By Christopher Powers
Not all last-minute invites are created equal, in fact, sometimes they are preferable. Just ask Andrew “Beef” Johnston, who earned one of the more coveted last-minute invites in all of the professional golf on Sunday.

Johnston, who began the day 10 shots off the lead of Bernd Wiesberger, carded a final-round 62 at the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Scotland. Through 15 holes the Englishman was at nine under, yielding a 59Watch hashtag on the Golf Channel broadcast. After he made birdie at the 16th, he put himself in position to pull off the improbable feat, needing back-to-back birdies to finish. He went par-bogey, settling for a nine-under 62 to vault 34 spots up the leader board and into solo third at the time.

Eventually, Beef finished in a tie for fourth, still good enough to earn one of the three remaining spots in the Open Championship next week at Royal Portrush. It will be his first Open Championship appearance since 2017, and his first major championship appearance since the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock.

Making the round and subsequent Open invite all the more special was the fact it came just a few weeks after Johnston revealed he had been struggling with his mental health in a player blog on the European Tour’s website. Johnston wrote about one low point in particular after the final round of the Nedbank Golf Challenge this past November.

“I came off the course on Sunday and couldn’t even bring myself to go get my clubs from the locker,” he said. “I just left them. I went straight back to the hotel and cried.”

Johnston quickly became a fan favourite when he burst onto the scene in 2016, picking up his first European Tour win at the Spanish Open and saying he couldn’t wait to get “hammered” afterwards. This made him very popular with American fans in particular, who showered him with chants of “Beeeeeef” everywhere he went. This, in addition to the added pressure he put on himself to perform, weighed heavily on him.

“You’ve got to remember, I’m a normal geezer from Finchley,” Beef wrote in the blog. “Next thing, I see a poll over in America asking fans, ‘who are you looking forward to seeing more?’ I finished above Tiger Woods. To get your head around that is very tough, and then came the pressure I put on myself to perform.

“The attention I got was just crazy. I want to take a picture with a kid, sign a ball and make their day, but it all happened so quickly.”

The good news is that Johnston appears to be in a much healthier mental state, which he credited to the help of psychologists and his fiancée Jodie Valencia. The couple announced they’ll be having a baby on Instagram in early June. Following his 62 at The Renaissance Club on Sunday, Johnston fought back tears talking about Valencia, only able to muster up a “Life’s good,” when speaking to Golf Channel’s Damon Hack. When Hack asked why he’s chosen to be so public about his mental health struggles, Johnston was as honest as he could be.

“It’s the truth, isn’t it? Why not? You can’t go wrong with saying the truth.”

Johnston also conducted an emotional interview with the European Tour. You can watch the full thing below, and you might need the tissues:

A final-round 62 brought out all the emotions for Andrew "Beef" Johnston.pic.twitter.com/sfuHFU78IE

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) July 14, 2019

There is no cheering in the press box, but it goes without saying that everyone in the golf world is thrilled to see Beef back and smiling again. Hopefully, there will be more smiling to come at Royal Portrush, where he’ll be joined by France’s Benjamin Hébert and Italy’s Nino Bertasio, who earned the other two exemptions that were up for grabs at the Scottish Open.

The post Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston earns last-minute invite to Royal Portrush with final-round 62 at the Scottish Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

It has been a tough season for Beef—currently ranked 185th in the FedEx Cup standings—as a result of finishing in the top 10 only once. Beef would need a really good finish at the Wyndham Championship next week to secure a 2017-’18 card, but this injury makes that possibility look slim.

That means Johnston would need to qualify through the Web.com Tour Finals Series for a second straight year to retain his card. Not exactly the type of season most would’ve expected after the 28-year-old became a fan favourite at the 2016 Open Championship with an eighth-place finish. Beef had made the cut in his past five major appearances.

The post PGA Championship 2017: Andrew (Beef) Johnston’s WD puts PGA Tour status in jeopardy appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

We’ve heard a lot about the rough at Erin Hills leading up to this week’s U.S. Open, but there hasn’t been as much talk about a different kind of danger lurking at the course: Its bunkers.

