monday. He was talking from LIV’s headquarters in West Palm Beach.
Norman’s request to play in this week’s tournament was not unusual.
Yes, he is 67, but he said he recently broke his age in a round at the Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound. But the Hall of Famer with 20 PGA Tour titles and more than 90 worldwide wins has become an outcast since joining the breakaway tour being financially backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
“Governing bodies should stay above the fray,” said Norman, who lives in Palm Beach Gardens. “They should be Switzerland. For them to stoop to this level … as a past Open champion and all I’ve done for the game of golf on a global basis, I fit the model of what the R&A is all about, right? The Royal and Ancient growing the game of golf on the grassroots level. They only have to look at what I’ve been doing in Vietnam growing the game of golf. That’s why it’s so petty.”
The Open was first played at the Old Course at St. Andrews in 1873 and this will be the 30th time at the venue. Norman won the 1986 Open at Turnberry in Scotland and the 1993 Open at Royal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich.
“I still can play,” Norman said. “I know I can still play.
“Looking at the weather conditions, it’s very hot and very dry so the ball is rolling, running out pretty good. That’s right up my alley. Who knows.”
Norman’s last competitive round of golf was the 2012 Senior Open Championship. His last major was the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry. He shot a 77-75 and missed the cut.
Tom D’Angelo is a journalist at the Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
How does St. Andrews, site of this week’s Open Championship, stack up against the rest of the course rota?
Each of the 10 layouts on the modern British Open course rota score highly in Golfweek’s Best ranking of top classic golf courses built before 1960 in Great Britain and Ireland, as would be expected. But that doesn’t mean they all are equals.
Check out the rankings of each course on the modern rota below. The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings, and they are included for each course below.
From the castle and cathedral to the golf courses, there’s just something special about St. Andrews.
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – No matter the direction one looks in this ancient, gray seaside town on Scotland’s east coast, which was founded in the 12th century on the legend that the bones of the Christian apostle St. Andrew were brought here, the eyes explode with lasting reminders from centuries past.
The ruins of St. Andrews Castle, built around 1200 A.D. and rebuilt several times during the Wars of Scottish Independence, still stand proud. The remains of St. Andrews Cathedral, established in 1158, continue to successfully battle harsh elements off the North Sea. The University of St. Andrews which was founded in 1413 continues to be a force in education.
There are markings on cobblestones scattered throughout the city indicating where executions took place. On the pleasant outskirts of the city by the massive beach is where Witch Hill resided, the unpleasant local where accused witches in the 16th and 17th centuries were taken down to the water and, with their thumb tied to the opposite toe, were submerged. If they drowned, they were deemed as witches. If they survived, they were deemed as witches and dragged to Witch Hill and burned at the stake (the odds were not in their favor).
Witch Hill is now Martyrs’ Hill, where the imposing Martyrs’ Monument commemorates the Protestant martyrs who were burned at the stake for purported heresy between 1520 and 1560.
“You go back in time when you are in St. Andrews,” said three-time Open Championship winner Sir Nick Faldo.
The journey into the past reveals history has a mighty ally to form the fabric of the Auld Grey Toon – golf. Just a few stones’ throws from Martyrs’ Hill is the headquarters of the Royal & Ancient, which was established in 1754 and lays down the rules of golf for all the world except in the USA and Mexico. In a small corner of the ancient ruins of the Cathedral of St. Andrews, golf royalty Old Tom Morris and his son, Young Tom, lay side by side in rest.
This is the Morris’s section of the cemetery at St. Andrews. Off the west wall, left of St. Rule Tower, is where Old and Young Tom are buried.
More than 30 golf shops are scattered across this town of roughly 20,000 year-round residents. There are seven public golf courses controlled by St. Andrews Links, including the New Course next to the Old Course. The New Course, incidentally, opened in 1895. Numerous pubs speak to the game with historic golf paraphernalia, vast collections which can be found at places such as The Dunvegan and Number 1 Golf Place.
And the jewel of the city, and the junction of Links Place and Golf Place, is the Old Course of St. Andrews Links, where some form of the game created in the 12th century has been played across the barren stretch of rumpled turf for hundreds of years – except in the 15th century when the parliaments of three successive Scottish kings prohibited the game.
