Bryson DeChambeau hung tough Saturday after a rough Friday debacle (Stuart Kerr/R&A via Getty Images)

SOUTHPORT, England — Rory McIlroy is nothing if not brutally honest, and whatever filter he has was fully turned off when the subject of Bryson DeChambeau’s rules controversy Saturday.

If he had prepared notes, McIlroy could not have been more pointed in his comments about DeChambeau’s rules situation that lingered late Friday night in the second round of the Open Championship.

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Barring another record-setting effort on Sunday at Royal Birkdale, McIlroy likely fell out of contention with a Saturday 69 that leaves him 2-under par and eight shots back of leader Sam Burns. But that didn’t stop him from speaking his mind when the subject of DeChambeau’s two-stroke penalty to be broached. DeChambeau was dinged for improving his line when getting to his ball on the fifth hole, a ruling that caused considerable consternation and at one point had the two-time major winner threatening not to play the third round.

“I was watching it live,” McIlroy said. “I was up in the players’ lounge watching it with a few other players, and as soon as he made the step into the ball, we all sort of looked at each other, and we were like, ‘that didn’t seem right.’ Then when I heard that he was called in by the rules officials, I think we all — it was pretty obvious for why.

“I think there’s no doubt that he improved the line of his backswing. Again, it’s like, whether it was careless or whether it was intentional, I don’t think it matters. Hopefully it was careless, but I think the two-shot penalty was justified for sure.”

DeChambeau was deemed to have violated Rule 8.1 which covers “fairly taking a stance” and stipulates that “you cannot deliberately stamp down, sweep aside or flatten extra grass merely to create a better platform or more room for the swing.”

Even after going to the offending spot well right of the fifth fairway, the R&A rules officials — which are, in part, manned by DP World Tour officials — were not swayed by DeChambeau’s vehement defense.

The entire situation took more than an hour to resolve and resulted in tee times for Saturday’s third round needing to be held back to determine whether DeChambeau would be slotted at 7-under or 5-under.

Also in today’s DD

• Scottie Scheffler withholds his thoughts on DeChambeau

• Sam Burns leads by 2 despite another Birkdale 62 by Ryan Fox

• ‘Passionate’ Jon Rahm draws warning for club toss

• Open leaderboard

• Don’t miss all of our preview coverage of Royal Birkdale

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McIlroy, who has had his moments with DeChambeau and had a tough second-place finish to him two years ago at the U.S. Open, didn’t dance around the subject.

“Late night for everyone,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, look, I won’t pretend to be up here and defend Bryson. I’m not particularly fond of him. I think a lot of it’s performative. I think a lot of it’s for attention.

“To hold the tournament hostage like that, and to have all of us — players, volunteers, everyone — waiting on him to depart, I didn’t feel like it was a great look.”

Rory McIlroy is a long way back with one round to play at Birkdale (Stuart Franklin/R&A via Getty Images)

McIlroy was asked if the situation DeChambeau encountered is something that occurs more often than is known but is just not seen in such a high-profile manner.

“Yeah, it’s hard. Every shot is on camera,” McIlroy said. “There’s a lot of guys that play this week and the shots aren’t on camera. So you can say that that’s unfair or whatever, or it might happen more than it does. It’s obviously impossible to police everyone, and that’s why it is, for the most part, a self-policing game.

“I think when there is obvious evidence like there was last night, then obviously that’s a different story.”

The validity of the penalty drew a mixed reaction from players both for and against the ruling.

“Yeah, I mean, looks to me like he improved his line, and that’s the rules of golf,” said Shane Lowry. “Yeah, it was interesting watching it last night. None of us were expecting it. I was watching the end of the golf — yeah, that’s the rules of golf. It’s unfortunate for him, but that’s the way it is.”

Others came to DeChambeau’s defense, including Max Homa said he felt bad for DeChambeau if there was any belief that he did something on purpose. (The R&A said it did not believe his act was intentional.)

“I only saw one angle, and in my opinion I didn’t agree with the ruling,” Homa said. “I know there’s another angle that — side on, it’s always hard to tell if it improves anything.

“All I know is I’ve known Bryson for a very long time, and he’s an interesting human at times, but I know he would never cheat the game of golf. I don’t really love how it happened. It’s not that the R&A said that he did it intentionally, but that rule as a

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Bryson DeChambeau and his caddie Gregory Bodine (Stuart Kerr/R&A via Getty Images)

SOUTHPORT, England — An impressive round of golf by Bryson DeChambeau ended up clouded in controversy on Friday night as the two-time major champion was assessed a two-stroke penalty that he vehemently argued against, threatening not to play Saturday’s third round of the Open Championship.

DeChambeau, who shot a 66 in the second round at Royal Birkdale to seemingly climb to 7-under par and within a shot of leader Lucas Herbert, dropped to three strokes behind after the penalty strokes were added to his score for a violation of Rule 8.1.

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On the fifth hole, where DeChambeau made his only bogey of the day, he was deemed to have improved the area of his intended swing. This possible violation was brewing behind the scenes for the majority of his round as video made the rounds of DeChambeau in a heavily-grass area addressing his ball.

DeChambeau went to the scene of the infraction with R&A rules officials and could be seen demonstrably arguing his case.

After another 25 minutes in scoring, DeChambeau’s score was officially changed to a triple on the fifth hole and a 68, leaving him 5-under par and tied for fifth.

It appeared on the broadcast that DeChambeau threatened not to play during Saturday’s third round. He walked past a group of reporters later and would only say, “Guys, I’m gonna practice.” It was 9:40 p.m. local time.

DeChambeau’s agent, Brett Falkoff, told reporters that DeChambeau was not a lock to play on Saturday and that he would make a decision in the morning about whether or not to continue.

“He’s a lot of things,” Falkoff said. “He’s not a cheater.”

DeChambeau later tweeted his take on the incident and opted to continue playing.

“Obviously disappointed with the ruling. I don’t agree with it, but it is what it is. This fires me up. Onto the weekend. Let’s get it,” he wrote on social media.

The R&A governs rules outside of the United States and Mexico and runs the Open Championship. Its executive director, governance, David Moir said that actions were “prohibited” but “accidental.”

R&A’s Grant moir said DeChambeau “accidentally” violated Rule 8.1 (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

“Ruling 1 restricts what a player may do to improve any of the protected conditions affecting the stroke, and this includes the area of the player’s intended swing,” Moir stated to reporters. “So an improvement means to alter one or more of the conditions affecting the stroke so that the player gains a potential advantage for the stroke.

“Now, I’ll stress that this applies even when the action is accidental, as it was in Bryson’s case.

“The area of intended swing includes the entire area that might reasonably affect any part of the backswing, the downswing or the complaining of the swing for the intended stroke, and importantly, what the prohibited action here is that the player mustn’t move, bend or break any growing or attached natural object.

“A player is allowed to fairly take their stance by taking reasonable actions to get to the ball and take a stance, if in some situations that improves the condition affecting the stroke, but when doing so, the player must take the least intrusive course of action to deal with the particular situation and is not entitled to a normal stance or swing.

“I would reiterate this rule applies even when there’s no intention to improve the area, as was the case with Bryson.”

