As the dust settles on a memorable Open Championship at Royal Troon, we look back on what made it such a week to remember for golf fans.
1. The course
Royal Troon sits 32nd in the Top 100 Golf Courses rankings, with only Royal Liverpool (42nd) of the other Open courses below it. All the others on the roster are comfortably above it and it’s generally viewed as one of the unsexier Opens.
Hopefully that might change a little after the past week. Here we had a perfect test on a course that required ball striking, accuracy and patience in almost equal measure. It wasn’t overpowered, there weren’t players prospering by thundering drivers all over the property and the winning score (something we obsess about too much) was nine under.
At the par 5s we had Jon Rahm fail to make a single birdie. By the end of it all we had nine players in red figures and most of us wondering if a par 3 that was played at 100 yards on Sunday is the best short hole in the world.
2. A worthy winner
Xander Schauffele is everything you want from an Open champion and the type of golfer you want coming back year after year. This was the type of set-up where it seemed like a double-bogey or worse was just around the corner and he only had six bogeys in four rounds.
The PGA champ barely missed a shot and, when he did, he recovered brilliantly. These days he’s added more length and, whatever he’s been doing to help with his mental game, it’s worked a treat. Not so long ago he was shooting a final-round 70 at The Players to be overtaken by Scottie Scheffler and he looked nothing like the closer that he did in Ayrshire on Sunday.
Now he’s officially the second best player in the world and, despite the ridiculous season that Scheffler’s enjoying, we have another player who might pip him as the Player of the Year.
3. The weather played ball
It’s always more satisfying than it should be to get at least one miserable day at an Open. On day one many were taken by surprise in the switching of the wind, but that paled into insignificance when we got the winds of Saturday afternoon.
Shane Lowry moaned about barely being able to reach a couple of fairways and we saw Scheffler and co fail to reach the 502-yard par-4 15th with a pair of drivers. The 17th was also a driver unless you were Scheffler who hit maybe the shot of the Championship when he muscled a knee-high 3-wood to kick-in distance.
And still the players got it around in something like level par and Schauffele somehow shot the most comfortable 69. This was what anyone who didn’t have a club in their hand wanted to watch.
4. The love of links golf
You occasionally wonder if we get too carried away by links golf. Whether it is in our Top 100 rankings or the way we view The Open, other types of course barely get a look in. The week of the Scottish Open at Renaissance is a very welcome break from the norm, but the course wouldn’t be in the top five in the East Lothian region and then we get a week like The Open and it all becomes clear again.
When you get a truly world-class links set-up there really is nothing like it. When we get the right weather, to watch the very best players on the planet craft a little 6-iron in there from 120 yards is as good as it gets. Conversely, Xander Schauffele hit one of the shots of the Championship – a wedge from 172 yards – when he made the only birdie at the 11th on Sunday.
We saw irons and drivers in equal measure off the tees and all manner of shots from around the greens. Troon’s putting surfaces are generally regarded as greens where you can hole a load of putts and, when it mattered, Schauffele knocked them in.
5. Hurray for Final Qualifying
Justin Rose was the star name from qualifying at Burnham & Berrow and he very nearly pulled it off at Troon. It’s been said a million times, but those players who do make their way to the game’s oldest Major via this 36-hole route deserve everything they get.
At West Lancs it was cold, blustery and brilliant and here we had Dan Brown tipping his season on its head by holing a sizeable putt on his final hole. Having spoken to him there he revealed that he had never played Troon before – now he’s almost the story of the week.
Rose easily played well enough to lift the Claret Jug and Brown played well enough to tell himself that he’s capable of doing some great things in the game. A lot of the qualifying routes for The Open are very questionable, Final Qualifying ticks every box.
