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      Cameron Smith Overtakes Rory McIlroy to Win the 150th British Open

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      The Australian turned in a brilliant final round on the Old Course at St. Andrews to finish at 20 under par and capture his first major championship.ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — The wind, what little there was of it, finally seemed to be blowing Rory McIlroy’s way again at a major championship.He had a share of a four-shot lead with one round to go, and though he was not quite playing at home in the home of golf, McIlroy, a Northern Irishman, certainly must have felt as if he was playing on his terms and on his turf as he basked in the roars of the record crowd and walked his jaunty walk over the undulating fairways and double greens of the Old Course.McIlroy, at 33, has both charisma and game, with an elastic swing that provides him the sort of power usually associated with more muscular men and allows him to pound drives to faraway places.But the 150th British Open would come down to deft touch, not overwhelming force, and though McIlroy certainly did not choke away his chance to make history, he hardly seized the big moment by the lapels and shook it for all it was worth.That was left to Cameron Smith and his putter.Smith, an Australian with a wispy mustache and mullet, has a retro air, and though blazers and ties are the rule at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, Smith still fit right in at the Old Course, holing birdie after birdie after birdie after birdie after birdie (yes, five in a row) on the back nine despite the pressure that goes with trying to win one’s first major.Smith, a 28-year-old from Brisbane in steamy Queensland, would make eight birdies in all on Sunday, shooting a brilliant, bogey-free closing round of 64 that put him at 20 under par and gave him a one-stroke victory over the American Cameron Young. McIlroy finished in third place, one more stroke behind, after shooting 70 on Sunday and producing par after par but no fireworks on the back nine.“The putter just went a little cold today compared to the last three days,” McIlroy said.Smith had no such difficulties, and he is the first Australian to win the British Open since Greg Norman in 1993 and the first Australian man to win any major since Jason Day won the P.G.A. Championship in 2015.Smith also maintained his nation’s tradition of winning special anniversary editions of the Open Championship at St. Andrews. The Australian Kel Nagle won here in 1960 on the 100th anniversary of the tournament.“That’s pretty cool; I didn’t know that,” Smith said. “I think to win an Open Championship in itself is probably going to be a golfer’s highlight in their career. To do it around St. Andrews, I think, is just unbelievable. This place is so cool. I love the golf course. I love the town. Hopefully we can keep that trend going with the every 50 years. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”The victory was also, at first glance, a reaffirming moment for the traditional tours in their increasingly contentious rivalry with the breakaway, Saudi-backed LIV Golf series, which has used big checks and lighter workloads to lure major stars like Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson, all of whom have since been barred from competing on the PGA Tour but, for now, are still able to play the majors.The closest a defector came to victory at the Old Course was Johnson, who finished in a tie for sixth at 13 under. But Smith was hardly reassuring when asked about rumors that he was considering a jump to LIV. “I just won the British Open, and you’re asking about that?” he said, visibly uncomfortable, saying the line of inquiry was “not that good.”The reporter persisted, and Smith neither confirmed nor denied his interest in the new tour, which is headed by Norman, a fellow Australian. “I don’t know, mate,” Smith said. “My team around me worries about all that stuff. I’m here to win golf tournaments.”Peter Morrison/Associated PressSmith, if he does jump, is certainly in a stronger bargaining position after his week at St. Andrews, and he showed much more precision than emotion during his final-round surge that began on No. 10 when he made the first of his five consecutive birdies and began to reel in McIlroy and Viktor Hovland, who were the co-leaders after the third round.But Smith has learned some hard lessons at the majors with four top-five finishes, including a tie for third at the 2022 Masters and a tie for second there in 2020. “I’ve definitely kicked myself a couple of times over the last few years,” he said.He won the Players Championship in March, his second PGA Tour victory this season, also making a string of final-round birdies on the back nine. The Players, with its elite field and rich purse, has often been labeled the next best thing to a major, but the Open Championship is the real deal, and though the Old Course is far from the most difficult test on the rotation, it retains its power to inspire.Smith’s 20-under-par total score of 268 set a record for a British Open at St. Andrews, surpassing Tiger Woods’s score of 19 under when he won the Open here in 2000.Woods, then in his prime, won by eight strokes, turning the final round into a processional. But Smith’s victory went to the wire. He led the tournament after two rounds, but then fell four shots off the lead with a one-over 73 on Saturday, a round that included a double bogey on the par-4 13th when he went for an ill-advised second shot from the edge of a bunker.By Saturday night, McIlroy had the momentum, sharing the lead with Hovland, a former collegiate star at Oklahoma State who taught himself the rudiments of the game by watching YouTube videos and was trying to become the first Norwegian to win a major.Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland after putting on the 13th green. He let his lead slip away.Warren Little/Getty Images“You were born for this Rory! Come on!” shouted one Scottish fan as McIlroy headed for the 10th tee on Sunday.McIlroy won the 2014 British Open at Royal Liverpool and added a fourth major at the P.G.A. Championship later that season. He seemed set for a long run of dominance, but missed the British Open the next year, the most recent one to be contested at St. Andrews, because of an injury, and has faced years of final-round disappointments.Eight years later, the chase for the next major continues even though he finished in the top 10 in all four majors this season.