Moir did not take questions and R&A officials would not say if DeChambeau threatened to not play on Saturday.

DeChambeau began the round two strokes behind first-round leader Jackson Suber but was five back of Herbert when he teed off. Herbert shot a major-championship-record-tying 62 to get to 8-under par.

After a birdie at the fourth hole, DeChambeau ran into trouble at the par-4 fifth, where a wayward drive came to rest in thick, tall rough. After surveying his lie, DeChambeau apparently stepped down on an area of tall grass that would be in the line of his backswing.

He played the ball out from there and went on to make a bogey.

There was no mention of a possible violation on the broadcast but video of the incident surfaced and thus began the process of speculation as to whether or not a penalty was committed.

DeChambeau birdied the ninth, 11th, 17th and 18th holes to get within a stroke of Herbert’s lead before the penalty was assessed.

Coming into the event, DeChambeau had missed the cut in the previous three majors in 2026 but has two victories this year on LIV Golf.

Lucas Herbert agonizes over missed 4-foot par putt for 61 (Kate McShane/R&A via Getty Images)

SOUTHPORT, England — In times like this, it is best to look at the positives.

Lucas Herbert, the Australian golfer, would have absolutely taken a 62 at Royal Birkdale when the second round of the Open began on Friday morning. Who wouldn’t?

No doubt he’d be thrilled to be leading a major championship, having never sniffed contention. Duh?

And he’d of course be stoked about tying a major championship scoring record.

But … about that final putt on the 18th green. The 4-footer for par. The one for 61 he missed.

The worst regrets are what could have been.

“I’m absolutely disappointed, and at the same time, so proud of today,” said Herbert, who flirted with the lowest score ever in a major championship until that bogey at the last hole. “Very, very proud to put my name on that list of guys that have shot 62 in a major championship.

“So it’s kind of holding two emotions there at the same time. It’s a tricky one, and I’m sure once the dust settles, I’ll be able to sort of decompress it a little bit. Right now I’ve sort of got both going on, and it’s a pretty good problem to have too, to be disappointed you shot 62.”

• Rory McIlroy bounces back from his worst putting round

• Jackson Suber’s first European vacation is proving to be a good work week

• If the Open were to expand its links portfolio, our top-5 wish list

• Open Championship leaderboard

• Don’t miss all of our coverage from Royal Birkdale

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Nothing at all to be disappointed about in the big picture. Herbert, 30, who plays for the all-Australian Ripper GC team on LIV Golf, made nine birdies and a bogey to shoot 62 and match the all-time lowest round in major championship history, done five times previously by Branden Grace, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele (twice) and Shane Lowry.

Sam Burns holes out from bunker for a 62 of his own (Stuart Kerr/R&A via Getty Images)

Then, amazingly, Sam Burns joined the club less than 20 minutes later, holing a bunker shot for birdie on the 18th hole to cap a birdie-birdie-birdie finish and another 62.

“I had no idea until they told me up there,” Burns said of the record. “I didn’t realize that was the case. Yeah, I’m very pleased with it.”

For the record, the 62s in majors:

• Branden Grace, 2017 Open, Royal Birkdale, third round.

• Xander Schauffele, 2023 U.S. Open, LACC, first round.

• Rickie Fowler, 2023 U.S. Open, LACC, first round.

• Xander Schauffele, 2024 PGA Championship, Valhalla, first round.

• Shane Lowry, 2024 PGA Championship, Valhalla, third round.

• Lucas Herbert, 2026 Open, Royal Birkdale, second round.

• Sam Burns, 2026 Open, Royal Birkdale, second round

So that’s three of seven 62s at Royal Birkdale, which is somewhat remarkable for a course that has otherwise been pretty stout in its 11 times hosting the Open.

And some low scores seemed inevitable this week, given the baked-out conditions that have not been accompanied by excessive winds. Still. Two 62s?

“I didn’t see any 62s out there,” Adam Scott said last week after playing practice rounds on the course.

“I don’t see a 62 out there right now,” Jordan Spieth said earlier this week. “If there’s going to be one, I could see it happening at an Open Championship over the other majors just because so much is dependent on the conditions and if the conditions are calm. Like you would think there would be a 60 at St. Andrews in calm conditions probably next year, just the way the game is going. People are just shooting lower and lower.

“So I think it’s a matter of time, technology and depth of golf.”

Spieth, who won here in 2017, had a lot correct — if not the part about 62. These iconic links courses are not match for today’s players and their souped up golf balls and technology, minus lousy weather or wind.

A dry, hot summer has baked Royal Birkdale to a golden brown, making it firm and fast the way organizers like it but also vulnerable to good scores if the conditions are benign.

There were 38 scores under par after the first round and the conditions were relatively the same Friday, leading to the record scores.

Lucas Herbert is disappointed and proud to make major record book (Oisin Keniry/R&A via Getty Images)

“That’s pretty cool,” said Herbert, who has one LIV Golf victory along with one on the PGA Tour and three on the DP World Tour. “I just saw the list before of guys who have shot 62, and it sounds like we just added another one to it out there with Sam as well.

“That’s a really cool list to be a part of. Even that whole back nine today, it was not lost on me the amount of history in major championships and the opportunity I had to obviously break the record, but then to tie it as well is still something I’m really proud of.”

Herbert, whose best finish at a major was a tie for 15th at the 2022 Open, put himself in position with a record-tying first nine of 28. Birdies at the 11th and 12th holes put him at 8-under for his round and in position to break the record, especially with two par-5s ahead. But he parred them both, made a birdie at the 16th, and then was unable to get up and down from in front of the 18th green.

His score gave him a 36-hole total of 8-under 132 after he opened the tournament with par-70. Bryson DeChambeau, with a 66 after a first-round 67, put himself in the final group with Herbert, a shot back at -7 — until he was later deemed to be in breach of Rule 8.1 for “inadvertently improving the area of his intended swing” on the fifth hole.” That led to a two-shot penalty and dropped him back to -5.

Jackson Suber, the first round leader, was two back after a 69 and tied with Cam Young. Burns’ 62 came after an opening-round 73.

It’s somewhat surprising Burns is here at all. He was expected to miss the event due his wife Caroline’s pregnancy. She had the baby on July 3.

“I haven’t really done a whole lot of golf leading up to this,” Burns said. “Plus I didn’t get here until midday on Monday. Just trying to get my feet under me for the first couple days. I don’t know if there’s lower expectations, but I think as a competitor, you still expect a lot out of yourself. But definitely tried to be a little more patient with myself for sure.”

Burns, 29, is not a links golf lover. In five previous appearances at the Open, he missed one cut and had no finish better than a tie for 31st.

“I would say I’m not a huge fan of links golf,” said Burns, who has five PGA Tour victories and finished runner-up last month at the U.S. Open won by Wyndham Clark. “I just haven’t played well on links. It’s not something I’m very familiar with. I get to do it maybe once a year.

“Like (Thursday) I hit … not a bad shot on 17. I hit a 3-iron in and was trying to hit it just left of the green and I get up there and it’s in the left side of lip and I have to hit it backwards. That kind of stuff is frustrating to me. You feel like you’ve hit a decent shot, and you get up there, and the next thing you know you’re hitting it backwards.

