The claret jug owns a hallowed place in the annals of golf. It just doesn’t belong on Kelly Harman’s kitchen counter. But it appears that she has had to make allowances for domestic tranquility.

Kelly’s husband, Brian, who won the Open Championship last month at Royal Liverpool, has declared the kitchen counter the optimal place to display his major championship trophy. And he is not willing to negotiate.

“My wife has asked me to move it several times, and it’s like: ‘No, that’s a hard no, it’s going to stay right here,’” Harman said with a wide smile at the FedEx St Jude Championship, which will mark his first start since his impressive six-stroke victory in the year’s final major.

“I’ve caught myself walking by it looking at it, and be like: ‘Man, I still can’t believe it happened,’” he said. “I’m very grateful, very thankful. It was a very wild experience.”

Admitting that “life as a major champion is better than not”, Harman also has had to come to grips with the fact that wild experiences, at least for him, might be his new normal for a while.

He, of course, went home to St Simons Island, and was greeted to a hero’s welcome at the airport. That was new. Sure, the wife and kids have been there in the past, but the dozens who were there when he returned from England was a surprise. Turns out he was a little bleary-eyed after staying up all night with his manager, Jeremy Elliott, celebrating.

“Other than like my mom with some balloons [after] coming home from some junior tournament, no,” Harman said when asked if he’d ever gotten such a greeting before.

And speaking of airport greetings, Harman, 36, arrived on Monday night here only to find autograph seekers waiting for him. “How do they know?” he wondered, puzzled that they knew when he was getting in. “It’s a new experience, people kind of recognising me.

“I had a little chat with Scottie Scheffler yesterday,” Harman added. “He’s always so gracious. Just about how he’s dealt with … I’ve always enjoyed going out to dinner when I’m on the road by myself, just going to a hole-in-the-wall place and getting dinner, and it’s probably going to be a minute before I get to enjoy that again. There’s guys that have to deal with it to a much greater scale than I’ve had to. I’ve asked a few of them how they kind of handle it.”

Seems like he’s handling things just fine. To wit: the claret jug stays in the kitchen. Or wherever he wants it.

The post Proof ‘life as a major champion is better than not’ Brian Harman’s wife lets him leave claret jug on kitchen counter appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Within the scorecard holder which sits in my back pocket every time I play golf is a piece of paper. On that piece of paper are 13 different numbers, one for each club in my bag. It’s been there since last year, after I went through a relatively painstaking process of hitting 20 shots with each club, on a launch monitor, and averaging out the distances for every club in my bag (minus my putter, of course).

I’ve come to depend on it. I’d probably surrender half the clubs in my bag before that piece of paper. Knowing my exact yardages with every club has legitimately helped me — until last week.

Sneaking in a few rounds in the neighbouring links courses around Royal Liverpool with some fellow Golf Digest staffers (we call these “research rounds”), it immediately became clear how worthless that piece of paper was on those courses. For the first time since I jotted those numbers down, I played golf never bothering to consider it.

So much golf, from the PGA Tour et al. is a game of execution. Picking a spot, and trying to hit it to that number. Like throwing a dart at the centre of a dartboard, your success or failure starts and ends with you alone.

Links golf is different. A certain wind will send a driver across a fairway, rather than down it. Or float it high and away into nowhere. Links courses can turn a 9-iron into a 5-iron, and a 5-iron into the best sand wedge in your bag.

Mastering most golf courses means imposing your will as a golfer on to the layout. Links golf requires a meshing with what’s in front of you, in that current moment. Sometimes that means putting the driver away for good, as Tiger Woods did when he won at Royal Liverpool in 2006. Other times, it may mean calling upon a shot you may have never played before. Never does it require scribbling numbers on to a piece of paper.

“There are several different options to play each golf hole,” Brian Harman said of Royal Liverpool. “If you’re into the wind you can hit way more club and send it up in the air to try to stop it, or you can try to finesse something lower. I enjoy the variety of shots you have to hit.”

There’s a famous quote from the legendary British golf writer, Bernard Darwin, that the elements at Hoylake make Royal Liverpool a “breeder of great champions”. The history certainly backs it up, from Walter Hagan to Bobby Jones, to Peter Thompson, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

Brian Harman isn’t the name you’d expect to follow on that list. But standing in the rain as the 36 year-old hoisted the claret jug, Hoylake had done it again. Brian Harman was the man who forsook the formulas and mastered his feel instead. It’s the only way to conquer the elements of links golf. And in doing so Harman proved he is, undoubtedly, a great champion.