“I’ll rue a few missed sort of putts that slid by, but it’s been a good week overall,” he said. “I can’t be too despondent because of how this year’s went and this year’s going. I’m playing some of the best golf I’ve played in a long time. So it’s just a matter of keep knocking on the door and eventually one will open.”This one opened for Smith instead. “Look, I got beaten by a better player this week,” McIlroy said. “Twenty under par for four rounds of golf around here is really, really impressive playing, especially to go out and shoot 64 today to get it done.”To get it done, Smith had to recover from a shaky second shot at the infamous Road Hole, the par-4 17th that played tougher than any hole on the course this year. But Smith produced a beautifully weighted putt uphill from off the green that left him with a 10-foot putt to save par. He made it and headed to the 18th hole, where Young, his playing partner, finished with an eagle that put him very briefly in a tie for the lead with Smith, at 19 under.Smith teeing off on the sixth hole on Sunday. He drew a crowd as he climbed the leaderboard.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesBut Smith had already put his second shot on the par-4 18th just two feet from the hole.“Cameron was not going to miss that,” said Young, who had watched Smith drain so many pressure putts throughout the overcast afternoon.Young knew his man. Smith calmly positioned himself and stroked the ball into the cup to retake the lead at 20 under.The last chance for McIlroy to force a playoff was to make an eagle on 18, which Young had just proven was drivable. But McIlroy’s tee shot, like his round, came up short, and when he failed to hole his second shot, Smith was the British Open champion with his name engraved — in a hurry — on the claret jug.“All the hard work we’ve done the last couple years is really starting to pay off,” Smith said to his team, with the trophy in his grip and the tears starting to come. “And this one definitely makes it worth it.”But Smith, after composing himself, made it clear that he intended to put the claret jug to good use, although not at the moment for claret.“I’m definitely going to find out how many beers fit in this thing, that’s for sure,” he said. More

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      Rory McIlroy Has a Big Day at the British Open. Viktor Hovland Follows.

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      McIlroy leapfrogged to the top of the leaderboard with a stunning bunker shot on No. 10 for eagle. He and Hovland were tied heading into the final round on Sunday.ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Standing in one of the Old Course’s 112 bunkers on Saturday, Rory McIlroy was about to be right where he wanted to be: atop the leaderboard of the British Open.His drive on the 10th hole had landed in trouble but not deep trouble, coming to a stop in the middle of the sand trap that defends the front of the green.McIlroy had room to swing freely, and his second shot flew over the lip of the bunker, bounced three times and then rolled a few more feet into the cup for eagle.The 27-yard masterstroke gave McIlroy a one-shot lead over Viktor Hovland, his playing partner.“It was skill to get it somewhere close,” McIlroy said. “But it was luck that it went in the hole. You need a little bit of luck every now and again, especially in these big tournaments. And that was a nice bonus.”It was the sort of pleasant surprise that can make the difference between winning or losing a major championship, and Hovland got a bonus of his own on Friday when he holed out from the rough from 139 yards for eagle on the par-4 15th.But Hovland, a 24-year-old Norwegian who excelled at Oklahoma State before turning professional in 2019, did not let McIlroy enjoy the lead alone for long. He quickly reeled McIlroy in with a birdie on the 10th that put them both at 15-under par, and they then dueled down the back nine of major golf’s most historic course.McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, was certainly the crowd favorite, but Hovland, a dynamic presence, did not shrink from the challenge. They finished with matching rounds of 66 and a share of the lead at 16-under par that put them four shots clear of the chase pack led by the American Cameron Young and the Australian Cameron Smith, who are both at 12-under heading into Sunday.Of the top four men on the leaderboard, only McIlroy, 33, is already a major champion, but the most recent of his four victories came in 2014 when he won the British Open at Royal Liverpool.Since then, he has experienced plenty of disappointing Sundays.“Nothing’s given to you, and I have to go out there and earn it, just like I’ve earned everything else in my career,” he said.Other major champions are also in range. Scottie Scheffler, the American who won the Masters in April and is ranked No. 1 in the world, is at 11-under, tied with Kim Si-woo of South Korea. Dustin Johnson, a two-time major winner from the United States who recently jumped to the breakaway LIV Golf series, is alone at 10-under after a mood-swinging 71 on Saturday.Matt Fitzpatrick, the Englishman who won this year’s U.S. Open, is at 9-under with Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, and Tommy Fleetwood.But if McIlroy and Hovland continue to sparkle under pressure like they did on Saturday, they may not allow the pack much opportunity to close the gap.“There’s a lot of things that can happen,” Hovland said. “In these conditions and these pin placements, you can play fine and shoot around even-par, and then that brings a lot of other guys in, as well.”The weather is forecast to remain relatively benign on Sunday, with moderate winds and temperatures in the mid-70s. That could mean more of the low scores that have been the rule at St. Andrews in this 150th edition of the Open Championship.McIlroy, right, and Hovland sparkled under pressure on Saturday.Robert Perry/EPA, via ShutterstockSeveral players put on quite a show on Saturday, including Shane Lowry, who chipped in for consecutive eagles on 9 and 10; and Kevin Kisner, who barely made the cut but had the best round of the day: a 7-under-par 65 that put him into a tie for 13th place.“It’s just a fun place to stroll around and play golf, and when the putts are going in, it makes it even more enjoyable,” Kisner said.That seemed an apt summation of a good day on many a golf course, but success on the Old Course continues to have particular cachet even when the world’s best golfers are having their way with it.McIlroy is well aware of what winning on Sunday would mean to him and his public — perhaps too aware.