“That’s kind of been something I’ve tried to work on playing links golf is trying to be more accepting and still getting there. But yeah, I think the main thing is you just try to come out and execute to the best of your ability and learn to accept whatever the outcome is.”

Burns might have been looking to going home after his first-round 73. But he made a couple of birdies on the first nine and then added six on the back including the last three holes.

While Burns didn’t know he was doing anything special, Herbert was keenly aware. Both had different paths to the same score, one that puts them — for now — in the major championship record book.

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Rory McIlroy’s 67 Friday gets him into the weekend (Kate McShane/R&A via Getty Images)

McIlroy fights back

After a poor putting performance during the opening round — his worst in a major via strokes gained going back to the 2022 PGA Championship — Rory McIlroy climbed back into the tournament Friday with a 67. He’s still seven shots back of leader Lucas Herbert but at least has a chance with a strong Saturday.

“I felt like I had momentum coming off the end of the front nine there with the two birdies on 8 and 9. I felt like I stalled a little on the back,” McIlroy said.

“Look, I think the main objective today was to be here for the weekend, which I am. I felt like I left a couple out there. Then you look at the board and you see a couple of 62s, and you feel like you could have done a bit better.

“Get off to a decent start tomorrow. There’s a couple of guys up there, this will be sort of their first experience of playing in the lead at a major championship on the weekend, so there’s obviously some that are very experienced at it like Cam (Young) and like Sam (Burns) as well.

“I think if I can get off to a decent start tomorrow, be 4- or 5-under for the tournament, I’ll be right in it.”

One aspect of McIlroy’s game that has been strong is his driving. He’s been leading the field in strokes gained off the tee. He also hit 14 of 18 greens Friday.

“I think I’ve driven the ball so well the last two days,” McIlroy said. “I think anytime I can get a driver in my hand, I’m going to try to. I just feel like with how I’m feeling with the driver, I think it’s a big advantage if I can get the ball down there and take out some of these fairway bunkers.

“I’ll continue to do that when I can, and then I’m still trying to figure out these greens a little bit. Yeah, I’ve struggled the last couple of days. It was a little better today but still didn’t feel 100 percent comfortable. Hopefully try to figure that out as the week goes on.”

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Jackson Suber has been a quick study of links golf in his Open debut (Tom Shaw/R&A via Getty Images)

Who needs experience?

Learning links golf can be tricky and plotting your way around these ancient courses can be a challenge. Then there’s Jackson Suber, making his first ever trip to Europe, who played a links course for the first time on Monday when he got to Royal Birkdale.

Suber, a second-year pro from Tampa, Fla., who played college golf at Mississippi, was the first-round leader with a 65 and added a 69 during the second round to comfortably secure a place among the leaders.

“Well, I knew the ball was going to be the same size, so that’s always nice,” Suber said of his expectations. “It’s just pretty firm. It’s really the tee shots that I feel like is a big difference from what I’m used to. So just knowing that I’m going to hit a 4-iron 280, 290 (yards), and thinking about that runout and staying out of the pot bunkers. But that’s where I feel the biggest challenge is.

“Other than that, I think it’s pretty similar, just really firm — extremely firm conditions.”

Suber, 26, is clearly learning quickly. He played just 27 holes here before the first round.

After missing five cuts in his first eight starts this year, Suber has three top-six finishes since May, including a tie for sixth two weeks ago at the John Deere Classic.

He qualified for tournament via the Open Qualifying Series, tying for fourth at the RBC Canadian Open.”

“I feel like I’ve been really coming into myself as a golfer and maturing and learning what makes … what works for me,” he said. “Just learning how to deal with my golf game on the road and playing a whole year and what I need to change when things are going a certain way and kind of what I need to be … how I need to be calibrating stuff every day.”

The trip has not been all business. Suber and his fiancée along with Pierceson Coody and his wife toured Liverpool earlier this week.

But he won’t be doing any driving on the left side of the road here.

“I’m trying to make it here four days,” he said.

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Royal County Down would vault immediately to top of list as greatest Open venue (David Cannon/Getty Images)

Ranking an Open wish list

On Wednesday, The Daily Drive ranked the 14 courses that have ever played host to any of the 154 Open Championships to date. Today we rank the top five links that have never (and for most of them likely will never) see an Open waged on them. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy and wouldn’t produce a great championship.

1. Royal County Down, Newcastle, Northern Ireland

Consistently regarded among the handful of greatest golf courses in the world along with the likes of Pine Valley and Royal Melbourne, County Down would be a dream option if the R&A wasn’t so fixated on attracting massive throngs to optimize profits. The Newcastle links in the shadow of the Mourne Mountains has held its fair share of major events including three Senior British Opens (2000-02), two Amateur Championships (1970 and 1999), a Walker Cup (2007) and five Irish Opens (most recently in 2024 when Rasmus Højgaard clipped favorite son Rory McIlroy).

2. Portmarnock Golf Club, Portmarnock, Ireland

The R&A seems almost certain to break tradition and conduct its Open Championship outside of the United Kingdom for the first time so it can capitalize on the Portmarnock links’ proximity to Dublin. Built on a peninsula in the Irish Sea, the course is undoubtedly great and has the size to handle today’s best golfers. It has been the most common host of the Irish Open, staging 19 of them from 1927-2003. It held a Walker Cup in 1991 and twice played host to the Amateur Championship (1949 and 2019). The latter was not without controversy due to the club’s male-only membership, but Portmarnock finally invited women members in 2021 and was rewarded with a Women’s Amateur Championship in 2024 as the R&A continues to inch toward taking its big one there.

3. Royal Dornoch, Dornoch, Scotland

The Championship Course adjacent the Dornoch Firth is arguably as great as any links course in Scotland, which is saying quite a lot. The golf club was established in 1877 but much of its design greatness is attributed to Old Tom Morris, who visited the Highlands links twice. An airfield consumed part of the original course during World War II, after which George Duncan was commissioned to extend holes 6-11 on newly acquired land to create the world-renowned course. Dornoch native Donald Ross imported a lot of Dornoch’s design elements to places like Pinehurst. Because it’s so remote in the Highlands, Royal Dornoch hasn’t held many big championships. The British Amateur was there in 1985, the men’s and women’s Senior Amateurs in 2022 and four Scottish Amateurs have been waged there (most recently 2023). At 6,800 yards, some tees would need extending to test today’s best men. It would be so worth trying to make it happen.

4. Royal Porthcawl, Porthcawl, Wales

The sterling links on the Bristol Channel has welcomed plenty of prestigious tournaments including six British Amateurs, a Walker Cup (1995), three Senior Opens (two won by Bernhard Langer) and most recently the AIG Women’s British Open in 2025. It was also a regular European Tour stop on several occasions. Despite its pedigree and championship chops, the R&A said as recently as 2015 that it had no plans to take the Open to Porthcawl, much of it for the same infrastructure, space and accessibility issues that hinder a return to Turnberry.