1. Good putting is boring putting

There was a lot of talk about putting at Royal Liverpool. Scottie Scheffler couldn’t make putts. Neither could Rory McIlroy, or Tommy Fleetwood. Brian Harman could, so he won.
Harman was, indeed, a tremendous putter at Royal Liverpool. But what, exactly, does that mean?
When most of us think about “good putting”, we think of draining long putts, and walking in 20-footers for birdie. Harman’s stats tell a different story. He gained 11.57 strokes on the green last week, but the longest putt he dropped all week was just over 30 feet. Rory McIlroy dropped two putts longer than that over those same 72 holes. So did Scheffler, and 29 other players.
Harman’s elite putting performance instead was predicated on making the boring, extraordinary. He didn’t have a three putt. He missed just one putt inside 10 feet, and none inside of five feet. When you do that, no one else can stand a chance.
“I expect to make those putts,” he said.
The problem the rest of us have is that we expect to make the wrong putts. Sure, it’s fun to drop 15 and 20 footers, but missing those doesn’t really matter, in the scheme of things. Making more of those putts five and 10 feet. Missing those are the killer of good rounds, and the key to avoiding bad ones.
Good putting doesn’t mean dropping bombs. It means making lots of little ones.

Travis Smyth. The Open Twitter

2. Know how to ditch spin in a hurry

Every time a golfer hits a ball, it flies into the air with backspin. It’s backspin that keeps the ball in the air. Of course, that’s not what you want when the wind starts gusting, as it did early during Open Championship week.
Killing lots of spin in a hurry strikes me as a pretty essential skill, for all golfers. This week, most pros I talked to said they generally settle on a combination of taking more club, swinging softer, and teeing the ball slightly higher (the ball being propped up in the rough has the same effect).
“When you’re trying to hit a low one, you are coming in quite steep. It’s easier off a tee, so you’re not catching the ground instantly at impact, which will create spin, which into the wind you don’t want to do,” said Travis Smyth after his hole-in-one on the 17th hole. “I took an extra club and chipped it.”
Simple enough, and something to keep in mind the next time you find yourself facing a stiff breeze.

3. Distance varies way more than you think

Of course, reducing your spin only mitigates the effects of an into wind shot. Ultimately, if you’re into wind, the ball is going to go shorter. Same with if it’s raining. Watching the pros slog it out on Sunday made me realise that the rest of us have a woeful under-appreciation for how much the rain, or wind, will affect our shots.
The reality is a player could be capable of hitting it 320 yards one day, but put that same player in certain elements, and they may struggle to crack 250 yards — as Rory McIlroy proved.

Rory's drive on the first hole in calm weather yesterday:

316 yards, 132 yards in

Rory's drive on the first hole in pouring rain today:

250 yards, 208 yards in pic.twitter.com/WMeOLASphr

— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) July 23, 2023

“If it’s raining a little heavier, an iron could easily go 20 yards shorter,” Sepp Straka, who finished T-2.
Sure, into the wind, the rest of us will take an extra club. Maybe two. Really, there should be time when we take five extra clubs, or expect a 70-yard decrease on a given drive. It’s uncomfortable to think about, but it’s half the battle when playing in the elements. And it’s something pros don’t think twice about.

4. It’s the external factors that kill you

If you’ve noticed so far, a lot of the things I learnt have to do with external factors. All the stuff that’s out there. There are lots of things out there, especially during Opens, and it’s easy to let them screw us up.
Even for pros.
For Emiliano Grillo, it was the wind on the driving range. It was blowing left-to-right most days. Perfect to counteract his draw. Then he stands up on the second hole, and for the first time, finds the wind blowing right-to-left toward out of bounds. That baby draw which was flying straight on the range is about to turn into a hook.
“It’s so hard to make the switch,” he said. “Standing on the second hole, I bailed out right both days. I probably hit my ball 100 yards right.”
For Max Homa, it was the hassle of moving everything around in the rain.
“The umbrella to the glove to the yardage book to the umbrella, it just gets tiring holding the dang thing and shuffling it around,” he said after I asked him the most difficult part of playing in the rain. “You just feel very out of sorts. It takes a few holes to get going.”
Yet both those players had their best Open Championship finish ever. As did Ben An, who says it was always unlucky bounces that would often send his rounds into a mental, downhill spiral. He said things only started to change recently, when he accepted those will happen and there’s nothing he’ll be able to do about it. The central skill in golf isn’t avoiding them altogether, but sucking them up and moving on when they do happen.
“I realised I usually get beaten by the golf course, not by other players,” he says. “I still have to work very hard on it, but I don’t lose my mind as much as I did before … It’s not perfect, but you have to learn to let it go, like what are you going to do next.”

