McIlroy, Rory

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      5 Players to Watch at the BMW PGA Championship

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      One of these golfers could win the tournament at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England.Fresh off his comeback on Aug. 28 at the Tour Championship in Georgia, Rory McIlroy is a top contender at the BMW PGA Championship, which begins Thursday at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England.McIlroy captured his third FedEx Cup title by completing the largest final-round comeback in the history of the Tour Championship. He will be a compelling figure at Wentworth, but here are five other players to watch.Shane Lowry plays a second shot on the tenth hole during the first round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August in Memphis.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesShane LowryIreland’s Lowry has proved that the course suits him well. In his last five appearances at Wentworth, he has finished no worse than a tie for 17th. His best showing was finishing second to McIlroy in 2014.Lowry, 35, would have qualified for his first appearance at the Tour Championship if either Adam Scott or Aaron Wise had made a bogey on the 72nd hole at the BMW Championship on Aug. 21 in Delaware, but each made clutch pars to secure the final two spots.Lowry shot a 68 on Sunday at the BMW to finish in a tie for 12th but three-putted from about 65 feet for a bogey at No. 17. Ranked No. 23, Lowry has not won an event since he captured the 2019 British Open at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland.Justin Rose during a practice round at Southern Hills Country Club in May in Tulsa, Okla. He was once ranked at No. 1.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesJustin RoseRose, 42, also hasn’t won since 2019 at the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego. Once as high as No. 1 in the rankings, Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open champion, now stands at No. 58.In 18 PGA Tour events this season, he has recorded only two top-10 finishes, and his best finish was a tie for fourth at the RBC Canadian Open in June when he flirted with becoming the first European to shoot 59 on the PGA Tour. He ended up with a 60.His performance in the majors has been disappointing. He missed the cut in the Masters, tied for 13th in the P.G.A. Championship, tied for 37th in the U.S. Open and was unable to compete in the British Open with a bad back.But Rose has experienced some success at Wentworth. He finished second in 2007 and 2012. Last year, he tied for sixth.Francesco Molinari putts on the tenth green during the first round of the Memorial Tournament in June in Dublin, Ohio.Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesFrancesco MolinariSimilar to Lowry and Rose, Molinari, 39, has had his moments in this event. In 2018, shooting a final-round 68, he won the BMW PGA Championship by two shots over McIlroy. He has recorded six top-10 finishes at Wentworth since 2012.In July 2018, Molinari captured the Quicken Loans National in Maryland by eight shots, closing with a 62, and three weeks later he won the British Open in Carnoustie, Scotland, by two shots, becoming the first Italian player to win a major.He missed a chance to win another major in 2019, when up by two at the Masters he found the water with his tee shot at No. 12 in the final round, which led to a double bogey. He finished in a tie for fifth.In this past season, he recorded only one top-10 finish in 17 appearances on the PGA Tour, missing the cut at the Masters and the U.S. Open. He tied for 15th in the British Open.Billy Horschel plays a second shot on the tenth hole during the second round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesBilly HorschelHorschel, who won the BMW last year, picked up his seventh PGA Tour victory in early June at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio, beating Wise by four strokes. He shot a 65 in the third round that put him up by five, and he finished the final round with an even-par 72.Horschel, 35, became only the second American to win the BMW. The first was Arnold Palmer in 1975, when the tournament was known as the Penfold PGA Championship. Horschel, now ranked No. 15, secured the win with an approach shot on No. 18 that came to a rest less than two feet from the cup. He converted the putt to finish with a 65 and a one-shot victory.England’s Lee Westwood during the first round of the British Masters in May. He was one of the first players to join LIV Golf.Paul Childs/Action Images Via ReutersLee WestwoodWestwood, 49, is one of more than a dozen players in this week’s field from LIV Golf, the new series financed by Saudi Arabia.Ranked No. 100, his best finish on the PGA Tour this season was a tie for 14th at the Masters. He missed the cut in the P.G.A. Championship and tied for 34th at the British Open.Westwood, a former world No. 1, has never won the BMW, although he came close in 2011, losing in a playoff to Luke Donald. Last year, Westwood finished in a tie for 71st. He said he planned to play four DP World Tour events in 2023. More

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      Cameron Smith, Winner of This Year’s British Open, Joins LIV Golf

