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    British Open: It’s the Short Holes That Often Befuddle Golfers

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    At the British Open at Royal Troon, a short hole called the Postage Stamp has ended many title runs.The British Open at Royal Troon in Scotland this week might help answer a question vexing professional golf. Is the antidote to golfers hitting increasingly long drives creating holes that are even longer? Or is it the opposite: incredible shortness?Troon, which is hosting its 10th Open this week, is famous for the Postage Stamp, the name given to its par-3 eighth hole, which is 123 yards on the card but may play under 100 yards this week if the tees are moved up and the pin is put in the front of the green. A tiny green surrounded by five bunkers, the hole has been a feature of the course since 1909.It’s also a hole length that any golfer can hit. But under pressure, with the wind blowing and a tricky pin position, it’s a length that tests the skill of the most elite golfers.This year, Troon will also have its opposite. It will have the longest hole in Open history, the par-5 sixth hole that will measure 623 yards. It beats by three yards the 15th hole at Royal Liverpool in last year’s Open.A view of the par-5 sixth hole at Royal Troon in Scotland last August.David Cannon, R&AIn some ways, lengthening holes for top pros is akin to billionaires competing to have the longest yacht: It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. Pros hit the ball so far that length alone doesn’t deter them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      British Open: Brian Harman Reflects on Last Year’s Title

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      He won by six strokes last year, an accomplishment that showed him that he was capable of really big things.In 2023, Brian Harman came out of nowhere to win the British Open by six strokes.Harman, a left-hander, had won only twice on the PGA Tour since turning professional in 2009 — the John Deere Classic in 2014 and the Wells Fargo Championship in 2017. And in the majors, he had posted just two top 10s: A tie for second in the 2017 U.S. Open and a tie for sixth in the 2022 British Open.With this year’s Open, the final major of the season, starting on Thursday at Royal Troon in Scotland, Harman, 37, reflected recently on winning the claret jug in 2023 and his slow preshot routine.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.Where has the claret jug been these last 12 months?It’s been kind of everywhere. Georgia-Ole Miss game, I got it on the field at halftime. I had my family there, probably my favorite experience I had with it. I took it up to Augusta National. Mostly, it’s been here [Georgia] at the house.What strikes you when you think back to your victory?I haven’t reflected on it that much. I’m not just getting started in my golf career. I’m trying to look forward and try to take advantage of the time that I’ve got. But there will be a time when I sit down and count them all up.Everything was going so slow all weekend. You want time to go by so fast, and it just doesn’t. It’s a really hard thing to manage.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      British Open: The Players to Watch

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      This is the last major of the year, and it seems that every top golfer will be there. These five may surprise.The Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland, which is hosting the British Open this week for the 10th time since 1923, has delivered such big-name winners as Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson.Will another big name prevail at Troon this year? Or will a less heralded contender pull off a surprise, as Todd Hamilton did in 2004 when he outdueled Ernie Els in a playoff?The field, as always, is stacked with the top players in the game, including No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, No. 3 Xander Schauffele and No. 9 Bryson DeChambeau, each trying to capture his second major title this year.Here are five other players to keep an eye on.Paul Sancya/Associated PressCameron YoungIt’s difficult to believe that Young — who made a great run at the title two years ago when he finished second behind Cameron Smith — is still searching for his first victory on the PGA Tour.It could very well happen at Troon.Young, 27, has produced some wonderful rounds in recent weeks, highlighted by his 59 in the third round at the Travelers Championship in Connecticut.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Evian Championship: Céline Boutier Returns Home to Defend Her Title

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      Last year she became the third Frenchwoman to win a major and the first since 2003.Céline Boutier, the most successful French women’s golfer ever, has spent much of her adult life outside of her home country.At 18, she left France to study psychology and play golf at Duke University, winning the N.C.A.A. team title and becoming the world’s top-ranked amateur.After college, she moved to Dallas to live near her swing coach Cameron McCormick, who had helped Jordan Spieth scale the heights and win majors. Since 2018, she has been a full-time member of the L.P.G.A. Tour, reaching No. 3 in the rankings last year.But Boutier, now 30, made the most of one of her rare moments in France: winning her first major last year at the Amundi Evian Championship by a commanding six strokes and getting doused with Champagne on the 18th green by friends and fellow players.“I think it was the most powerful moment of my career so far,” she said in a telephone interview from Dallas. “Just because it was something that I had wanted to win for so long, and it was a tournament that I really watched when I was young. I was always drawn to it, and so it honestly felt a bit surreal to be the one at the center of this award ceremony that I had watched so often with the trophies and the national anthem.”She was the first French golfer to win the title on the picturesque course at the Evian Resort Golf Club. Boutier became the third Frenchwoman to win a major after Catherine Lacoste at the 1967 U.S. Women’s Open and Patricia Meunier-Lebouc at the 2003 Kraft Nabisco Championship. Lacoste, the daughter of tennis star and entrepreneur René Lacoste, is the only amateur to have won the U.S. Women’s Open.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Evian Championship: The Toll of Starting a Golf Career So Young