5. Go short or long of trouble, but never around

The third hole is a quirky layout where an old racetrack used to be. A wall signifying out of bounds cuts in from the right at about 250 yards. During the previous two Opens at Royal Liverpool, players would hit a no-brainer iron miles short of it. This year, for the first time, players had introduced a third strategy: Sending a driver over the out of bounds, over the fairway, into the rough. Amateur Christo Lamprecht, who won the silver medal for low amateur after leading through 18 hole, opted for that strategy on day one. He birdied the hole.

 

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“It makes sense,” Bryson DeChambeau says. “You can take the OB out of play every time that way.”
While some players opted for ‘over it’ strategy the first two days, they abandoned it once the weekend rain came. But this was an interesting insight how they think about avoiding absolute, no-go areas like out of bounds: When trying to avoid a hazard, you need to either hit something short that has no chance of going into the hazard long, or something so long that it has no chance of catching the hazard short. Don’t flirt with it, and don’t try going around it.
On a slightly separate note, many proponents of a golf ball rollback would point to something like this as evidence the golf ball does need to get rolled back. I’m not unconvinced by that argument, but in this case, I’m just not sure that would tell the entire story.
Being able to go over everything does give this hole different shot options, which is the guiding principle for so much of the rollback debate. And because that ‘go for it’ option only requires a carry of about 260 yards, it’s a feat most long hitters could accomplish even with a persimmon driver — especially with the right wind.
Rather, this strategy exists now and not before because golfers in 2023 understand the statistical value of being in the rough, if it means being closer to the hole.
“There is typically something bad in play, constantly, so you might as well get it as close to the hole as you can,” says Scott Fawcett, the founder of Decade Golf. “Especially in major championship golf.”
Intentionally trying to hit your ball in the rough is simply not an idea which made sense until we had data that proved why it can. Wherever you may land on the rollback debate, that genie isn’t going back in the bottle.

6. Fully commit to a feeling that works

As often happens with these articles, I’m quickly approaching my word limit, so a quick note on how much I love that Adrian Otegui put this rehearsal practice backswing move into play because he liked the feeling of it in a practice round. He noticed his backswing getting too short. This helped him commit to the feeling of a full turn, in the final seconds it was time to swing.

Instead of waggles, Adrián Otaegui makes a full backswing while he’s over the ball. Then stops, resets, and swings.

“It’s new. It’s a feeling I had in practice rounds. I quite like the feeling, used it on the driving range, then introduced it into my routine.”

Practice vs real pic.twitter.com/QEBWIDHnLd

— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) July 21, 2023

A good reminder, that it doesn’t matter how something looks if it helps your swing feels.

7. Trust the process

I find it increasingly weird how, whenever Rory McIlroy gets into major contention and doesn’t win, pundits immediately reach for some mental platitude. It’s always some variation of Rory not being able to handle the pressure, or wanting it too much, or not wanting it enough, or lacking the killer instinct.
But what, exactly, does that mean?
Rory isn’t standing over a golf ball, thinking about how much making this putt would mean to him. None of these guys are, and they shouldn’t be, either. They may feel nervous, but that’s natural and normal. Even when they feel the nerves, they’re not trying to do anything different. “Process” was the word Rory McIlroy kept returning to during his Hoylake victory in 2014. It’s the same process he’s focusing on in 2023.
The truth is, the whole ‘he can’t handle the heat’ mental stuff is just a thing that people say who don’t want to look at the real reasons, so they make up catchy ones instead.
As far as I can see it, in Rory’s case, he’s a very, very good player (obviously). The key reason McIlroy is so good is because of his golf swing. He’s not the biggest guy, but he can hit his ball enormous distances because of how dynamic his golf swing is. But that dynamism also leads to occasional streaky ball-striking patches, especially off the tee. That’s what we saw during the early part of this season. That’s why to some outsiders, Rory can run hot and cold from round to round. It’s worth the trade.
Other times, he’ll struggle with consistent contact on his putting — that’s what happened on Saturday. Every player has different tendencies which pop up from time to time. This is Rory’s.

 

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Occasionally Rory also has a tendency, I think, to play too safe at certain times. Some variation of all of the above can explain most of McIlroy’s recent major near-misses.
The only way to win majors in the modern era is to fire on all cylinders. The fields are just too deep not to, as Brian Harman proved this week. Rory is one of the few exceptions: A player good enough to get himself into contention, even when he’s not firing on all cylinders. Just as Jack Nicklaus did, whose record doesn’t just include 18 major wins, but 19 other major top threes.
It’s not a bad thing, so save the mental game platitudes about Rory. Any minute now things will align, and Rory will get his major. Then many more after that.