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      Smith’s defection had been expected, but Rory McIlroy tried to stave it off back in July.Cameron Smith, the world’s second-ranked golfer and a player whose exceptional final-round putting carried him to this year’s British Open title, will join LIV Golf, the breakaway series financed with money from Saudi Arabia.Smith is expected to play in LIV’s next 54-hole, no-cut tournament, which will begin Friday in Bolton, Mass., west of Boston. Five other players — Anirban Lahiri, Marc Leishman, Joaquin Niemann, Cameron Tringale and Harold Varner III — will also join a LIV field for the first time, the series announced on Tuesday.The moves by the players were widely expected but still bruised the PGA Tour, which has spent months trying to devise ways to keep players in its establishment fold. Last week, Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, announced changes, including purses averaging $20 million at a dozen events next season, that executives hoped would better position the tour to compete with the allure of LIV, which has enticed players with more relaxed schedules and, in some instances, contracts reportedly worth at least $100 million.Smith, a 29-year-old from Australia who also won this year’s Players Championship, was a leading target for the series, which is underwritten by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The possibility of a Smith defection was such an open secret that a reporter asked Smith about it soon after he won the Open, where he shot an eight-under-par 64 on a Sunday to rally from a four-stroke deficit.“I just won the British Open, and you’re asking about that?” Smith said at a news conference then. “I think that’s pretty not that good.”A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesA new series. More

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      A Triple-Bogey Start Vanquished, Rory McIlroy Captures the FedEx Cup

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      McIlroy edged out Scottie Scheffler, who had held the lead in Atlanta for almost the entire Tour Championship. Sungjae Im and Scheffler finished tied for second, a stroke behind.ATLANTA — On Thursday, his scorecard a shambles after only two holes at the Tour Championship, Rory McIlroy did not find himself thinking about golf’s comeback magicians or his fellow major champions.Instead, he considered the example of a 20-year-old player, Joohyung Kim, also known as Tom Kim, who won the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., this month.“He started with a quad and ended up going on to win the golf tournament,” McIlroy, who had opened his Tour Championship with a triple-bogey and a bogey, said then. “It is possible.”So McIlroy proved it himself. Three days after he produced an instant debacle at East Lake Golf Club and six weeks after he faltered at the British Open, McIlroy orchestrated the largest final-round comeback in the history of the Tour Championship and defeated Scottie Scheffler by a stroke on Sunday. Although McIlroy’s win did not end his eight-year drought in major tournaments, he earned $18 million, claimed his third FedEx Cup, a record, and allowed the PGA Tour to close a turbulent season by crowning a beloved stalwart as its champion.“I just felt so close all year,” McIlroy said after his victory in Atlanta, where Scheffler started with the tournament lead Thursday and held it until Sunday evening. “I had a couple wins, but I was just waiting for something. Maybe this was it. I got a little lucky with Scottie not playing his best golf today, and I took advantage of that with my good play.”But, McIlroy added, “I went up against the best player in the world today and I took him down, and that’s got to mean something.”Even though McIlroy trailed Scheffler by six strokes at the beginning of the fourth round, the final two holes of his third round — played on Sunday morning because of Saturday’s weather in Atlanta — suggested he was in fighting form: He birdied both.McIlroy started the final round with a bogey, but he made birdie on No. 3 to bring his score even. Starting with the fifth hole, he stitched together three consecutive birdies that would undergird a 32 on the front nine. Scheffler, McIlroy’s partner in the final pairing, had three bogeys in the first half of the fourth round, which he finished with a three-over-par 73.For as sure-footed as McIlroy so often seemed Sunday, and for as wobbly as Scheffler sometimes was, McIlroy did not assume sole command of the leaderboard until the final putts at No. 16.He might as well have on No. 15, though.Thirty-one feet from the pin, McIlroy tapped the ball and then stood like a statue, his putter barely aloft as the ball broke to the left. Then it swung toward the hole, McIlroy stepping back — and willing, praying, something — a few steps before it rolled into the cup. McIlroy raised his right fist in jubilation as the crowd thundered its approval.Scheffler made a bogey on the next hole and, at last, surrendered the solo lead.“I really fought hard today; Rory just played a really good round of golf,” Scheffler said. “He made some key putts there at the end, and he definitely deserved to win.”Scheffler finished in a tie for second with Sungjae Im. Xander Schauffele was two strokes behind them, and Max Homa and Justin Thomas finished tied for fifth, trailing McIlroy by four strokes.In McIlroy, 33, the PGA Tour got a FedEx Cup winner who has been one of its fiercest loyalists during the year’s upheaval over LIV Golf, the new series that has lured top players with hundreds of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.The dramatics over LIV were hardly absent from Atlanta — McIlroy was paired Thursday and Friday with Cameron Smith, the British Open winner who has not publicly denied a British news media report that he intends to defect as soon as this week. But McIlroy’s win was a boon for an entrenched order that has lately been besieged.“Everyone on tour has had to deal with a lot; even the guys that have went to LIV have had to deal with a lot,” McIlroy said before adding, a few moments later: “This is the best place in the world to play golf. It’s the most competitive. It’s got the best players. It’s got the deepest fields. I don’t know why you’d want to play anywhere else.”He could have been forgiven, of course, for thinking otherwise Thursday in the rain in Atlanta. But Sunday, he said his mind had “automatically” wandered to Kim’s resurrection in Greensboro.“I could have easily thought the other way and thought: ‘I’ve got no chance now. What am I doing here?’” McIlroy said Sunday, when he shot a 66. “But I just sort of, I guess, proved that I was in a really good mind-set for the week, and I didn’t let it get to me too much and just stuck my head down and got to work.”By a lone stroke, it was enough. More