5. Lahinch Golf Club, Lahinch, Ireland

If we’re dipping into the Republic of Ireland well again, a strong argument could be made for Ballybunion instead of Lahinch. But the links adjacent Ireland’s surfing paradise and around the corner from the Cliffs of Moher has a larger scale and more room to potentially accommodate a modern Open footprint. And its Championship course with the fingerprints of Old Tom Morris and Alister MacKenzie is as fun a test of golf as you’ll ever encounter. How cool would it be to see the greats tackle blind approaches to Klondike and Dell back-to-back with a claret jug at stake? Lahinch holds this year’s Walker Cup and is the regular venue for the South of Ireland Championship. It also held the 2019 Irish Open won by Jon Rahm.

Bryson DeChambeau had nothing to say even after an opening 67 (Stuart Franklin/R&A via Getty Images)

SOUTHPORT, England — Bryson DeChambeau declined to talk to reporters on Thursday afternoon after his opening 3-under 67, which is certainly his right, but isn’t exactly helping him as he endures a frustrating summer that saw him tee off at the Open Championship on Thursday hoping avoid a major championship 0-fer in 2026.

DeChambeau actually played nicely at Royal Birkdale, with only a final-hole bogey knocking him out of a share of the early lead after he hit 15 of 18 greens in regulation to sign for a score that trailed early leaders Daniel Brown and Sungjae Im by a shot.

After his struggles at the Masters, PGA Championship and U.S. Open — missing the cut in all three — plus the issues LIV Golf faces and its ominous future, DeChambeau had reason to be happy.

But apparently not enough to want to chat openly afterward. He gave only a few comments to an R&A media official but avoided any direct questioning from the assembled press, who were also denied questions following his missed cut at the Masters, PGA and U.S. Open.

“Definitely satisfying,” he told to an R&A media official for a pool report. “Any time you get off to a great start, it’s awesome, but there’s three more days, dude. There’s still a lot of golf to be played. But ultimately from my perspective I was really excited about the way I played.”

Also in today’s DD …

• Bob MacIntyre’s ongoing war with drones doesn’t stop strong start

• Englishmen keep calm and carry on after World Cup ouster

• Free Stenson! Former LIV senior will soon be free

• All quiet on the LIV front

• What they’re saying

• Second-round tee times

• Don’t miss all of our preview coverage of Royal Birkdale

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DeChambeau declined pre-tournament media interviews at the three most recent majors and although he did speak at the LIV Golf Virginia event in May, much of it was in response to the news that the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia — which backed the formation of LIV Golf — would no longer be doing so after this year.

It probably didn’t help matters that six-time major winner Nick Faldo told Sky Sports that DeChambeau has “no clue of strategy.” And Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee criticized DeChambeau’s pursuit of YouTube golf endeavors.

Faldo said recently that “he has no clue of strategy. He said it last year I think on TV: ‘I’m going to go out and attack the links.’ Well, I’ve never attacked a links. You thread it, don’t you? You feed it down the fairway.

“You look at humps and bumps and what have you and think, ‘If I send it over and feed it, it nudges back into play.’ You don’t think, ‘I’ll just bomb it down there, can’t see where I’m going, it’s 20 yards wide.’ Oh yeah, good luck.”

Faldo’s philosophy isn’t wrong but his recollection of DeChambeau’s tactics might be. It is true that the two-time major winner who captured the 2020 and 2024 U.S. Opens has struggled at the Open. In seven appearances, he’s missed two cuts and never contended.

But DeChambeau doesn’t appear to have said what Faldo suggested. Two years ago at Royal Troon, before missing the cut, DeChambeau said: “I don’t think it’s possible to overpower it. There’s too many hazards around the fairways, even in the bunkers. You’ve got to be very strategic out here.

“Look, I’ve played well on strategic golf courses in the past … so I think I’m pretty solid it. But overpowering this golf course, I don’t think it’s possible.”

Last year, after opening with a 78 at Royal Portrush, DeChambeau rallied to make the cut with a second-round 65, then shot 68-64 on the weekend to tie for 10th. It was a

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Scottie Scheffler believes there’ll be more thinking before choosing shots (Stuart Franklin/R&A via Getty Images)

SOUTHPORT, England — The grass is not green, the fairways are hardly lush. Beauty comes in diverse forms on a links, and Royal Birkdale is certainly no different. Brown is the color of choice this week and embracing all that entails is among the key factors in navigating the course for this week’s Open Championship.

A warm, dry spring and summer has led to a fiery links, one that will present numerous challenges as the 154th Open begins on Thursday morning. It is the kind of setup that presents an interesting test, one without the standard choices.

“When you give professional golfers options and you can create a little bit of doubt in their minds in terms of should I play this shot or that shot, that’s when things start to get fun, especially for the viewer,” said Rory McIlroy. “Not so much for us but … that to me is the sign of a good championship test.”

The turf here is dry and firm. It is so hard that walking for extended periods of time leads to sore feet and a bad back. With humps and bumps and hills to navigate on top of it, it would easier to walk for hours on concrete than Birkdale’s links.

• Tuesday’s DD highlighted Justin Rose’s sustained success since 1998 Birkdale

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The Open hasn’t had a venue that played this firm and fast since 2022 at St. Andrews. And while that doesn’t mean scoring will be difficult, it does mean different challenges are presented.

Take, for instance, these diverse ways of looking at the strategy from Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler and Justin Rose.

Rahm: “It all depends on the wind. With the wind we had (Monday), where (No.) 10 basically played straight right to left, we all hit 5- or 6-iron on 11 and still almost reached that bunker on the left. We hit 5- or 6-irons on 16 and almost reached — actually, some people reached the bunker on the left.

“(On) 10, you could make an argument for a 5-iron (off the tee) as well, and if it keeps getting firmer and stays warm with the same wind direction, you could have quite a few holes where that 6-iron is going 280 yards. It’s unprecedented for sure.”

Scheffler: “The ball’s just going to run for forever pretty much. The fairways this week are really tight, so you get a lot of cross-winds. They can be difficult to hold just because they’re so fast and they’re so firm. So there’s a lot of thinking off the tee on whether or not you want to just hit driver up there somewhere and kind of play from the rough most likely, or do you want to start hitting some irons, getting it in some fairways and hitting some longer shots into the greens?

“On each hole there’s a good bit of strategy; there’s a decent amount of thinking. If it wasn’t as firm as it is now, there wouldn’t be as much decision-making, but I think with the firmness, it creates a whole lot more challenges, I think, for us as players, just to try and control your ball and figure out where it’s going to end up.”

Rose: “The bunkering, it’s a very narrow golf course off the tee. I think the rough is burning out, so there is an opportunity for players if they want to feel like they can sort of hit it over corners and potentially run through and just accept 60 to 80 yards out of the rough, that play is there. So you might see a varied bunch of strategies.

“I think ultimately I feel it’s playing like a classic links where you play it, you try to run it up as close as you can to the pot bunkers, and play mid to short irons into the greens. Obviously you just rely upon good strategic golf and putting to the corners and hopefully making a few putts. That’s sort of how I see the course right now.”