“I love that I have got so much support,” he said. “But at the same time I need to sort of just stay in my own little world tomorrow and just play a good round of golf and hopefully that’s enough.”It was not quite enough to shake free of Hovland in the third round. Both started the day at 10-under and in the penultimate group, ahead of second-round leader Smith and first-round leader Young.Hovland set a torrid pace early, making four straight birdies, beginning with a 38-foot birdie putt on 3 and a 42-foot birdie putt on 4. But McIlroy made birdies of his own on Nos. 5, 6 and 9 before his eagle from the sand on No. 10 and another birdie on No. 15 that gave him back the outright lead.But he could not hold it as Hovland outscrambled him at the 17th, making par while McIlroy had to settle for bogey.Hovland, left, and McIlroy, tee off at 9:50 a.m. Eastern on Sunday.Russell Cheyne/ReutersAt 18, they finished the memorable round as they had begun it, tied and in buoyant spirits.“We sort of fed off each other and navigated the last few holes well,” McIlroy said.This was pure competition, but no grim-faced tussle. There were fist bumps and smiles and plenty of chatter through much of the round.“Talked about a whole bunch of stuff,” McIlroy said. “Talked about footwear. Talked about what he did the last couple of weeks. He went back home to Norway. He’s going back to Norway after this. Just kept it nice and loose.”McIlroy might be nine years older, but he and Hovland developed a good rapport after playing (and losing) on the same Ryder Cup squad for Europe last year. But though they will be back together on Sunday, they are no longer teammates.McIlroy is trying to end an eight-year major drought by prevailing at the ultimate Open venue. Hovland is trying to become the first Norwegian man to win a major.“It’s pretty crazy from where I grew up,” Hovland said. “I have to pinch myself, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to hold back tomorrow.” More

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      Could a Scot Please Win the British Open One Day? Is That Too Much to Ask?

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      The last golfer from Scotland to win the British Open was Paul Lawrie in 1999 at Carnoustie, and his victory was somewhat of a fluke.ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — They were having fun, perhaps too much fun, on the Old Course on Saturday at the British Open.With the wind and weather mild and Rory McIlroy and many more of the world’s best golfers in town, under par felt more like par during this rollicking third round brimming with birdies, clenched fists and big grins in the direction of the grandstands and fans packed behind the ropes.But local knowledge, as usual, seemed to count for little at the only men’s golf major played on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.St. Andrews, full of old stones and bones, has staged more Open Championships than any other course, but a Scottish golfer will once again not be winning it.Only three Scots were in the 156-player field, which was actually a threefold improvement over last year’s British Open at Royal St. George’s, when only one Scotsman, Robert MacIntyre, took part.That was a historic low in an event with a surplus of history. This is the 150th edition of a tournament that was first played in 1860 at Prestwick Golf Club on Scotland’s west coast. All 13 competitors were Scots that year, and until the early 20th century a majority of the participants in the Open continued to be Scots, along with quite a few naturalized Americans from Scotland.But no Scot, exported or domestic, has won the Open or any major men’s tournament since Paul Lawrie in 1999 at Carnoustie, and Lawrie’s victory, with all due respect to a fine player, was a minor miracle.Then ranked 241st in the world, Lawrie trailed by 10 shots heading into the final round and only made it into the decisive playoff because of one of the sport’s most excruciating (and memorable) meltdowns as the French golfer Jean Van de Velde blew a three-stroke lead on what really should have been the final hole.Scotland continues to wait in vain for a second lightning strike at the Open, and the two Scots who did make the cut at St. Andrews this year — MacIntyre and David Law — will not be the ones to provide it.Both are more than 12 shots off the torrid pace set by McIlroy and Viktor Hovland, who shared the lead at 16 under par heading into Sunday’s final round and who dueled from start to finish on Saturday. Both shot 66, although McIlroy had the shot of the day, holing from a bunker for eagle on the 10th hole.Robert MacIntyre of Scotland called the atmosphere at the Old Course “absolutely brilliant.”Phil Noble/ReutersMacIntyre, a promising 25-year-old from Oban who shot a 69 on Friday, found himself having to turn away from the 16th fairway at one stage during his round because there was so much commotion and emotion.“The fan support is absolutely brilliant, but I was feeling it,” he said. “There’s so many people supporting me, and it means so much to me.”“I wasn’t going to let them down,” he continued. “But I was trying almost too hard.”That has certainly been an obstacle for the Scots at home through the years. But in truth, the Scottish drought has gone on for too long to be considered a drought. Of the 33 Scottish men to win a major, only two have done so since World War II: Lawrie and Sandy Lyle, who won the 1985 British Open and the 1988 Masters.Demographics are an obstacle. Scotland, with 5.5 million people, has a much smaller talent pool than England, with its 56 million people, including Nick Faldo, who won six majors in the 1980s and 1990s, and Matt Fitzpatrick, who won this year’s U.S. Open. But Scotland has about three times as many inhabitants as Northern Ireland, which has produced three major champions in the past 12 years: Graeme McDowell, Darren Clarke and McIlroy.Bernard Gallacher, 73, a longtime European Ryder Cup player and a captain from Scotland, makes the good point that Scotland’s many great links courses are not the ideal places to grow champions.