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      At Chaotic Season’s Close, PGA Tour Banks on Patience and Its Stars

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      At the Tour Championship in Atlanta, the PGA Tour has rolled out a more muscular rebuttal to LIV Golf. The exodus may continue anyway.ATLANTA — The conversation happened two days after Cameron Smith charged into Rory McIlroy’s lengthening catalog of letdowns.First, McIlroy recounted this week, he wanted to congratulate Smith for capturing the claret jug at July’s British Open, ruining McIlroy’s own Sunday on the Old Course at St. Andrews. But with rumors rife that Smith would defect to LIV Golf, the breakaway series financed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, McIlroy also wanted to make a case for the PGA Tour to Smith, the world’s second-ranked golfer.“Guys that are thinking one way or another, honestly, I don’t care if they leave or not,” McIlroy said at the Tour Championship in Atlanta. “It’s not going to make a difference to me. But I would at least like people to make a decision that is completely informed and basically know: ‘This is what’s coming down the pipeline. This is what you may be leaving behind.’”Smith may indeed leave the PGA Tour behind: He has not denied a report in The Telegraph, the London newspaper, that he will start playing with LIV as soon as next week in exchange for at least $100 million. The last stretch of the PGA Tour season, though, has shown how, with the sport splitting into bitter camps, certain players have assumed starring roles in the effort to stabilize the establishment ranks.The campaign’s anchors have plainly been Tiger Woods, who went to Delaware last week to meet with players, and McIlroy, who wound up paired with Smith for the first two Tour Championship rounds. But others have lent support; this week in Atlanta, for instance, Jordan Spieth said he intended to be “as useful as I’m wanted and as behind the scenes as I’m wanted.”The top players who are among the tour’s remaining stalwarts — other leading figures like Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson have aligned themselves with LIV — are almost assuredly acting for a complex mix of reasons.There are financial explanations, of course, because a PGA Tour stocked with a greater share of the world’s finest players makes its product far more appealing and far more lucrative, for its organizers and its athletes alike. Some players harbor a measure of disdain for LIV Golf’s patron. And, even by the brooding standards of 2022, it is too cynical to discount players when they complain that LIV’s 54-hole, no-cut events, with shotgun starts, are putting a modern blemish on the ancient game they have spent decades trying to conquer.Whatever the players’ motives, their response is coming into greater focus as the tour moves beyond finger-wagging and suspensions. The blended strategy is unlikely to end the exodus, but it could curb it.The plans emerged alongside the Tour Championship, the finale of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, at Atlanta’s stately East Lake Golf Club, where a 29-man field is driving, chipping and putting in pursuit of the $18 million prize that will go to the winner. (Although the nuances and rigors of the competitions make for an inexact comparisons, Scottie Scheffler, who finished his round on Friday with a two-stroke lead over Xander Schauffele, earned $2.7 million for his April victory in Georgia’s other golf mainstay, the Masters Tournament.)But at the end of a season marked more than any other by such open flashes of betrayal and power, appeals to tradition and the allure of money, the ritual talk of the tour’s future is not automatically a plaudit-laden sideshow. Instead, it has become a showcase for the flotilla of life rafts that the PGA Tour and its allies are deploying.Beyond any peer pressure, there will be an avalanche of cash, with a dozen tour competitions next season designated as “elevated events” that will offer purses averaging $20 million each. Moreover, the tour’s Player Impact Program, which debuted last year and relies on metrics like mentions of a player in the news media and internet searches, will play a far larger role in determining compensation and fortifying tournament fields.McIlroy, left, and Tiger Woods are backing a new “tech-infused” team competition that will feature PGA Tour players beginning in 2024.Paul Childs/ReutersMcIlroy, who was nine shots off the lead and in seventh place on Friday, suggested this week that the new model, which is expected to more or less promise the presence of elite, popular players at a wider range of tournaments, would strengthen the tour by offering clearer assurances of who fans — and sponsors — could expect to see in tee boxes everywhere from Hawaii to Orlando, Fla.“I think if you’re trying to sell a product to TV and to sponsors and to try to get as many eyeballs on professional golf as possible, you need to at least let people know what they’re tuning in for,” said McIlroy, seeming as much a corporate pitchman as a player at some points this week. “When I tune into a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, I expect to see Tom Brady throw a football. When I tune into a Formula 1 race, I expect to see Lewis Hamilton in a car.”Tour executives are also dangling other rewards, like guaranteed payments to players of $500,000 for a season and a pool of $100 million — up from $50 million — that will be divvied up based on the impact program rankings.And McIlroy and Woods are also backing what Mike McCarley, the chief executive of their shared venture, described as “a tech-infused team competition” that they expect will feature televised Monday night matches, beginning in 2024. McIlroy and Woods both intend to compete in some of the events, which the company said will be played in a custom arena and “combine a data-rich virtual course with a state-of-the-art short game complex.” (Setting aside decorum or any PGA Tour dynamics, it is not hard to imagine why the men did not announce this particular endeavor at the Old Course last month.)The events, McCarley and McIlroy said, will be “complementary” to the PGA Tour and have been in development for about two years. Now they amount to another lifeline.Perhaps it is unsurprising that golf, of all sports, is reinforcing the notion that patience is a virtue, and the possibility of swift forgiveness does not appear to be available for now. Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, pointedly said that he would not be instantly willing to welcome defectors back into the fold.“They’ve joined the LIV Golf Series and they’ve made that commitment,” Monahan said. “For most of them, they’ve made multiyear commitments. As I’ve been clear throughout, every player has a choice, and I respect their choice, but they’ve made it. We’ve made ours. We’re going to continue to focus on the things that we control and get stronger and stronger.”Whether that will bear out remains to be seen, and those ambitions could take a quick hit with another wave of defections from players like Smith, who is 13 shots behind Scheffler and tied for 15th in Atlanta.But at least for the moment, some players and some newfound nimbleness have an old order looking a little less bedraggled and besieged. More