Tommy Fleetwood at home in the prevailing brown of his hometown course (Stuart Franklin/R&A via Getty Images)

This is the 11th time that Royal Birkdale has hosted the Open Championship, and the scores have varied greatly based on the weather. When Mark O’Meara defeated Brian Watts in a playoff in 1998, they finished at even-par 280. Ten years later, Pádraig Harrington, who battled through rain, wind and cold for most of the championship, finished at 3-over 283.

The last time the Open was here, Jordan Speith won at 12-under 268 during a week that saw a smattering of conditions, but mostly benign.

Without wind, it is quite possible for some low scores. And those who tee off early Thursday appear to have an advantage. Click here for the full tee sheet for Thursday’s first round of the Open.

But a lot can change at the Open, including the forecast — and perhaps the way players approach how they handle the course.

Rahm might have offered up the most cautionary tale when asked about the possibility of playing boldly.

“The problem is how difficult is it going to be with a wayward drive when you can hit 6-iron, wedge?” he said. “That’s what you need to gauge. From what I’ve learned in the past, if you start pulling out drivers in an Open Championship, you can do a good job short term. You can maybe get away with it one round. Over four rounds, you’re going to start finding spots you don’t want to be in, and you’re going to pay the price.”

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R&A CEO Mark Darbon could alter tee times if England reaches World Cup final (Oisin Keniry/R&A via Getty Images)

About the football …

World Cup fever has swept through England and Wednesday’s semifinal game against Argentina has been the prevailing topic of discussion in these parts ever since the 2-1 quarterfinal victory on Saturday over Norway.

And if England reached the final? UPDATE: Well, that crisis was averted after the Three Lions yielded the lead and the stage to Argentina with two late goals in less than six minutes to fall 2-1 in Atlanta.

The title game btween Spain and Argentine is Sunday at 8 p.m. local time, which had caused a bit of concern as it relates to the finish of the Open which generally ends before 7 p.m. in England — if there’s not a three-hole playoff.

There was chatter that the R&A might alter the final-round tee times to accommodate football-mad fans who might be inclined to skip out of here early or forget the golf altogether. Now there are likely to be no changes to the schedule now that Argentina will face Spain in the World Cup final.

“I’m an England football fan, so it would be a great problem to have,” said Mark Darbon, the CEO of the R&A, at a Wednesday news conference hours before the semifinal game in Atlanta. “But I guess also, because I’m an England football fan, we should also wait to see how the semifinal goes before we get too far ahead.

“Of course in the background, we’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this. Our final putt is currently scheduled for around 6:40 on Sunday. We think that, even if we go to a three-hole (aggregate) playoff, we’ve got time to complete the championship. So at this stage, no plans to alter anything, but we’ll maintain that under review and finalize our position after the semifinal.”

That position is no longer subject to change, although the World Cup final will still be a tough act to precede.

Last year, the final group teed off at 2:30 p.m. local time, with the first group off the tee at 8:50 a.m.

A subjective ranking of every Open venue

Since first hosting the Open in 1954, Royal Birkdale has been the most regular venue, other than St Andrews. This marks its 11 championship in 72 years, a nod to its popularity with the R&A.

For all of its 154 championships since 1860, only 14 different links venues have ever been used — four of which are no longer in the rotation (Prestwick, Musselburgh, Roayl Cinque Ports and Prince’s). One more — Portmarnock in the Republic of Ireland — is being considered as a future addition to the rotation.

Here is one man’s ranking of the 10 venues currently in use followed by the four that no longer host the championship — with some reasons for where they are in the pecking order.

1. The Old Course, St. Andrews, Scotland

• Number of Opens: 30

• First: 1873

• Most recent: 2022

• Next Up: 2027

Not everyone is a fan of the Old Course, which takes some getting used to, especially due to its immense subtleties. But St Andrews is considered the home of golf and the Old Course is one of the game’s true treasures. It is essentially the same place that Old Tom Morris nurtured in the 19th century and the town reeks of golf.

It has also produced some high-profile winners. Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods each won their twice. Seve Ballasteros won an Open at St Andrews, as did Nick Faldo. And yet, Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson did not. Cam Smith shot a final-round 64 in 2022 to win the last championship played there and deprive Rory McIlroy of joining the list.

2. Muirfield, Gullane, Scotland

• Number of Opens: 16

• First: 1892

• Most recent: 2013

• Up Next: TBD (hopefully as soon as 2029 or 2030)

Regarded as one of the finest links courses and the fairest of the Open venues, Muirfield is formally known as the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and remains very old school. (The preferred and sometimes required form of play at the course is foursomes or alternate shot). The course opened in 1891 and almost immediately became a replacement for nearby Musselburgh. And it’s tough to beat the list of champions: Harry Vardon, Walter Hagen, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Nick Faldo, Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson.

Muirfield was briefly taken out of consideration for future Opens until in 2017 it finally admitted women members. It is still working through some infrastructure issues with the R&A before it can be awarded its next Open. Mickelson rallied with a final-day 66 to capture the last Open played there in 2013.

Royal Birkdale’s art deco clubhouse looks like a beached ship (David Cannon/R&A via Getty Images)

3. Royal Birkdale, Southport, England

• Number of Opens: 10

• First: 1954

• Most recent: 2017

• Up Next: Now

Relatively “new” by Open standards, Royal Birkdale is returning after a nine-year gap and has been consistently in the rotation of courses since five-time Open champion Peter Thomson won the first of his two at Birkdale in 1954. Arnold Palmer won the first of his two claret jugs at Birkdale in 1961 followed 10 years later by Lee Trevino. Branden Grace set a major championship record of 62 (since matched) during the third round of the 2017 tournament.

The course is also known for holding the 1969 Ryder Cup, where Jack Nicklaus, playing in the competition for the first time, conceded a short putt on the 18th green of the final match to England’s Tony Jacklin, assuring a 16-16 tie. Jordan Spieth won the last time at Birkdale in 2017.

4. Royal Portrush, Portrush, Northern Ireland

• Number of Opens: 3

• First: 1951

• Last: 2025

• Up Next: Royal Portrush is assured of at least one more per an agreement with the R&A, although it appears a lock to rejoin the rota on a consistent basis

Perhaps recency bias is in play here but there is no denying the scenery at Royal Portrush and the way in which the Open was received in 2019 and again last year. Revenue is a big part of the R&A mandate and spectators supported it in droves. Logistical concerns were among the reasons for the long absence between the first and second championships there, but those were alleviated by building two new holes with land from an adjacent course. It didn’t hurt that a run of Northern Irish golfers — Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke — won majors within a 13-month period more than a decade ago. Scottie Scheffler got his first claret jug and a fourth major title last year.

5. Royal Troon, Troon, Scotland

• Number of Opens: 10

• First: 1923

• Last: 2024

• Up Next: A lock but likely six to eight years away.

The 2024 tournament was an example of how exasperating links golf can be for the best players in the world. The conditions were difficult throughout. Both Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau missed the cut. The course is next door to Prestwick — which hosted the first 12 Opens from 1860-72 before the original rota was formed — and the two clubs have an annual event in which they start at one course and play through the holes onto the other and back again.

Troon has an out-and-back loop similar to the Old Course and is better suited to the demands of a modern Open, hence the decision to leave Prestwick for good more than 100 years ago. Xander Schauffele prevailed two years ago year, winning his second major title.