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      In a game full of players who turned pro in their teens, burnout is common.Asterisk Talley was faced with a tricky question after she made the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open, the second women’s major of the year. Would she have time to finish the homework that her teachers back home had assigned?“I have a bunch of homework and it’s all due today,” said Talley, 15, part of a growing number of young golfers playing at the highest level of the game.The admission spurred a raft of suggestions for excuses for why it wouldn’t get done, not least of all that she was teeing off late on Saturday, just a few shots off the lead.When asked after the second round if she was feeling any pressure, Talley responded: “Not really. I feel like I’m kind of used to it.”Women’s golf has been becoming younger for decades, and Talley is nowhere near the youngest player to tee it up in a major like the Women’s Open. Lexi Thompson, who is retiring this year at 29, was just 12 in 2007 when she qualified for her first one. (The youngest ever was Lucy Li, then 11.)At this week’s Amundi Evian Championship, Yana Wilson, a 17-year-old standout amateur from Nevada, is the youngest player in the field. Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Evian Championship: Angela Stanford Ponders the Past and the Future

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      She won the Evian Championship in 2018, her only major title. At 46, she is about to reduce her playing time.In 2018, Angela Stanford’s prospects looked bleak after she failed to birdie the 72nd hole of the Evian Championship in France.The leader, Amy Olson, however, later double-bogeyed the same hole, giving Stanford her first and only major title.Stanford had hoped to play in 100 straight majors, but the streak ended at 98. She failed to qualify and wasn’t given an exemption into this year’s United States Women’s Open.With this year’s Evian Championship beginning on Thursday, Stanford, 46, reflected on her 2018 triumph and future in the game.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.What is your favorite memory from the 2018 event?Finishing Friday afternoon. I’d played really well that day. Coming up at 18, the sun was setting and you could see the lake. That was kind of a cool moment. To have a chance to play for a major on the weekend was pretty special.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rory McIlroy Crashed at the U.S. Open. Here’s How He Recovers.

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      Two performance psychologists explain the mental strategies that help push past blowing a lead at a major.LONDON — Rory McIlroy was hardly the first golf megastar to falter down the stretch of a major: see Arnold Palmer at the 1966 U.S. Open and Greg Norman at the 1996 Masters.But for all the illustrious company, blowing a lead is still misery. McIlroy had not missed a putt inside three feet all season on the PGA Tour, and yet, with a one-stroke lead and the U.S. Open on the line at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina last month, he missed a par putt from 2 feet 6 inches on the 16th hole. He then missed a putt on the 18th from 3 feet 9 inches.Victory went instead to Bryson DeChambeau after a great escape from a bunker on the final hole.McIlroy, still trying to end his decade-long major drought, could only stare desolately at the screen in the scorer’s room with his hands on his hips and then trudge to his courtesy car without further comment that day.#Pinehurt quickly became a hashtag on social media.“Yesterday was a tough day, probably the toughest I’ve had in my nearly 17 years as a professional golfer,” McIlroy posted on X the next day.Arnold Palmer at the 1966 U.S. Open where, like McIlroy, he blew a lead at the end of a major. Palmer never won another major after that loss.Bettmann/Getty ImagesHe has since withdrawn from the Travelers Championship to regroup and is set to return this week for the Genesis Scottish Open to defend his title. He will then play in the next major: the Open Championship.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Xander Schauffele’s Rising Fortunes

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      He won the Scottish Open in 2022 and his first major in May. And he’s headed back to the Olympics, where he took gold in 2021.In less than a decade as a professional golfer, Xander Schauffele, 30, has accomplished a great deal.He was a member of the United States Ryder Cup squads in 2021 and 2023.He won the gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Japan in 2021.And two months ago, he captured his first major, the P.G.A. Championship by a stroke over Bryson DeChambeau.Schauffele, who will represent the United States again at the Olympics in Paris this year, has won eight tour events, including the Genesis Scottish Open in 2022.With the Scottish Open beginning Thursday at the Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Schauffele reflected on his victory two years ago and his fondness for links golf.The following conversation has been edited and condensed:Schauffele won his first major, the P.G.A. Championship, by a stroke over Bryson DeChambeau.Jeff Roberson/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Before LeBron and Bronny, These Fathers and Sons Made Sports History

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      The Los Angeles Lakers are poised to have the first father-son N.B.A. duo in league history. But other dads and sons have played pro sports together as well.When the Los Angeles Lakers selected Bronny James, 19, in the second round of the N.B.A. draft on Thursday night, the team set up an intriguing story line. Next season, he could play in the same lineup as his father, the 39-year-old superstar LeBron James.While there have been many great parent-child combos in sports history — Bobby and Barry Bonds in baseball; Peter and Kasper Schmeichel in soccer; Pamela, JaVale and Imani McGee in basketball — seldom do they play at the same time, much less on the same team.But at least on a few other occasions, the stars have aligned to make it possible.The Ageless Gordie Howe and SonsGordie Howe retired from hockey at age 43 after an illustrious career. But when his sons Mark and Marty joined the Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association three seasons later, he could not resist.“They knew my greatest wish has always been to play pro hockey with my sons,” he said, “and when they asked me, ‘Would you be interested?’ I said, ‘Hell, yes.’”His return proved not to be a brief cameo. Astonishingly, he played with his sons for seven seasons, moving on to the New England Whalers, who joined the N.H.L. for the 1979-80 season as the Hartford Whalers. Howe Sr. was skating on major league ice at 51.He played 80 games with the Whalers in his final season, scoring 15 goals before finally hanging up his skates. “I think I have another half-year in me,” he declared at the announcement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More