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      PGA Stars Seek ‘Some Sort of Unity’ With LIV After Meeting With Tiger Woods

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      Adding to the drama, the LIV golfer Patrick Reed filed a defamation lawsuit against Golf Channel and the commentator Brandel Chamblee, seeking $750 million in damages.PGA Tour stars, including Tiger Woods, met on Tuesday to grapple with the LIV Golf series, which has lured away tour players with staggering sums of money, and emerged feeling positive but unwilling to detail how they planned to fend off the rebel golf start-up or live somewhat peacefully alongside it.The meeting was the latest turn in what has been an uncharacteristically antagonistic year in golf, and it came just a week after a federal judge ruled that the PGA Tour can bar LIV golfers from the FedEx Cup playoffs, which conclude at the end of August.Ahead of the BMW Championship, PGA Tour players on Wednesday were reluctant to share specifics about the meeting, held in Wilmington, Del., that attracted Woods, who flew in from his home in Florida to attend. Rory McIlroy, the world No. 3, described the meeting to reporters on Wednesday as “impactful.”McIlroy said Woods’s leadership at the meeting was crucial as players discussed how to improve the PGA Tour and contend with the rift in the golf world since the emergence of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Invitational series. (The PGA Tour announced in June that it would suspend players who joined the LIV series.)“His role is navigating us to a place where we all think we should be,” McIlroy said of Woods’s presence. “He is the hero that we’ve all looked up to. His voice carries further than anyone else’s in the game of golf.”While players were quick to praise Woods, they demurred when it came to sharing any actionable steps that came from the meeting.“What’s the short-term? What’s the medium-term? What’s the long-term?” McIlroy said. “That’s something that we have to figure out.”Xander Schauffele told reporters on Wednesday that he wanted to see a resolution that ended in “some sort of unity.”“It was a really nice meeting. It was great. It was exciting. It was new. It was fresh,” Schauffele said. “I am very hopeful with what’s to come.”Schauffele, the world No. 6, told reporters there was “a little bit of a code” to keep quiet.“I think I’d be pretty unhappy if I saw one of those guys from last night just blabbering to you guys what we talked about,” Schauffele said. “That would be really frowned upon, and you probably wouldn’t get invited back to the meeting.”Justin Thomas, the world No. 7, said at a news conference that the meeting was “productive” and that the players who attended “just want the best for the tour and want what’s in the best interest.”“I’d just hope for a better product,” Thomas said. “I think that’s the hope in general of anything, is just to try to improve ourselves, where we’re playing, everything the best that we can.”Thomas said that having Woods present gave the meeting added credibility.“I think if someone like him is passionate about it, no offense to all of us, but that’s really all that matters,” Thomas said. “If he’s not behind something, then, one, it’s probably not a good idea in terms of the betterment of the game, but, two, it’s just not going to work. He needs to be behind something.”McIlroy said that in addition to dealing with LIV Golf, the PGA Tour would also eventually have to handle a world without Woods on the tour.“The tour had an easy job for 20 years,” McIlroy said. “They’ve got a bunch of us, and we’re all great players. But we’re not Tiger Woods.”Adding to Tuesday’s drama, Patrick Reed, the winner of the 2018 Masters who joined LIV Golf in June, filed a defamation lawsuit against Golf Channel and the commentator Brandel Chamblee, seeking $750 million in damages.The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Texas, claims that the network and Chamblee have conspired with the PGA Tour to defame LIV players “with the intention to destroy them and their families professionally and personally” and eliminate LIV Golf as a competitor.According to the lawsuit, Golf Channel, Chamblee and the PGA Tour have conspired since Reed was 23, about nine years ago, “to destroy his reputation, create hate, and a hostile work environment for him, and with the intention to discredit his name and accomplishments.”For Chamblee and Golf Channel, “it does not matter how badly they destroy someone’s name and life, so long as they rake in more dollars and profit,” the lawsuit said.Larry Klayman, a lawyer for Reed, said that “we are confident of prevailing in court,” adding that “it’s a very strong complaint.”