“It’s not a great training ground for great golfers to play on a seaside course every day,” Gallacher said on Saturday. “I know the wind is benign this week, but normally there’s a strong wind blowing and it’s not great developmentally to be playing your golf in strong winds all the time. So that’s why the really top golfers usually come from courses where they can develop their swings, like parkland golf courses in the U.K. Even Rory, who comes from Northern Ireland, was not brought up on a seaside course. His golf course, Holywood, is inland.”And though McIlroy did not do this, Gallacher believes Scottish golfers need to follow the prevailing winds by playing collegiate golf in the United States. “We just don’t have that system over here,” he said. “In my view, Scottish golfers stay at home too much. We have to break our way of thinking a bit.”David Law of Scotland teeing off on the fourth hole during the third round on Saturday.Warren Little/Getty ImagesLaw, a 31-year-old father of two from up the coast in Aberdeen, is making his first major championship appearance.“I’ve probably played the Old Course eight to 10 times, and first played it when I was 18,” he said. “But even if I played it 100 times, I’m sure I’d still get goose bumps.”Ranked 351st, Law has long been mentored by Lawrie, who is deeply involved in developing young Scottish talents and who hit the first tee shot here in recognition of past glories but never came close to making the cut at age 53.Lawrie is not the greatest Scottish player of the modern era. There is Lyle, as well as Colin Montgomerie, who could never quite win a major but was the longtime leader for the European Tour and European Ryder Cup team.But Lawrie is the only still-active Scottish major champion, and he may not play the Open again.“I will wait and see how I feel next year, but right now, it’s no,” Lawrie said. “I always said I wouldn’t ever take a spot if I didn’t feel as though I could certainly play OK and play four rounds.”Law struggled plenty himself in his third round on Saturday, shooting a 5-over-par 77 to drop to two over par for the tournament.“It’s not a regular tournament, but we’ve tried to make it as normal as we can,” he said earlier in the week. “I’m not just here to soak it all in.”There is, of course, plenty to absorb. St. Andrews not only has the R&A World Golf Museum, which sits just across the street from the Old Course. It is an open-air golf museum, as well, one where the American accents often outnumber the Scottish ones in the stores, pro shops and cobbled alleyways.Business and real estate are booming again after the pandemic lockdowns, and The Times of London reported this week that properties near the Old Course’s iconic 18th green are selling for up to 2,500 pounds (about $3,000) a square foot, that housing prices in St. Andrews are up 23 percent in the past year and that about 50 percent of the buyers in central St. Andrews are from abroad.It is not just the golf: St. Andrews University remains one of the most prestigious in Britain, with alumni that include John Knox, Thomas Bruce and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (better known as William and Kate). But golf certainly is at the core of the enduring attraction, and the shops on Golf Place, a road that borders the Old Course, are filled with golf trinkets and memorabilia, much of which feature Scottish golfers like James Braid, who won the Open five times in the early 1900s.Would a present-day Scottish champion really provide much of a boost in the marketing or the bottom line?“It might make a bit of difference, but being in St. Andrews, I’m not sure it would make a huge difference,” said Hamish Steedman, chairman of the St. Andrews Golf Co., which continues to manufacture traditional hickory clubs as well as the modern, metal versions. “Our visitors and customers come from all over.”They are back en masse now that travel restrictions have been lifted, and after the 2020 Open Championship was canceled, the international golfers are back in force, as well. The leaderboard on Saturday night was a mix of Europeans, Americans, Asians and Australians.What was missing were the locals. 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      At the British Open, It’s the PGA Tour Faithful Against LIV Golf

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      “Everybody, it feels like, is against us, and that’s OK,” said Talor Gooch, a LIV golfer tied for eighth at seven under after the second round. Cameron Smith held the lead at 13 under par.ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Tiger Woods was finishing up at the Old Course on Friday, perhaps for good, and Rory McIlroy was just getting started.As they exchanged understanding glances and walked in opposite directions on parallel paths — Woods on the 18th hole, McIlroy on the first — it felt like a passing of the torch. But perhaps a passing of the lightsaber was more in order as McIlroy headed out to lead the charge against the dark side at this 150th British Open.That overstates it, of course. This is only golf, after all, and golf in a fine place, particularly in the clear and clement conditions that prevailed again for most of the afternoon, with banks of cumulus clouds standing watch over the greens and browning fairways of golf’s ancestral home.It was quite a panorama, as it has been for centuries, but the sport’s landscape is changing quickly, with new allies and enmities being created over the breakaway, mega-money LIV Golf Invitational series.Just a few months ago, there were only golfers. Now, there are golfers and LIV golfers, and though today’s rebels have a habit of becoming tomorrow’s establishment, for now the rebels are wearing the black hats because of their tour’s Saudi Arabian backing and the sense that they are grabbing the easy money no matter how uneasy it makes everyone feel.“Everybody, it feels like, is against us, and that’s OK,” said Talor Gooch, a LIV golfer who is tied for eighth at seven under par heading into Saturday’s third round. “It’s kind of banded us together, I think.”The bonding works both ways on and off the course. At the Dunvegan Hotel, the popular St. Andrews pub near the 18th hole, patrons were often booing LIV golfers on Friday when they appeared on the television coverage of the Open.There were plenty of them to jeer on the early leaderboard, and when McIlroy doffed his cap at Woods on the first hole and sallied forth, Dustin Johnson, the former No. 1 and highest-ranked LIV player, was the rebel in charge.The LIV golfer Dustin Johnson playing out of the rough on the fourth fairway Friday.Alastair Grant/Associated PressBut by the end of the second round, Johnson, at nine under par, had been reeled in by the PGA Tour (at least until the next round of defections).Cameron Smith, Australia’s top player, was on top at 13 under, followed by Cameron Young, the first-round leader from the United States, at 11 under. Tied for third at 10 under were McIlroy and Viktor Hovland of Norway who made the shot of the day by holing out from the rough from about 140 yards for eagle on the par-4 15th hole.