6. Carnoustie Golf Club, Carnoustie, Scotland

• Number of Opens: 10

• First: 1931

• Last: 2018

• Up Next: Unclear

Carnoustie’s lack of beauty is made up with brawn. It is generally regarded as the most difficult course in the rota and among the toughest in the world. But the infrastructure issues that caused a long layoff between Opens from 1975-99 are in play again as Carnoustie is a tiny town and spectator concerns will likely make returns infrequent.

That in no way takes away from the golf course, which is stout. It might be remembered best for Jean Van de Velde’s 72nd-hole implosion in 1999. Pádraig Harrington won the first of his three majors there in 2007, besting Sergio Garcia in a playoff. Ben Hogan completed the “Triple Crown” in 1953 by winning at Carnoustie, the only time he played in the Open. The last Open played at Carnoustie saw Francesco Molinari — paired with a resurgent Tiger Woods — hold on to win the claret jug.

7. Royal Liverpool, Hoylake, England

• Number of Opens: 13

• First: 1897

• Last: 2023

• Up Next: A lock for future Opens

The second-oldest seaside links in England, Royal Liverpool was the venue for the first British Amateur Championship in 1895 and two of three amateurs who won the Open — Harold Hilton and John Ball — were members at the club commonly known as Hoylake. It is also where Bobby Jones won the second leg of his Grand Slam in the 1930 Open.

Like Portrush, Royal Liverpool went a long period between Opens — from Robert De Vicenzo’s victory in 1967 to Tiger Woods’ win in 2006. Infrastructure issues were solved and now the course not far from Liverpool is a favorite of the R&A for its ability to pack in spectators. Brian Harmon prevailed during a rainy week at Hoylake in 2023.

8. Ailsa Course, Turnberry, Scotland

• Number of Opens: 4

• First: 1977

• Last: 2009

• Up Next: Murky

The most recent venue to join the rotation, Turnerry was an instant hit in 1977 when it produced a classic, the famous “Duel in the Sun” that saw Tom Watson prevail by a shot over Jack Nicklaus as they played the final 36 holes together and lapped the field by 10 shots.

The most picturesque of the venues with a lighthouse overlooking the Irish Sea and Ailsa Craig, Turnberry deserves a higher ranking but is plagued by a couple of big issues, including President Donald Trump’s ownership of the resort, which R&A officials have cited as among the reasons for pausing a return. But the bigger issue, however, is its remote location and lack of spectator access. The 2009 Open was lightly attended and the R&A has moved more toward higher-revenue producing venues. Watson was 59 years old when he nearly pulled of an incredible victory, ultimately falling to Stewart Cink in a playoff.

9. Royal St. George’s, Sandwich England

• Number of Opens: 15

• First: 1894

• Last: 2021

• Up Next: A 16th Open is just a matter of time

Jack Nicklaus once allegedly said that the Open venues get worse the farther south you go — a line often repeated but never confirmed. The inference was to Royal St. George’s, which is a quirky layout and the first course in England to host the championship. It’s proximity to London makes this a lock in the Open rotation, even if it might not be the favorite of most players.

Despite being located in the tiny town of Sandwich (approximately 5,000 people), the course has vast space for all the Open needs. Collin Morikawa captured the 2021 Open at Royal St. George’s.

10. Royal Lytham & St. Annes, Lytham St. Annes, England

• Number of Opens: 11

• First: 1926

• Last: 2012

• Up Next: 2028

Bobby Jones won the first Open at Lytham in 1926 and there was some hope the R&A might return this year to celebrate the 100th anniversary. Despite it being plagued by a small footprint boxed in on all sides, the R&A announced earlier this year that Lytham will return in 2028.

Located on England’s northwest coast, the venue itself is solid, with a rare par-3 opening hole and some 200 bunkers. But organizers admit this venue will lead to a smaller number of spectators being admitted. When Ernie Els birdied the 18th hole and Adam Scott bogeyed the last four in 2012, the Big Easy was the winner the last time the Open was at Lytham.

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No longer part of the Open anymore, these four courses still exist and embrace their championship history.

11. Royal Cinque Ports, Deal, England

• Number of Opens: 2

• First: 1909

• Last: 1920

• Why it lost the Open: Logistics, proximity of Royal St. George’s

Still regarded as a challenging and excellent course, Royal Cinque Ports has been a Final Qualifying venue for the last several years as well as hosting big amateur events. It could probably still host the Open were it not for the lack of space needed to put on the modern championship. The course lost an Open to world wars in 1915 and 1938 and was moved in 1949 to Royal St. George’s due to flooding.

Deal, as it is also called, was the site for an instructive moment in golf history in 1920 when Walter Hagen — barred from the clubhouse because he was a pro and required to change in the pro shop — had his limo driver park in front of the club near a flag pole, where he changed his shoes each day. Hagen would go on to win the Open four times but that week started to change the way professional golfers were viewed. George Duncan won that championship in a two-day event that saw 36 holes played each day.

12. Prestwick Golf Club, Prestwick, Scotland

• Number of Opens: 24

• First: 1860

• Last: 1925

• Why it lost the Open: Inability to host large galleries, proximity of Royal Troon

The original home to the Open Championship, Prestwick is still the second-most used venue in the 154-tournament history of the event. It is no longer suited to hold the championship due to space limitations. The first 12 Opens were played at Prestwick, and 15 of its 24 were played on a 12-hole layout that was not revamped until the late 1880s. The first Open was 36 holes with the 12-hole course played three times in the same day.

Four of the original holes remain including the famous Himalayas and Alps but the quirky course remains a huge hit with visitors. Among the early-tournament lore, Young Tom Morris in 1870 won for the third straight time and started the tournament with a 3 on what was then a 578-yard opening hole that played as a par-6. The championship belt was retired after that as Young Tom got to keep it and the Open was cancelled in 1871 for lack of a trophy. Young Tom won the first claret jug at Prestwick in 1872 in the last of his four consecutive victories before he died in 1875.

Jim Barnes, who won the first PGA Championship in 1916, won the last Open played at Prestwick in 1925.

13. Prince’s, Sandwich, England

• Number of Opens: 1

• First and Last: 1932

• Why it lost the Open: The course was damaged during World War II and Royal St. George’s next door became a better option

When it hosted the Open for the only time in 1932, Prince’s gave the R&A three venues within a few miles of each other (including Royal Cinque Ports). Gene Sarazen set a scoring record that stood for 18 years, leading after each round before winning by six over Macdonald Smith. But much of the course was destroyed during World War II as the Royal Air force used it for bombing target practice. Today, the facility is 27 holes.

14. Musselburgh, Musselburgh, Scotland

• Number of Opens: 6

• First: 1874

• Last: 1889

• Why it lost the Open: It is a nine-hole layout that was deemed out of fashion early on as nearby Muirfield took prominence

Last but certainly not least, Musselburgh goes to the end of the list simply because somebody had to and it is the course farthest removed from hosting the championship, last doing so in 1889. The nine-hole course is mostly contained within an existing turf horse track and remains a popular destination for golfers who often play it with rented hickories and replica gutta percha balls. Its clubhouse across the street is a shrine to its history with the Open. It was a part of the original three-course rota that alternated between St. Andrews, Prestwick and Musselburgh.