The post Seven things learnt from players at the 2023 Open Championship appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Now, that said, there is still some jockeying for position to be done over the next four weeks on the PGA Tour, and some big names will have something to say about the final spots. Max Homa, Cameron Young and Jordan Spieth could still find their way into that top six, which could bump out Brooks Koepka and even Harman. But they’d both still be among the top 12, and given Harman’s relationship with US captain Zach Johnson, he would likely be selected with one of the six captain’s picks. Of course, Harman has made it clear he wants to earn it, and earn it he has.

Oddly enough, Harman and Johnson had a brief exchange at Royal Liverpool following Harman’s victory, and cameras were on hand to capture the exchange for a YouTube series called “Inside the Open.” The exchange is all of nine seconds, but Golf Twitter believes those nine seconds have confirmed what we all already know — Harman is Italy-bound:

I cannot wait for Brian Harman to hit Jon Rahm with the too small celebration after rolling in a 40-foot birdie putt pic.twitter.com/WDDuNjdXKg

— Patrick McDonald (@AmateurStatus) July 25, 2023

This is one of those times where the internet is clearly misconstruing what’s actually happening here for effect (we’re all guilty of that, by the way). What’s actually happening — Harman is asking Zach, as the Champion Golfer of the Year, “What happens next?” — ie: where do I go next, what do I do next, etc. Johnson has experience on this front being the 2015 winner of the event at St Andrews. Hence why Harman was curious for his opinion as to what happens next.

Johnson’s “just keep doing what you’re doing line” only further muddies the water, though. Does that mean just keep walking forward? Keep doing all the media stuff you need to do? Keep playing well so I can pick you for the team? We’re 99.9 per cent sure it’s one of the first two things, but that 0.01 per cent of us wants it to be the third thing. The third thing is way more fun to assume and to discuss and to dissect. Makes the content world go round.

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Brian Harman likes to hunt big game. So much so that he is known for marking his Titleist Pro V1 ball with lines resembling deer tracks. Now Harman has bagged the biggest title of his career, the 151st British Open at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in a relatively comfortable walk, winning by six shots.

Not that sitting on the lead is ever easy. As he did in Saturday’s third round, Harman put up a couple of early bogeys before settling in with a 13-footer for birdie at the par-3 sixth and a 23-footer at the next that steadied the round after the early wobbles. A 40-footer at the 14th erased all doubt.

The key club for Harman all week was the lone non-Titleist stick in the bag — his venerable TaylorMade’s Spider OS CB — a counterbalanced model similar to the putter he used while employing a belly style of putting prior to the ban that started on January 1, 2016.

For the week, Harman holed nearly 450 feet of putts and gained nearly 11 shots on the field in strokes gained/putting, ranked first for the week. He also made 56 of 57 putts inside 10 feet, a remarkable show of consistency.

Harman’s putter is 35.5 inches in length with 3 degrees of loft. “I’ve always preferred a putter with a lower loft,” Harman told Golf Digest a couple of years ago. “Most have 3 or 4 degrees of loft, but I have only 2 degrees on this putter. This allows me to get the ball rolling without it hopping.” As for the oversized head, Harman said: “I’ve always liked a large, face-balanced mallet. It helps the head stay square through the stroke.”

For his irons, Harman employs an interesting set-up with three Titleist U•500 utility irons with Project X Hzrdus Smoke Black 90HY 6.0 graphite shafts for the 3- through 5-irons and Titleist’s 620 CB irons for the rest of the set with True Temper Dynamic Gold S300 steel shafts.

Harman also excelled off the tee, ranking 15th in strokes gained/off the tee despite averaging only 285 yards per measured tee shot. More importantly, however, Harman ranked first in accuracy with his 9-degree Titleist TSi2 with a Graphite Design Tour AD IZ 5S shaft, an impressive feat considering he used driver more than 70 per cent of the time off the tee.

Not to be overlooked is Harman’s Titleist Pro V1 ball. “I switched to this ball in 2017 from a different company and the effects were immediate,” he said prior to last year’s US Open. “I just was never able to flight my old ball. I had trouble controlling and especially in the wind and we ended up playing so much wind out here. The effects for me were immediate switching to this Pro V and I mean, it’s been a complete 180. The way that I flight iron shots, the way that I control it around the green … I don’t know how many shots it saved me.

“The reason I switched back to Titleist was because of windy days and with Open Championships and major championships in mind. To flight the ball and not have to worry about it getting up and getting out of hand was a big deal.”