“I was a little concerned it was going to go too far right,” he said. “But it straightened out and somehow landed on that side slope softly and just trickled in. That was unbelievable.”By such fine margins and lucky breaks are major championships won, but there will be plenty more unexpected bounces on the undulating and increasingly unforgiving fairways of the Old Course.“We had that on-and-off rain this morning, I think, which slowed us up just a touch,” said Smith, who had a middle-of-the-pack start time on Friday. “We were able to hit some shots that we weren’t able to hit yesterday, but I still think it’s going to get really firm and fast. This course bakes out so quickly. It’s going to be a challenge, for sure.”And yet Woods’s record winning score at St. Andrews of 19 under par in 2000 certainly looks under threat. He will not be the one to challenge it after shooting nine over par for two rounds and missing the cut, just as he missed it in 2015 in the most recent Open Championship at St. Andrews.But Friday was much more bittersweet: bitter because Woods at this diminished stage is nowhere near the player he once was in Scotland and beyond; sweet because he could sense the compassion and appreciation from the crowd and his colleagues.“As I walked further along the fairway, I saw Rory right there,” he said of the 18th hole. “He gave me the tip of the cap. It was pretty cool, the nods I was getting from the guys as they were going out and I was coming in, just the respect. And from a players’ fraternity level, it’s neat to see that and feel that.”Tiger Woods acknowledging fans as he crosses Swilcan Bridge on the 18th hole Friday.Paul Childs/ReutersMcIlroy, 33, grasped the symbolism but would have preferred another scenario as he embarked on what turned out to be a round of 68.“It would have been a cool moment if he was eight under par instead of eight over or whatever he was,” McIlroy said. “I just hope, everyone hopes, it’s not the end of his Old Course career. I think he deserves and we deserve for him to have another crack at it.”Woods, often grim and tight-lipped after poor performances, was expansive and forthcoming on Friday. After playing only to win for most of his career, it seemed that simply participating was enough for peace of mind after the car crash that severely damaged his right leg 17 months ago.“I’ve gotten pretty close to Tiger over these last few years,” said McIlroy, a Northern Irishman based near Woods in the golfing enclave of Jupiter, Fla. “I think we’ve all sort of rallied around him down there in Jupiter, and we all want to see him do well. He was all our hero growing up, even though I’m maybe a touch older than some of the other guys. We want to see him still out there competing, and this week was obviously a tough week for him, but we’re all behind him.”Woods said he had no immediate plans to compete again and was not sure that if and when he did return that he would be able to play a fuller schedule. In this minimalist comeback, he played in three majors and only three majors, beginning with the Masters in April.“I understand being more battle hardened, but it’s just hard to walk and play 18 holes,” Woods said. “People have no idea what I have to go through, and the hours of work on the body, pre and post, each and every single day to do what I just did. That’s what people don’t understand.”He was hardly the only golf luminary to fall short at the Old Course. Collin Morikawa, the reigning British Open champion, missed the cut by a stroke after failing to keep pace with McIlroy in their group and finishing at one over par.Louis Oosthuizen, the South African who won an Open at St. Andrews in 2010, will also miss the weekend. So will Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka, fellow members of the LIV tour and former major champions.The cards and stars have been reshuffled in a hurry, and no one knows how the game or this historic Open Championship will turn out. But what is clear is that if the final holes on Sunday come down to, say, Johnson versus McIlroy for the claret jug, it will not be perceived inside or outside the game as simply Johnson versus McIlroy.May the force be with them. More

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      Tiger Woods Misses British Open Cut

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      Tiger Woods missed the cut at the British Open, ending, he knows, what might have been his last competitive tournament on his favorite course.ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — The roars at last ebbed when Tiger Woods reached his ball, if only because everyone knew the clamor could start again soon enough.Woods was, perhaps for the last time as a British Open competitor, on No. 18 on the Old Course at St. Andrews. He had sealed two triumphs here, completed the career Grand Slam here, dreamed for years of being here.And now, following a tee shot beneath a familiarly granite Scottish sky, Woods knew it might be over, for good, in minutes.The cheers rumbled down from the grandstands, and not just the ones along No. 18, as ferociously as they did when Woods tipped his cap on the Swilcan Bridge a few minutes past 3 p.m. He had rubbed his eyes on the walk, tipped his cap some more, and then, at last, the spectators and even the sea gulls fell silent.It would take him three more strokes to finish the hole at par, almost — and only almost — as if he wanted just one more moment at St. Andrews instead of one more birdie. The roars began again, as if he had won a fourth Open.But he had not. At nine over par after two rounds, 17 months after the car wreck in California that nearly claimed his right leg, he missed the cut. His ritual Sunday-round red outfit would stay packed away this time, and maybe forever, from St. Andrews.