Mungo Park beat out Young Tom Morris in the first Open at Musselburgh in 1874. In the last Open played there in 1889, Willie Park Jr. and Andrew Kirkaldy were tied after 36 holes, contested in one day. That led to a 36-hole playoff won three days later by Park Jr.. The Open would be contested over 36 holes just twice more before the first Open at Muirfield in 1892 changed the championship to a 72-hole tournament.

Justin Rose, 45, signs autographs ahead of his fourth Open start at Royal Birkdale (Kate McShane /R&A via Getty Images)

SOUTHPORT, England — There are five players in the Open field this week who played at Royal Birkdale in the 1998 edition won by Mark O’Meara. All but one of them is in their 50s, which you almost have to be in order to have competed in more than a third of the now 11 Opens played at this course which was first used in 1951.

Justin Rose, who turns 46 at the end of July, was just 17 years old when he finished fourth at Royal Birkdale 28 years ago, setting in motion a somewhat remarkable start to his career.

Rose did so by holing a pitch shot from off the 18th green on Sunday, setting off a frenzy of adulation. O’Meara defeated Brian Watts in a playoff. A guy named Tiger Woods finished third ahead of Rose.

“This is the third time I’ve been back to Birkdale since ’98, so obviously it’s always going to be a special place for me at Royal Birkdale,” Rose said of his pending fourth Open start on the English links. “It’s always going to sort of bring back those memories of that kid chipping in and all the magical feelings I experienced that week of the crowd getting behind me, sort of a true underdog story.

“The fact that it was my last event as an amateur, holing that shot to seal off my amateur career was as cool a moment as I could have had.”

Also in today’s DD …

• Jon Rahm just wants more Sunday opportunities to win majors

• Players sound concerns about gambling’s influence in golf tournaments

• Notes from the tee sheet and regarding the slightly elevated Open purse

• DD Podcast with Bob Harig, BBC’s Iain Carter and host Jason Powers

• Don’t miss the morning DD with heralding Jordan Spieth’s return to Birkdale

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This is just the 11th Open to be played at Royal Birkdale, meaning Rose will join Stewart Cink, Pádraig Harrington and David Duval as players in the field who have competed in four Opens here. Darren Clarke also played here in 1998 but he missed the 2008 tournament.

The thing all four of the others have in common? They’ve won the claret jug. Rose never has and has added just three top-10 finishes since that epic teenage moment all those years ago, including a tie for second two years ago when Xander Schauffele won at Royal Troon.

The fact Rose is here again without the lifetime winner’s exemption is a testament to his continued productivity. The 2013 U.S. Open champion has missed the tournament just once since 2007. He’s ranked 10th in the Official World Golf Ranking in his mid-40s.

“I feel like I’m really enjoying the challenge of staying elite with my game,” Rose said. “I’m really enjoying the opportunities and the moments I’m creating and the memories I’m creating through those moments. That’s kind of my driver, whether that be holing a putt on a Friday at Ryder Cup or having chances to win major championships.

“It does come down to results at the end of the day, but also in the moment really, a result is fantastic. Scottie Scheffler might have said this last year, maybe at this tournament, that you sort of do look at yourself a week or two later, and you’re suddenly into the next stretch of tournaments, and that result — you can’t be defined or live and die by the result.

“So I’m trying to see it as moments. Am I playing golf for the right moments? Am I creating memories? And are those memories worth the sacrifice? Because as I get older, I think it’s taking more of me. I’m having to be more disciplined than I’ve ever been to stay at the level of golf I want to be at, and I’m enjoying that challenge. I feel like I can keep pushing. I feel like I can keep going with that narrative as long as possible.

“Certainly in the moment I feel inspired. I’m enjoying that challenge.”

Rose continues to push himself as an OWGR top-10 player at almost 46 (Oisin Keniry/R&A via Getty Images)

Rose has 13 PGA Tour victories and counts 11 on the DP World Tour. But perhaps his greatest feat is overcoming a horrific start to his career.

The plan was always to turn pro in the summer of 1998 — with his 18th birthday looming after his Open debut — as he had accepted sponsor invites to several European Tour events. Rose said he never truly considered college golf, a decision that might have been different in modern times.

So he headed to the pro ranks — and then missed the cut in his first 21 professional events.

Justin Rose’s last amateur shot was a hole-out to finish fourth in 1998 Birkdale Open (Paul Vicente/AFP via Getty Images)

“There was a moment in time where — I never wanted to regret having holed that shot, but I think that shot made my transition into pro golf a little bit harder just from an expectation point of view,” Rose said. “A bunch of missed cuts into it, I felt like you had to take stock, and I had to sort of really evaluate who I was, what my goals were, how realistic they might be.

“I think really to sort of separate myself from the result at the Open Championship to kind of put a clear head on my shoulders and kind of grind through and realize a career is a long time. My basic and very simple equation was, yeah, I was a talented golfer, had a great amateur career. It wasn’t like the Open was the only thing I could hinge my future on. If I look back at my whole amateur career, it was strong.

“So I clearly said to myself, right, you’re a talented golfer; you couple that with hard work and just stick at it. I had to separate myself from the Open week but put myself into hard work and believe I was good enough.”

Rose has proven to be plenty good. He’s a major champion (2013 at Merion) and an Olympic gold medalist (2016 in Brazil). He’s also played on seven European Ryder Cup teams, five times on the winning side.

There are no trophies for it, but longevity is to be admired as well.

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On the podcast, DD’s Bob Harig and BBC golf correspondent Iain Carter discuss the 154th Open at Royal Birkdale. Topics include …

• Royal Birkdale and the links strategies players face this week

• The warm, dry weather and how it creates a fiery test

• History of the Open Championship and Europe’s love for the event

• The uncertainty of LIV Golf moving forward

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Jon Rahm aims to get in the mix at Birkdale after missing his last two cuts (Stuart Franklin/R&A via Getty Images)

Rahm just looking for more chances at majors

The narrative surrounding LIV Golf players and their performances in the major championships is a complicated one. On the surface, it appears that they have, for the most part, fared worse since joining LIV Golf.

There are outliers, of course. Brooks Koepka won the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill as a LIV member and nearly won the Masters the same year. Bryson DeChambeau had a strong run in the majors in 2024-25, winning the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurt and posting several top 10s.

Is DeChambeau’s three missed cuts in majors this year reflective of something with LIV Golf? Or simply the normal course of the game that might see any player struggle at any given time.

Then there is Jon Rahm, who won the 2021 U.S. Open and the 2023 Masters, bolting later that year to sign with LIV Golf.

Prior to his departure at the end of 2023, Rahm had two wins, eight top-fives and 12 top-10s in 27 major starts as a pro,

Since he left for LIV? There have been four top-10s in 10 major appearances with two missed cuts including last month at Shinnecock. He also withdrew from another major before it began with a foot injury. His closest call was probably the tie for second at this year’s PGA Championship at Aronimink, although he was right in contention until the final holes at last year’s PGA at Quail Hollow.