Especially when trying to bag the big one.

What Brian Harman had in the bag in winning the 2023 British Open:
Ball: Titleist Pro V1
Driver: Titleist TSi2 (Graphite Design Tour AD IZ 5S), 9 degrees
3-wood: Titleist TS2, 13.5 degrees
Irons (3-5): Titleist U•500; (6-PW): Titleist 620 CB
Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM9 (50, 54, 60 degrees)
Putter: TaylorMade Spider OS CB

The post The Open Championship 2023: The clubs Brian Harman used to dominate Royal Liverpool appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The 17th hole was probably the last one Travis Smyth wanted to play when he stepped on to the tee of it Friday morning, 10-over par for the tournament.

The green is shaped like a turtle’s shell. It’s uphill, and the wind was gusting. An unlikely set of conditions for the little-known Asian Tour player who was previously best known for playing in the LIV Tour’s inaugural event, to send his ball directly into the hole. His name will go down as the first ace in the history of Royal Liverpool Golf Club’s newly redesigned 17th hole, which has sparked controversy for its difficultly all week.

Hole-in-one on 17!

Travis Smyth with an historic shot at Little Eye. pic.twitter.com/CkgTl2lvtt

— The Open (@TheOpen) July 21, 2023

The hole, playing just a hair shy of 140 yards, was just soft 9-iron for Smyth.

“I chipped it,” he said.

But the secret to the shot that let out the loudest roar of the day wasn’t in the club or ball, but the golf tee that propped it up.

With a high-lofted club into wind, teeing up your ball may seem like an unusual move. But Smyth says it’s an essential one that the rest of us can learn from.

Teeing up the ball does make the ball go slightly higher, but it also helps the ball come off with lower backspin. Less backspin makes the ball more immune to wind.

“The club has less interaction with the ground,” he says. “When you’re trying to hit a low one, you are coming in quite steep. It’s easier off a tee, so you’re not catching the ground instantly at impact, which will create spin, which into the wind you don’t want to do.”

So that’s been the tactic for pros all week, including Smyth: Tee the ball about half an inch off the ground, and swing soft. The softer swing keeps the ball lower and, in addition to the tee, sends the ball through the air with very little spin. The perfect shot for into wind.“

Some tee it quite high, higher than you think, when they want to hit low ones,” he says. “It’s all about that spin.”

A helpful piece of advice to remember in the gusts, though Smyth says he can’t guarantee the same results he enjoyed on Friday.

The post The Open Championship 2023: Pro reveals the golf tee tactic that helped him make a hole-in-one appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

His one-under final-round 70 in the pouring rain capped what can only be described as a dominating performance. He became just the third American in the last 40 years to win a major by more than six shots. Yet Harman did not manhandle this course with brute strength, or booming drives. Rather, he plodded his way around carefully, methodically, and masterfully. It’s why the tale of Harman’s tournament can be best told through two statistics:

Two bunkers

Royal Liverpool Golf Club is littered with bunkers. They tormented players all week, especially during the first round, when the R&A had flattened the sand prompting a series of terrible lies (and subsequent change from the R&A). Harman didn’t have that problem: He didn’t find his first bunker until his second round on Friday, and his next one wasn’t until the 72nd hole, when the championship was already decided.

“There’s a million different ways to play this place, but you’ve got to keep it in play,” he says. “To avoid bunkers, you’ve got to hit your driver well. You’ve got to hit your irons well. There’s no faking around this place. This is a real golf course.”

59 of 60 short putts

Harman finished first in strokes gained/putting this week, gaining an incredible 11.57 strokes with his putter. This was courtesy of his mind-bending ability from short range: Harman dropped 45 of 45 putts from five feet and in, and 14 of 15 putts from between five and 10 feet. That helped him to zero three putts on the week overall, and nothing worse than a bogey all week.

“I have the mentality that I expect to make putts,” Harman says of his putting. “Putting has always been a key for me.”

The post The Open Championship 2023: Two mind-bending stats from Brian Harman’s Hoylake win appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Now that the 2023 major season is complete, which of the 30 LIV Golf League members who teed it up in at least one of golf’s four biggest tournaments this year produced the best overall performance?

Well, only one of those players came away with a trophy, so the answer is easy. No LIV player had a better run in the majors this season than Smash Captain Brooks Koepka, who won the PGA Championship after tying for second at the Masters. He also made the cut in the last two majors.
As for the other 29 …

To rank the LIV players who competed in the majors, we came up with a relatively simple formula. For each $1,000 in prize money won at a major, a player receives 1 point. Thus, $50,000 in earnings is worth 50 points, $100,000 is worth 100 points and so on. The only caveat — a player must have made the cut to get those points.