“The hair on the back of your neck stands up when you are here, no matter where you are in the town,” said two-time Open Championship winner Padraig Harrington. “Everything that has happened here in the town, the game was born here, it’s spine chilling. There is no other place in the world like it.”
Aussie and 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy realized that on his first visit.
“It is the perfect place for a golfer,” he said. “I fell in love with the town before I fell in love with the golf course. At other great golf courses in the world, they might have a nice clubhouse but then you leave. Here at St. Andrews, it’s the town first, and then the course. You leave this course and you walk straight into this magical place.
“The first time I came here in 1993, people were walking the streets with metal spikes. It was just unbelievable to me. For a golf nut like me, it was the perfect place. All the golf shops with old and new equipment. The pubs, the restaurants, the buildings that have been here for centuries. When you’re here it’s hard to not love everything about the game.”
Or as three-time Open champion Tiger Woods put it: “This is as good as it gets.”
St. Andrews and the Old Course are the proper place – the only place, really – for this week’s 150th Open Championship, the oldest tournament in the world; the inaugural was held when Abraham Lincoln was campaigning to become president of the United States.
The celebration of the milestone will be marked by numerous festivities. The tournament is expected to lure record attendance.
“I’ve watched the Open Championships here at St. Andrews, and I don’t think there’s anything more special in golf than playing an Open Championship at the Home of Golf,” 2017 Open champion Jordan Spieth said. “I have vivid memories of the Old Course. It’s one of those courses you play where you don’t really forget much. There’s only a couple of those maybe in the world. I think here and at Augusta National are my two favorite places in the world.
“Playing in the town is so cool. On a daily round day, not in the Open, it’s pretty unbelievable when you have people walking their dogs on the course. It’s just a casual day, a great place to go for a nice walk. There’s nowhere else like it.”
Phil Mickelson, Open champion in 2013, said St. Andrews is a spiritual place.
“You can’t help but feel emotion come over you as you play, knowing that this is where the game began,” he said.
That’s one of the things that gets to Adam Scott.
“This is where it all began,” he said. “And generally Scotland has embraced everything about the origins of the game and St. Andrews, the town itself is pretty special. It’s a really fun, fun town. And you can feel the history.
“There are so many things about the golf course that are unique. But everyone loves playing it. It has some features that are hard, or almost impossible to replicate and not be criticized. It all works really well here.”
The Old Course is home to a puzzling collection: 14 holes share greens, some of the double fairways are 100 yards wide, there are 112 bunkers (by all means stay out of the ones called Strath, Hell, Spectacles, Principal’s Nose and the Road Hole bunker, which is located on the par-4 17th where a gravel road runs against the back edge of the putting surface and is in play. And there’s the deep depression fronting the 18th green called the Valley of Sin.
Tiger Woods chips onto the green on the road hole during his third round on day three of the British Open at St Andrews in Scotland, on July 17, 2010. (Photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)
Legend holds that many of the pot bunkers were carved out of the Earth by animals seeking shelter from harsh winters — and even summers.
The roster of winners in St. Andrews includes Jack Nicklaus (twice), Woods (twice), Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Bobby Locke, Peter Thomson, Sam Snead, Bobby Jones and James Braid.
Nicklaus played the Open in St. Andrews eight times, the final in 2005.
“When I came here in 1964, I couldn’t believe that St. Andrews was a golf course that would test golfers of that time. Now, that’s, what, 60 years ago? It still tests the golfers at this time. It’s a magical golf course.
“The conditions, the weather, where you actually choose to put the pins, whether the golf course gets dry, whether the golf course gets wet, all those things that make St. Andrews a magical place.
“The game of golf essentially started here, and it just absolutely is mind-boggling to me that it still stands up to the golfers of today.”
On Tuesday, in a special ceremony, Nicklaus will be honored as an honorary citizen of St. Andrews. Only two other Americans have been so recognized – Bobby Jones and Benjamin Franklin.
Jack Nicklaus weighed in on Greg Norman’s role with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf.
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman are going to have to agree to disagree on the state of men’s professional golf.
When asked to comment on the R&A’s decision to not invite Norman, a two-time winner of the Claret Jug in 1986 and 1993, to the Celebration of Champions and the Champions’ Dinner and golf exhibition to be played on Monday, Nicklaus at first demurred.
“I don’t know much about it, to be honest with you,” Nicklaus said.