“I don’t know if I’ll be physically able to play another British Open here at St. Andrews,” Woods said afterward. “I certainly feel that I’ll be able to play more British Opens, but I don’t know if I’ll be around when it comes back around here. So the warmth and the ovation at 18, it got to me.”He had seen and heard Open careers in twilight at St. Andrews. In 1995, when he was 19, headed toward the practice range and lacking any of the 15 majors he would go on to win, he saw Arnold Palmer hit a tee shot. A decade later, the noise that followed Jack Nicklaus pealed across the relatively flat confines of the world’s oldest course.It is no certainty that Friday was Woods’s final Open at St. Andrews, but it will be years before it returns to the Old Course, and Woods, broken down and rebuilt so many times over the decades, is 46. He has not committed to any tournaments for next year and said again that he had craved being at this particular Open, the 150th and the latest at St. Andrews, his favorite course.He could return, perhaps with his son, for a round on the Old Course. (“I’m able to get a tee time,” he said with a grin.) But all week long, the prospects of a Woods retirement seemed better than a Woods vow, or simply an audible aspiration, to be back in a St. Andrews field.So an even bigger thicket of spectators, probably 20-deep or more in some pockets, than usual trailed him since his start on Friday morning.“That counts as watching Tiger take a shot,” one man said as Woods merely walked past him on the 16th fairway.“Tiger, you’d better make this,” one woman said before a putt on that hole.“Oh, my God,” she piped up again after he missed.“St. Andrews loves you, Tiger!” shouted someone else.The spectators did, even if Woods’s final score suggested otherwise.His outing on Friday, a three-over-par 75, was better than Thursday’s, when he finished at six over and 14 shots off the lead. Over the two days of competition, he never quite connected with the St. Andrews greens, those vast expanses he had so dominated, with one putt after the next slowing down and then stopping too short. On Thursday, he started with a tee shot into a divot.At nine over par after two rounds, 17 months after the car wreck in California that nearly claimed his right leg, Woods missed the cut.Andrew Boyers/ReutersAnd so, by the time Woods entered the tee box at No. 18, the first in his group to arrive, any aspirations of another claret jug, even another made cut, had evaporated. Yet he was not, he would say later, thinking about anything beyond club selection: 3-wood or 5-wood.He opted for chipping with the former. He left the tee and sensed that Matt Fitzpatrick, who later confessed to goose bumps, and Max Homa had paused. He wondered where his caddie, Joe LaCava, was but soon saw he trailed behind.“That’s when I started thinking about, the next time it comes around here I might not be around,” Woods said. The tears did not come immediately, but there was Rory McIlroy tipping his cap, the players at the first tee fated to see Woods in his own twilight, maybe, at St. Andrews.Eventually, the men in Game No. 46, including a P.G.A. Championship winner and an Open victor, walked on because they had to.They kept looking back, though. Woods peered ahead, looking, at least one last time, for the 18th cup. More

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      Who Engraves the British Open’s Claret Jug on Sunday?

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      ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — The good news for Garry Harvey is that almost no one in this year’s British Open field has a name quite as long as Severiano Ballesteros — Spanish master of the short game, three-time Open champion and unwitting menace to a man with minutes to engrave one of golf’s most sacred trophies.Harvey will face a foreboding stretch on Sunday anyway. Like his father, Alex, who was tasked with etching Ballesteros into history on deadline, he will have perhaps 10 minutes to add Rory McIlroy (11 letters) or Scottie Scheffler (16 letters) or someone else entirely to the claret jug.He will fret over spelling. He will fuss over spacing. For engraving efficiency as much as national pride, he would not have minded if the Scot Paul Lawrie had won again. But he began engraving when he was 14, has handled claret jug duties since Tony Blair was prime minister and has a large enough reservoir of on-demand tranquility that he played in the 1979 Open, one of three that Ballesteros won, forcing Alex Harvey to add the Spaniard’s name to the jug instead of his son’s.“When I get nervous, I remember what my father looked like and taught me,” Garry Harvey, 67 and soft-spoken, said along the Old Course at St. Andrews, the site of the 150th Open. “When I’m under pressure, I think about the old man, and then I just do it.”Harvey works with a tool he believes is at least a century old.Alastair Grant/Associated PressAnd so a letter, Harvey said, might take him eight seconds to add to a band on the jug’s base.Generations of Open winners handled the engraving of the jug, which is formally known as the Golf Champion Trophy. But after Roberto De Vicenzo, the 1967 victor at Royal Liverpool, failed to do so, the R&A, the Open’s organizer, took control and turned to Alex Harvey. Garry Harvey, born months after Peter Thomson won the first of his five Opens, began his engraving education around then.At the same time, he was emerging as one of Britain’s best young golfers, finishing as the runner-up at the boys’ amateur championship in 1971 and winning the following year. He put his own name on the trophy in the most literal sense, too.Other golf achievements followed, including a victory at the 1985 Kenya Open and a berth in an Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes, where he finished in a tie for 139th. All the while, Alex Harvey’s hands were evolving into a fixture of television coverage of the Open.Garry Harvey would often accompany his father, scrutinizing his patience and practices. Alex Harvey did not, for example, start adding Jean van de Velde’s name when he arrived at No. 18 at Carnoustie in 1999 with the three-shot lead that he soon squandered. He always waited for word from the leader of the R&A that the score was final.Now Garry Harvey, whose father died in 2008, a few years after retiring, has been around the Open so long that he cannot remember exactly whose name he was first charged with engraving.Alex Harvey, Garry’s father, engraving the jug in 1993.Phil Sheldon/Popperfoto via Getty ImagesEven if the current craftsman typically prefers to work in the background, the ritual is seen as an element of the Open’s charm. Tom Watson, whose eight major victories include five British Open wins, said that rapid engraving had grown to become “part of the whole fabric of the Open Championship.”