While players do receive prize money at majors even if they don’t make the cut, for the majority of the majors, those purses are distributed evenly among all missed cuts regardless of score. For our purposes, we weighted points for missed cuts depending on how close a player came to the cut line. Missing the cut by one stroke = 5 points; by two strokes = 4 points; by 3 strokes = 3 points; 4 strokes = 2 points, and 5 strokes = 1 point. Players who missed the cut by more than five strokes received no points.

In using those calculations, here’s how the 30 LIV players ranked in the overall majors. And just a reminder — these are strictly unofficial rankings, purely a fun exercise in how to appraise the major starters.

1. BROOKS KOEPKA (5,057 points)
His PGA Championship win was worth 3,150 points, and his tie for second at the Masters worth 1,584 points.
2. CAMERON SMITH (1,637 points)
Most of his points came from a solo fourth at the US Open (991 points) and a tie for ninth at the PGA (465 points).
3. PHIL MICKELSON (1,622 points)
His tie for second with Koepka at the Masters was the big point-producer.
4. PATRICK REED (1,086 points)
Joins Koepka and Smith as the only LIV golfers to make the cut in all four majors this year. The majority of his points came from a tie for fourth at the Masters (744 points) and a tie for 18th at the PGA (214 points).
5. BRYSON DECHAMBEAU (965 points)
His tie for fourth at the PGA was worth 720 points. Also played well at the US Open with a tie for 20th (200 points).
6. DUSTIN JOHNSON (521 points)
A tie for 10th at the US Open gave him 435 points. Made the cut at the Masters and PGA. Alas, no need to discuss the Open.
7. JOAQUIN NIEMANN (376 points)
Finished in the top 20 at the Masters (261 points) and had a decent result at the US Open (108 points). Came close to the cut line in the other two majors (combined seven points).
8. MITO PEREIRA (286 points)
His tie for 18th at the PGA was worth 214 points.
9. HENRIK STENSON (233 points)
His only major start this year was at the Open Championship, where he tied for 13th, the best result among all LIV golfers at Royal Liverpool.
10. HAROLD VARNER III (215 points)
Tied for 29th in both the Masters (125 points) and PGA (90 points).
11. LAURIE CANTER (188 points)
Earned a spot in the Open through final qualifying and tied for 17th in his only major start.
12. ABRAHAM ANCER (170 points)
Finished consistently in the middle of the pack in three majors – Masters, US Open and Open.
13. SERGIO GARCIA (145 points)
Almost all his points came from a tie for 27th at the US Open.
14. THOMAS PIETERS (140 points)
He was middle of the pack in two majors — Masters and PGA — and made the cut at the Open.
15. LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN (122 points)
Tied for 23rd at the Open to earn all his points.
16. TALOR GOOCH (100 points)
The current LIV Golf points leader made the cut in just one of three starts, tying for 34th at the Masters.
17. DAVID PUIG (85 points)
The 21-year-old from Spain made his major debut at the US Open and tied for 39th after a sizzling final round.
18. RICHARD BLAND (84 points)
The 50-year-old from England played in just one major, tying for 33rd at the Open.
19. SEBASTIÁN MUÑOZ (49 points)
Was a qualifier for the US Open and tied for 49th.
20. CHARL SCHWARTZEL (48 points)
Tied for 50th at the Masters, a tournament in which he has a lifetime exemption thanks to his 2011 win.
21. DEAN BURMESTER (36 points)
Finished 54th in his only major start at the PGA.
22. SIHWAN KIM (32 points)
Tied for 62nd in his only major start at the PGA.
23. BRENDAN STEELE (5 points)
Came within a stroke of making the cut at the PGA.
24. ANIRBAN LAHIRI (4 points)
Came within two strokes of making the cut at the PGA.
25. MARTIN KAYMER (2 points)
The two-time major winner had to withdraw with injury at the PGA and was four strokes off the cut line at the US Open.
26. JASON KOKRAK (1 point)
Missed the cut by five strokes at the Masters.
T27. BRANDEN GRACE, KEVIN NA, CARLOS ORTIZ, BUBBA WATSON (0 points)
Na withdrew from the Masters mid-tournament with an injury, while the other three missed the cut in their respective majors by more than five strokes.

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A T-6 finish at the Open Championship would be a celebratory moment for most golfers. Steady rain, challenging links, the world’s best all in one place: A top-10 is nothing to sneer at. Well, for most players, that is.