They’re interesting in shape, they’re very sloped in spots and extremely narrow in others. And they could play a big part once the tournament starts on Thursday. Here’s Exhibit A, courtesy of U.S. Open rookie Whee Kim, who showed that in some cases players have a better chance of hitting themselves with their golf ball than getting it out:

This is U.S Open’s green side bunker.?? @pgatour @usga #Donotbethere#NoWayOut#SooooooTurf#USOpen#PGATOUR#골프#골프스타그램

A post shared by 김민휘 Wheeeeee (@wheekim) on Jun 12, 2017 at 5:42pm PDT

Enter Andrew “Beef” Johnston, who came up with a brilliant solution to tame Erin Hills’ sand traps this week. It’s just too bad it’s not a legal solution. Check it out as Beef utilizes the ol’ hidden-ball hand wedge to perfection:

BEEEF!! @beefgolf has got the bunkers covered this week ?? #usopen #golf

A post shared by Tyrrell Hatton (@tyrrellhatton) on Jun 13, 2017 at 9:58am PDT

Nice try, Beef.

The post Andrew “Beef” Johnston shows the best way to play Erin Hills’ bunkers (Unfortunately, it’s not legal) appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Tiger Woods stole the headlines on Memorial Day, but there was actually some golf played on Monday. Some serious golf, in fact, from one of the game’s funniest figures.

Andrew “Beef” Johnston was just one of 15 players to earn a spot in next month’s U.S. Open at a sectional qualifier in England, but no one did it in as spectacular of fashion. The affable Brit managed eagles on a par 3, a par 4, and a par 5 during the 36-hole qualifier. And yes, that means he had a hole-in-one on the card.

The ace came on the second hole of his opening round at Walton Heath Golf Club, where Johnston shot rounds of 68 and 66 to finish in a tie for ninth place. Johnston was coming off a T-21 at the European Tour’s BMW PGA Championship. A fan actually caught the ace on camera:

Great fun following @BeefGolf at US Open qualifiers at #waltonheath today pic.twitter.com/zzbt5atmKa

— Sarah Denyer (@SarahDenyer) May 29, 2017

Johnston’s first season as a PGA Tour member has been relatively quiet with one top 25 (a T-10 at the Puerto Rico Open) and four missed cuts in 10 starts. He qualified for the U.S. Open for the first time last year and finished T-54. The following month, he finished T-9 at the Open Championship.

Aaron Rai (66-64) took medalist honors. Other notables to punch a trip to Erin Hills in a couple weeks included Haotong Li, Alexander Levy, Richie Ramsay, Bradley Dredge, Eddie Pepperell, George Coetzee and Brandon Stone.

There are still 10 sectional qualifiers to be played in the U.S. on June 5. Golfers can also still qualify for the U.S. Open by being ranked in the top 60 of the Official World Golf Ranking on June 12, the day after the PGA Tour’s FedEx St. Jude Classic concludes.

Main image caption: VIRGINIA WATER, ENGLAND – MAY 27: Andrew Johnston of England gives a thumbs up to the crowd on the 16th hole during day three of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth on May 27, 2017 in Virginia Water, England. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

The post Andrew “Beef” Johnston qualifies for U.S. Open thanks to THREE eagles, including a hole-in-one appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

I don’t entirely remember what I got for my ninth birthday. At the risk of dating myself, it was either an Atari video game, a pack of baseball cards or a pair of white canvas sneakers. None of them are as cool as the birthday surprise a young boy named Aaron received from a handful of golfers on the European Tour at his week’s BMW PGA Championship.

Aaron’s father reached out to the European Tour, and in this video below you see the neatest thing in the world: the unvarnished joy of a boy who gets to meet his heroes in person.

Seriously, when you look at Aaron’s face when he sees Andrew (Beef) Johnston ask if he wants a lift, you can’t help but be excited for the kid. And with each subsequent player that they pick up in the car (Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson), it just gets more amazing.

Without spoiling the video, we think our favorite part is when Aaron gets to hold a certain trophy from a certain major championship and a certain medal from an event played every four years.

After watching the video, I came away with two big takeaways:

• There’s nothing better than seeing a kid’s face light up

• That Atari game was pretty lame.

Aaron's dad emailed us to ask if we could do something for his 9th birthday ?

We decided to do something special. pic.twitter.com/MRTLr4luEx

— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) May 26, 2017

The post Watch a 9-year-old boy get the best birthday surprise ever thanks to a foursome of European Tour pros appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.