“It really doesn’t matter whether your name is on the trophy or not, honestly — you have the trophy in hand and you get to see that beautiful claret jug — but it’s a perk,” Watson, one of the first winners to raise a freshly updated trophy, said on Friday. “It’s a great perk.”In turn, Harvey has a well-settled practice for the final round, preparing certain parts of the engraving, like the tournament’s site and year, in advance. But he also avoids venturing onto the course on Sunday, rife with hazards — crowds, nerves, fall risks — that could conspire to keep him from being at his position when the minute comes. He mutes the television, uninterested in the commentary about his hands, and does not care for the clicks of a still camera’s shutter. He hopes a floorboard does not shake and interrupt his rhythm and concentration as he works with a tool he believes is at least a century old.“There are all types of things that can go wrong, but the spelling’s important,” he said. “You don’t want to slip, and that can’t happen.” (“The spelling of Padraig, you’ve got to be very careful with that one,” he said, referring to Padraig Harrington, the Irish golfer whose name he has twice added to the jug.)“It really doesn’t matter whether your name is on the trophy or not, honestly — you have the trophy in hand and you get to see that beautiful claret jug — but it’s a perk,” Tom Watson said.Paul Childs/Action Images Via ReutersThe Open gig, of course, is a fraction of his work, which often brings other sports trophies and medals to his work area, whether it is at St. Andrews or closer to his home in Crook of Devon, a village about an hour’s drive from the Old Course. Along with his wife, Jeanette, he runs a jewelry shop in nearby Dunfermline, where it seems only a few customers know that he works on the jug.He expects to work with the R&A for as long as he can, and there is no prospect, he said, of another family member assuming the role.He will, eventually, get around to watching a replay of Sunday’s round. He has plans for Monday, though: a Senior Open qualifier. But before then, until the etching is done, he will wait and wonder what, exactly, he will need to do almost as soon as the last putt drops.“If it’s a long name — a really long name — it’s going to be tricky,” he said.He reassured himself, his voice trailing off.“If Severiano Ballesteros can get into that gap.” More

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      Beauty of the Old Course Upstages LIV Golf Angst, for Now

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      Seven years is an unusually long gap, but the R&A, which runs the British Open, delayed a return to St. Andrews to ensure that it could host the tournament’s 150th edition, which begins Thursday.ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — The ruins of St. Andrews’s once-majestic cathedral are a reminder that this gray town by the sea was a pilgrimage site long before golf came along.But there is no doubt about what attracts crowds now, and it has been seven years since the golf pilgrims gathered here for a British Open in their weatherproof gear and souvenir caps.Seven years is an unusually long gap, but the R&A, which runs the tournament, decided to delay returning the British Open to St. Andrews to ensure that it could host the 150th edition of what is known on this side of the pond as the Open Championship.Originally scheduled for 2021, the St. Andrews celebration got pushed back a year because of the pandemic-induced cancellation in 2020, and now the organizers might have to wonder whether it was worth the wait.Instead of an opportunity to revel in the history and hopefully windswept charms of the Old Course, the focus has remained on the elephant in the locker room: LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed, economics-be-damned breakaway circuit that has poached PGA Tour talent like the former British Open champions Phil Mickelson and Louis Oosthuizen, and is led by another former Open champion, Greg Norman, who for his sins and pains was not invited to this year’s dinner of champions at St. Andrews.Tiger Woods’s news conference on Tuesday was dominated by the subject (Woods held firm to his position against the defectors, inspiring British tabloid headlines like “LIV and Let Die”).Im Sung-jae, a South Korean player, teeing off on the Old Course on Wednesday.Robert Ormerod for The New York TimesOn Wednesday, Martin Slumbers, the gray-haired chief executive of the R&A, tried unsuccessfully to address the topic “briefly” by making an opening statement at his news conference that made it clear that the R&A would not bar golfers from the rebel tour but could change its qualifying requirements to make it more difficult for them to play in future British Opens.Bring on the follow-up questions! “Do you think golf should be welcoming money from Saudi Arabia given when we know about sportswashing?”Evasive answer from Slumbers: “I think that’s a too simplistic way of looking at it.”The issue is not blowing away anytime soon in the Scottish breeze and could quickly resume being the dominant plotline if a LIV golfer, like Dustin Johnson or Oosthuizen, rises to the top of the two yellow scoreboards above the 18th green that are still manually operated in this otherwise digital age by students from rival private schools.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 5A new series. More

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      Tiger Woods Has a Very Bad Day at the British Open

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      The three-time Open champion, including two on the Old Course at St. Andrews, was six over par after the first round that started with a double bogey on the first hole.ST. ANDREWS, Scotland —Tiger Woods was walking alone again on the 18th hole of the Old Course: a yellow scoreboard in front of him and the light fading behind him as locals and American visitors shouted “Tigerrrrrr!” from behind the barricades.But this was no victory march at the British Open. This was the end of one of the worst rounds that Woods has played in a major: a six-over-par 78 that was a stark reminder of how much water has flowed under the Swilcan Bridge since his days of domination at St. Andrews.Woods, who won the Open Championship here in 2000 and 2005, reacquainted himself with the water in a hurry in his return on Thursday. After getting the loudest round of applause of the day from the crowd gathered on the first hole, he hit his opening tee shot in a normally safe space (“a perfect shot,” he said) only to land in a fresh divot that turned his approach shot to the green into an adventure.