For Rory McIlroy, however, it inevitably leads to questions of what might have been. This was his 20th top-10 in a major since the last time the 34-year-old won one (2014 PGA at Valhalla). But that’s the rub: he still hasn’t won one now since 2014. And his struggles to claim that elusive fifth career major title have certainly been acknowledged by Golf Twitter, with the game’s pundits — and seemingly everyone who has ever watched a second of the sport — wondering if it will ever come.

On Sunday, it was Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee becoming the latest to take a swing at the Northern Irishman after yet another major loss.

Brandel Chamblee is a walking take quake ?. This one has it all. 1. Rory not in his physical prime 2. Cross-sport comp 3. “Optical acuity.”

Hate him or love him, you watch. shoutout Pete Weber pic.twitter.com/k5vINvTjdh

— Christopher Powers (@CPowers14) July 23, 2023

“I know you think he’s ripped and he is ripped but you reach your physical prime at 26/27, you look at when players are dismissed from teams, it’s far earlier than you would think because they have statistics that show you’ve reached your statistical prime,” Chamblee said after the Open. “I’m talking about mental, I’m talking about optical acuity, all these little things touch nerves, speed.

“I realise he’s ripping it and he looks like a Greek god, but I’m talking about, at 34 he doesn’t have as much runway in front of him as he did when he won his last major.”

These aren’t new thoughts from golf analysts, but they have to sting after yet another missed opportunity in the final major of the 2023 season. Even with the hurtful comments, being called a “Greek god” is a nice conciliatory remark from Chamblee.

With how well he’s staying in shape and his constant close calls at big events, it’s not as if McIlroy is going away anytime soon. And McIlroy stayed positive about things in his Sunday after closing out his week.

“Over the last two years would I have loved to have picked one of those off that I finished up there? Absolutely,” McIlroy said. “But every time I tee it up or most times I tee it up, I’m right there. I can’t sit here and be too frustrated. My game is in a … you think about my performances in the majors between like 2016 and 2019, it’s a lot better than that.

“Again, I’m optimistic about the future, and just got to keep plugging away.”

Still, one has to wonder just how tough it is with all the chatter about missed opportunities, including now from somebody like Chamblee who was a pretty strong Rory backer.

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Walk into the clubhouse at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland and just about the first things you see are two trophies on proud display. One is instantly recognisable, the other is similar but distinct. Sitting alongside a replica of the Open Championship claret jug Darren Clarke won at Royal St George’s in 2011 is another not quite the same, this time commemorating the native son’s victory in the Senior Open at Gleneagles a year ago.

“Winning the Senior Open last year ranks pretty high on my list of achievements,” says Clarke, who this week will defend his title at Royal Porthcawl in Wales. “I really wanted to complete the pair if you like. And when you set a goal then actually achieve it, it’s a pretty nice feeling. I’m not sure where the Senior Open ranks exactly, maybe just behind my two World Golf Championships. All I can say is it meant a lot to me.”

One thing not working in Clarke’s favour at Porthcawl will be local knowledge. Although rightly renowned for his prowess on courses adjacent to oceans, the 54-year-old has not seen what’s universally acclaimed as Wales best links since 1989. Back then, Clarke was a member of the six-man Irish team that failed to defend its title in the European Amateur Team Championship. Although Clarke and his compatriots finished second in the stroke-play section of the competition, Scotland proved too good for them in the match-play semi-final. In the end, Ireland had to settle for third place.

“That’s a long time ago, but I remember it well,” says Clarke, whose best finish since beating fellow Irishman Padraig Harrington by a shot at Gleneagles a year ago is a tie for second in the PGA Tour Champions’ Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai back in January. “And I’ve heard nothing but good reports about how the course is looking now. It’s just a really good venue and a proper test of every aspect of the game.”

Clarke appreciates the fact he’s often considered a favourite when he’s playing in a big event on a links course. “That’s my favourite form of the game,” he said. “But I’m going through a spell at the moment where I go to the range and flush every shot. Then I go to the putting green and make just about everything. Then I go on the course and it’s just not happening, which is frustrating. And it’s golf. And I know it’s a stage that usually leads to playing well. I’d be more worried if I wasn’t hitting good shots on the range and not making putts in practice.”

Clarke will arrive at Porthcawl on the back of a missed cut in the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool. Rounds of 73 and 77 added up to five shots too many for the former champion to make the cut. All in all, the two days he spent in the company off Thomas Pieters and Victor Perez was a frustrating experience, much as Clarke enjoyed the company and chat of the younger men. The passing years, however, are no friends of any golfer.