But eventually he weighed in on Norman’s role with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, which continues to make waves in the world of golf.
“Let me just sum this up with a couple of words,” Nicklaus said. “First of all, Greg Norman is an icon in the game of golf. He’s a great player. We’ve been friends for a long time, and regardless of what happens, he’s going to remain a friend. Unfortunately, he and I just don’t see eye to eye in what’s going on. I’ll basically leave it at that.”
The R&A released a statement over the weekend that read: “The 150th Open is an extremely important milestone for golf and we want to ensure that the focus remains on celebrating the championship and its heritage. Unfortunately, we do not believe that would be the case if Greg were to attend. We hope that when circumstances allow Greg will be able to attend again in future.”
“The replica is beautiful, but it’s not the same. It really isn’t. It will never be.”
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Collin Morikawa’s possession of the Claret Jug came to an end Monday morning.
It was not an easy separation.
“It sucked. It really did,” Morikawa said in his pre-tournament meeting with the media Monday at the Old Course, home to the 150th Open Championship. “I woke up this morning and looked at it. The replica is beautiful, but it’s not the same. It really isn’t. It will never be.
“But I don’t want to dwell on the past. I think I’ve talked about that early on in my career. I always look forward to what’s next. Maybe hopefully just giving it back kind of frees me up and allows me just to focus on winning this week.”
In his first start in the Open Championship, Morikawa held off Jordan Spieth and Louis Oosthuizen to win the Claret Jug last year at Royal St. George’s (Morikawa also won the PGA Championship in 2020 at TPC Harding Park in his first start).
Morikawa is making his first start at the Old Course, the rumpled, flat grounds nestled in the city. The Home of Golf was love at first sight for Morikawa.
“I can see why guys love it,” he said. “I can see how special this week can be. I can see how the course can play a million different ways, depending on the weather.
“Looks like we’re going to get some pretty consistent weather and some wind patterns this week. I think overall you’ve just got to be ready to play some good golf because you’re going to get some good bounces and probably some bad ones.”
Morikawa, ranked No. 8 in the Official World Golf Ranking, has not won in 2022. Trying to reclaim the Claret Jug might be the final push to victory.
“Now that I know what it’s like to have the Claret Jug for a year, there’s nothing like it. It’s a really special year,” he said. “Even though you won that tournament a year ago, it’s going to be in your history for the rest of your life. And it’s pretty cool. I think trying to defend this week at the 150th at St Andrews would be even more special.”
Check out the best photos of Tiger Woods at the 2022 Open Championship in St. Andrews, Scotland.
Tiger Woods arrived to the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland on Saturday afternoon to begin preparations ahead of the 150th Open Championship.
It’s a return to the place where Woods has won two Open titles, in 2000 and 2005. His 2000 triumph helped him become the fifth golfer in history — and youngest ever — to complete the career grand slam.
Woods has made the cut in both events he has played this year, the Masters and PGA Championship, though he withdrew following the third round at Southern Hills in the latter when he looked uncomfortable for most of the round.
He returned to the public eye last week for the JP McManus Pro-Am in Ireland.
Take a scroll through some of the images from Woods’ practice rounds leading up to the 150th Open Championship at the home of golf.
It’s been a rough stretch for Daniel Berger, who has been working through some medical issues.
It’s been a rough stretch for Daniel Berger, who has been working through some back issues.
The four-time PGA Tour winner and member of the victorious 2021 U.S. Ryder Cup team pulled out of the John Deere Classic last week in an attempt to be ready for the upcoming 150th British Open Championship at St. Andrews.
On Friday, it was announced Berger has pulled out of that field in Scotland as well. He will be replaced in the Open by Sahith Theegala, who is currently No. 62 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
Berger withdrew from the Vidanta Mexico Open in May before the event and also pulled out of his title defense in February at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. At the time, he said he was dealing with a joint sprain in his lower back. He told PGA Tour.com that earlier this year he suffered a sacroiliac joint sprain in the part of the body that links the lower spine to the pelvis and played through it at Torrey Pines during the Farmers Insurance Open.
Berger, who has slipped to 25th in the world, has played well when he’s been fit enough to finish a tournament, placing T-5 at the Memorial and in the top 25 at the Charles Schwab Challenge. He did, however, fail to make the cut at the U.S. Open at the Country Club of Brookline.