“I told myself, ‘Don’t hit it flat and don’t blade it,’” Woods said. “I didn’t do either, but I still hit it in the burn.”A burn in Scottish parlance is a water-filled trench, and the trench in this instance was the Swilcan Burn that defends the first green. Woods’s shot splashed down after one bounce, and he ended up missing a short putt and starting his tournament with a double bogey.As omens go, it was an accurate one as he continued to struggle into the wind, bogeying the third and fourth holes and making another double bogey on the par-4 seventh before making his first birdies of the round on the par-4 ninth and par-4 tenth.But that was a false dawn as he resumed leaving important chips and putts well short of their targets.Asked what was most disappointing, Woods did not hesitate.“I think just the total score,” he said. “It feels like I didn’t really hit it that bad. Yes, I did have bad speed on the green, but I didn’t really feel like I hit it that bad. But I ended up in bad spots or just had some weird things happen. And that’s just the way it goes. Links golf is like that, and this golf course is like that. And as I said, I had my chances to turn it around and get it rolling the right way, and I didn’t do it.”“Yeah, it was a lot easier today, physically, than it has been the other two events, for sure,” Woods said.Gerald Herbert/Associated PressHe certainly did not, and it will take a sensational round and turnaround on Friday for him to even make the cut and land in the top-70 golfers.“Looks like I’m going to have to shoot 66 tomorrow to have a chance,” he said. “Obviously it’s been done. Guys did it today, and that’s my responsibility tomorrow, is to go ahead and do it.”He is already 14 shots behind the leader, the 25-year-old American Cameron Young, who shot an eight-under-par 64 in his first tournament round at St. Andrews after first playing the Old Course during a visit to Scotland with his family when he was 13.Woods first came here in his teens, too, playing the 1995 Open Championship as a 19-year-old amateur who was still coming to grips with the quirks and charms of links golf. He made the cut in his debut but faded and shot 78 in the final round: his worst round at St. Andrews until Thursday.But Woods learned quickly and when he returned to the Old Course in 2000, he was playing some of the finest golf ever played and completed the career Grand Slam with an eight-shot victory that was all the more remarkable in that everyone, including his rivals, expected him to dominate.He delivered, never hitting into a bunker and setting a record for a major by finishing at 19 under par. He delivered again in 2005 when the Open returned to St. Andrews as he won by five shots and then followed that up by winning the Open in 2006 at Royal Liverpool in bone-dry conditions that turned the fairways into fast-running thoroughfares. He responded by using irons off the tee for control and maintained it beautifully until he had finished off the victory and wept on the shoulder of his caddie, Steve Williams, overcome by his feelings for his father, Earl, who had died just a few weeks before the tournament.Sixteen years later, Woods remains golf’s biggest star even if he is only a part-time competitor, still struggling to find form after the single-car crash in February 2021 that left him with serious injuries and had doctors considering amputation of his right leg.Returning to St. Andrews was one of his primary motivations when he chose to resume his career, making a late decision to take part in this year’s Masters where he shot an opening-round 71 before fading to 47th. He then played in the P.G.A. Championship in May, withdrawing in pain before the final round after shooting a 79. He chose not to play in the U.S. Open with an eye on being ready for St. Andrews.Thursday was his first competitive round in nearly two months, and he looked and felt stronger, limping only slightly, if at all, for much of the afternoon.“Yeah, it was a lot easier today, physically, than it has been the other two events, for sure,” Woods said.Though the Old Course is not the most physically demanding course with its comparatively flat layout, the round turned into an endurance test, lasting just over six hours because of backups on the course that caused Woods and his playing partners Max Homa and Matt Fitzpatrick, the U.S. Open champion, to have to wait repeatedly.Max Homa, left, called the first round the “coolest” day he’s had on a golf course.Ross Kinnaird/Getty ImagesHoma, an American who finally fulfilled a career-long goal by playing a round with Woods, made the most of the extra time, chatting at length with Woods, who actually looked less grim on the back nine than he did on the front nine.“If there was anybody else in my group, if it was probably just Matt, I would have been complaining all day,” he said, adding it was the “coolest” day he has had on a golf course.“It was a dream-come-true type day minus some of the golf,” Homa said. “It really felt like fantasy.”Woods might have opted for nightmare, but he did sound content that he had managed to get healthy enough to play“Very, very meaningful,” he said of his return to St. Andrews. Woods added, “This was always on the calendar to hopefully be well enough to play it. And I am. I just didn’t do a very good job of it.”But Woods, even diminished at 46, still has the capacity to create goose bumps. You could see it and hear it all afternoon — and there was plenty of time to see and hear it — as he navigated the Old Course and fans lined up, often four rows deep behind the ropes with their cellphones held aloft to take pictures of him, even at a distance. Many of them were parents with children far too young to have watched Woods at his best. Some held up stuffed tigers.“They were fantastic, absolutely fantastic,” Woods said of the gallery. “So supportive.”But the poignant truth is that the Woods so many were roaring for was the Woods they remember not the Woods they were watching. For now, he is what he never wanted to be: a ceremonial golfer, a major star but no longer a major threat, walking the same fairways and greens but no longer making the same birdies and eagles.As he made his way over the Swilcan Bridge and toward the 18th hole late on Thursday after a long and deflating day, a woman on a third-floor balcony overlooking the course summed up the mood and reality as she screamed from on high: “Tiger!!!!! 2000!!!! 2005!!!!!”Woods will need to have a phenomenal second round if he hopes to make the cut.Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images More