“While Chamblee’s and NBC’s Golf Channel’s never-ending defamation with regard to Mr. Reed, as set forth in the complaint is not new, with his joining of LIV Golf, it has reached new, intolerable heights,” Klayman said in a statement.Lawyers for Golf Channel and Chamblee could not be reached.The LIV Tour, which is financed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, has drawn much attention and criticism in recent months. Among those who have left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf are Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson. Mickelson sparked outrage in February when it was reported that he had said that the LIV series was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” even as he called Saudi Arabia’s record on human rights “horrible.”Mickelson, who is reported to have received as much as $200 million to sign with the breakaway tour, is among 11 golfers who defected from the PGA Tour and then filed an antitrust lawsuit earlier this month against the PGA Tour, seeking to challenge its suspensions and other measures that have been used to discipline players who have joined LIV Golf. More

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      Henrik Stenson Stripped of Ryder Cup Captaincy as LIV Golf Rift Widens

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      Stenson was removed as he appeared set to join the Saudi-financed series. Former President Trump, whose course will host the next LIV series event, urged players to “take the money.”Saudi Arabia’s contentious effort to buy its way into professional golf created a new flash point in the sport on Wednesday with the announcement that Europe’s team for next year’s Ryder Cup was dropping its captain, Henrik Stenson of Sweden, just ahead of his expected move to the new Saudi-financed LIV Golf series.Stenson, who won his only major championship at the 2016 British Open, is set to become the latest player lured by the riches being offered by the LIV Golf series, which has upended the once polite world of professional golf since hosting its first event earlier this summer.By guaranteeing players more money than they could earn in the biggest tours and tournaments that make up the traditional golf calendar, the LIV series has created an ugly fissure in the golf world. The fight has split golf into two camps: a group of traditionalists that includes some of the sport’s titans, including champions like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, and a growing band of rebels, a group that includes Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and, soon, Stenson.“In light of decisions made by Henrik in relation to his personal circumstances, it has become clear that he will not be able to fulfill certain contractual obligations to Ryder Cup Europe that he had committed to prior to his announcement as Captain on Tuesday March 15, 2022, and it is therefore not possible for him to continue in the role of Captain,” Europe’s Ryder Cup team said in a statement. The announcement did not specifically reference Stenson’s expected defection to LIV.The Ryder Cup, a wildly popular event that pits a team of United States players against a European squad, is set to be played at the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome next September. European officials said Stenson’s ouster would take place “with immediate effect,” and that they would name a new captain soon.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 5A new series. More

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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