“I’m shorter off the tee than I was at the top of my game,” Clarke says. “But not a lot shorter. I seem to struggle mentally more than I did. I’m still winning on the Champions Tour, so I can still play. But my mind wanders sometimes. And I still try too hard. I still beat myself up too much. I can’t help myself. I so want to play well I get in my own way sometimes. I hit a couple of shots I shouldn’t hit, and I struggle to put those behind me. And the putter is cold at the minute, too. If I short-side myself, chip to six-feet and miss the putt, it’s like: ‘Here we go again.’”

All of which sounds more than familiar to long-time Clarke watchers. As well as he has done throughout his career, the recurring thought is that, with a little more tolerance of his own shortcomings, he could, would and should have won more often.

“I haven’t changed,” he admits. “Although I am a little more understanding and a little bit calmer than I was. It’s the old story: I love the game and I hate the game. But I still know how to get it done when I get a chance. Coming down the stretch last year was so much fun. Padraig put in a very strong finish, and I knew what I had to do. There was no coasting in. I had to birdie the last hole and I did, which was the most satisfying part of it.”

Still, the differences between Royal Liverpool and Royal Porthcawl are, at least where Clarke is concerned, more than marked. Both mentally and physically, it is a contrast he is well aware of.

“What was interesting last week was the location of the bunkers,” he says. “On the Champions Tour, I find I can carry most of the fairway bunkers, bunkers others struggle to reach. That situation was reversed at Hoylake. Victor and Thomas were flying bunkers I was struggling to reach. I still found a few of them though. I have no ego problems when I go to the Open now though. The only disappointment was what I shot, especially on the second day. If I thought I was going to do that, I wouldn’t have gone.”

That’s not to say Clarke lacks ambition. Given his state of play, he’s not so much over the hill as still having a bit to go before reaching the top.

“I’m going to Porthcawl to win,” he says. “Yes, I’ll have to hit the ball better than I did at Hoylake. Yes, I’ll need to putt better. But if I do those things I’ll be right there in contention. A decent week on the greens will give me a chance.”

Fighting talk. Let’s hope Royal Portrush has room for one more trophy.

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It doesn’t rank up there with Tiger Woods winning the US Open on a broken leg, but what Tom Kim endured last week on his way to a personal-best finish in a major was a evidence of grit and the power of painkillers and adrenaline.

After a freak accident at his rental home, where Kim on Thursday evening stepped on to a muddy spot and twisted his ankle into a Grade 1 sprain, he wore a removable cast away from the course and arrived at Royal Liverpool on crutches.

The 20-year-old said he considered withdrawing before the second and third rounds, but Kim toughed it out. After an opening 74 in good health, he shot back-to-back 68s, and then closed in the terrible weather, with treacherous slippery grounds, on Sunday with a 67 to finish in the runner-up group of four at seven-under that was six shots behind champion Brian Harman.

“It actually lasted better today,” Kim said. “I took off my cast and kind of saw and it actually got a lot better, which was really nice to see. My team and my medical team have done a great job of protecting it and making sure it’s not moving as much as possible.

“Obviously, coming down the stretch of a major when you’re playing well, the adrenaline kind of hits and makes sure you’re kind of in it. It’s kind of nice to almost forget about it a little bit, because when you’re in the moment you don’t really think about it. I think today was probably the best it’s been out of the three days, so kind of relieved.”

That doesn’t mean Kim wasn’t thinking about all the mud he had to traverse in a day of constant rain.

“You could slip really easily. The last thing I need right now is another twist or another slip.”

The performance extends a run of recent strong results of the second-year tour player. Kim tied for eight in the US Open last month and was T-6 in the Scottish Open. He appears to be back on track after hitting a spring and summer lull following a strong season opening in which he won in Las Vegas in October and had two other top-10s before the calendar turned to February.

“It’s very, very satisfying,” Kim said of the result at Hoylake. “It’s been tough at times this year, but I can’t say it’s really tough, because for me, I feel like our team has a lot of expectations and we’re trying to play the best that I can.

“Obviously having the season last year, your expectations go more up and you kind of feel like you’re supposed to play like that all the time. Seeing golf courses that I haven’t been to, hitting a huge learning curve, it’s been kind of frustrating a little bit.

“But it’s been a time where I put things a lot in perspective and try to keep myself — this is just a learning curve, this is my first full year out. These guys have been out here for five- to 10-plus years.

“I really have to kind of put it into perspective and keep working hard to keep playing better. I put a lot of work in this year trying to get back to that feeling of kind of contending in big events and it’s kind of nice to see the fruits coming to life.”

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