Asked if he’s getting impatient, Rahm said: “No. No. It’s — how to describe it would

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Jordan Spieth has his eye on “defending” his 2017 Open win at Birkdale (Stuart Kerr/R&A via Getty Images)

SOUTHPORT, England — The memorable ending is typically overshadowed by the drama that occurred just before it. Jordan Spieth finished birdie, birdie, eagle, birdie par to win the Open Championship by three strokes.

But it was the all-world bogey he made at Royal Birkdale’s 13th hole during the final round of the 2017 Open that is most remembered — a bogey that took some 30 minutes to complete, included a spectator being struck in the head by his tee shot with the ball bounding over the ridge of Birkdale’s largest dune, a lengthy rules discussion and an unplayable-lie drop amidst equipment trailers on the driving range.

He somehow made a 5 in his final-round duel with Matt Kuchar, and then went on to win his third major championship.

Spieth returned to Royal Birkdale for the first time in nine years this week, getting in a practice round on Sunday. The memories, of course, came rushing back.

“It’s come up probably more than any other hole I’ve ever played,” Spieth said during a tournament news conference on Monday — which is saying something considering he made a memorable quadruple-7 on the 12th hole at Augusta to blow the 2016 Masters. “I remember being pretty decisive in what I wanted to do and being frustrated with the amount of time it all took, just because it wasn’t my intent. I remember getting the most out of it and making a bogey there and feeling like I stole a shot back somehow.

“As I was playing it the last couple days, it was fun to stand on that tee and just kind of be like, wow, this is — some stuff really hit the fan last time I was standing on this tee, from here on in. It was the start of a crazy six-hole stretch. But I was like driver, 2-iron the last two days. It’s a completely different hole. You’re trying to hit it down the left side instead of the right.

“It was nice to kind of play it again and get it out of the way and then come tournament time try to — it’s one of the harder holes on the golf course. Try to figure a way to get around in four 4s and beat whatever I did nine years ago on that hole.”

The 13th is different now, namely the area where Spieth hit his tee shot in 2017 is now out of bounds and the practice range where he dropped is covered by corporate hospitality.

Also in today’s DD …

• Is U.S. Open champ Wyndham Clark ready to ‘hang’ it up at the Open?

• Tee times for Thursday’s first round of the 154th Open

• Stray Shots from a stirring Scottish Open

• Don’t miss yesterday’s DD with Last Chance qualifier and Southport’s RC history

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There are other changes at Royal Birkdale, including a new left tee box on 13 that alters the angle to a fairway pinched in by new bunkering to the right and an expanded dune dividing the 13th hole from the fan village. There’s also a ditch that runs he length of the hole on the left.

Spieth tees off on a re-jiggered “lucky 13th” in Birkdale practice round Monday (Stuart Kerr/R&A via Getty Images)

The greenside bunker that Spieth had to pitch over for his fourth shot also has been pushed back nearer to the green. Spieth pitched to 10 feet and made the putt for an unlikely bogey to drop to 7-under, one stroke behind Kuchar with five holes to play.

Then Spieth stiffed a 6-iron that lipped out to 5 feet at the par-3 14th. That hole no longer exists, with only the green saved as part of a short-game practice area. The new 14th hole is what used to be the par-5 15th, redesigned into a 602-yard par 5 with the green moved back about 30 yards from its previous location. Spieth rolled in a 50-footer for eagle there in 2017 and famously barked at his caddie, Michael Greller, “Go get that!” as the ball was still tracking toward the cup.

The 240-yard, par-3 15th is a new short hole created to diversify the directions and lengths of the course’s one-shotters.

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Joe Dean saves one last par on 18 to book Last-Chance spot in the Open (Oisin Keniry/R&A)

SOUTHPORT, England — England’s Joe Dean could not be a more perfect representative to claim an Open spot the inaugural Last-Chance Qualifier. His is a classic grass-roots tale of earning everything he’s achieved in golf the hard way.

The former delivery driver for a UK supermarket chain won the first 12-man on-site qualifier on Monday at Royal Birkdale, securing the last spot in the Open field. Dean, who plays on the DP World Tour, shot 2-under 68 to finish one shot ahead of England’s Andrew Wilson and two ahead of South African Aldrich Potgieter.

Dean got a spot in the Last-Chance Qualifier as one of the alternates who came out of final qualifying two weeks ago. In front of a nice gathering of spectators for the first official day of Open week at Royal Birkdale, he made an eagle, two birdies and two bogeys in the qualifying round to reach his third Open.

“It was great today. Any opportunity to get in the Open again, I’ll glady turn up and play,” Dean said. “One-day events, I seem to play better. I don’t quite know why, the mentality of trying to keep the same throughout any round. I don’t know if I got used to it a bit more and it was sort of just a one-round shoot-out.

“To see the amount of people out here today, it’s been great. I think it has drawn a lot more people.”

Also in today’s DD …

• How a meeting in a Southport hotel changed the course of the Ryder Cup

• Tee times for the first two rounds of the 154th Open

• How to watch the Open Championship

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Last-Chance Qualifier leaderboard (Kate McShane/R&A via Getty Images)

Dean is ranked No. 268 in the world and has posted top-10 results in two of his last three events, with a tie for third at last month’s KLM Open and a tie for ninth at last week’s BMW International Open.

A former English Amateur champion in 2015, the Sheffield native turned pro in 2016 and shuffled around the developmental PGA EuroPro and Challenge tours. In 2023, he was kicking around playing in two-round tournaments with no status before making it through all three stages of DP World Tour Q-School to earn his card.

But getting his card at age 29 was only half the battle. Dean still couldn’t afford the cost of travel around the world for DP World Tour events, so he continued supplementing his living expenses by driving a delivery truck for Morrisons supermarket.

“I had a great time doing it,” Dean said of his moonlighting delivery gig. “Met some really good friends and grounded me really well. My coach keeps saying to me, ‘don’t let the game define you.’ And obviously (golf’s) not your typical 9-to-5 job. It is a

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Royal Birkdale’s toasted brown links will present a firm and fast Open challenge (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)

SOUTHPORT, England — A good bit of Europe has been enduring a summer heatwave. Amid your own misery at home in the states, you might have heard of some of the struggles over here, especially in England.

Nobody is going to feel sorry for big-time professional golfers having to ply their trade under a hot summer sun, even if there might be a smidge of compassion for those forced to carry on this week without air conditioning or enough ice.

But undoubtedly, the warm temperatures — expected to be push into the 80s for a majority of the week — will be a storyline for players and spectators alike this week at Royal Birkdale for the 154th staging of the Open Championship, where a brush fire is seemingly around every corner.

A first look at the course on Sunday illustrated the summer stress. There is plenty of brown and not a lot of green. A good crowd of spectators showed up to see the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Rickie Fowler, Harris English, Joaquin Niemann, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka and others getting a look at the parched links a day before Open practice rounds officially get under way.

Augusta National, it is not.

Nor should it be. One of the beautiful aspects to links golf is the powers that be typically let Mother Nature dictate the conditions. If it is hot and dry, so be it.

Also in today’s DD …

• This week in golf delivers Tom Kim, Haeran Ryu (again)

• Open field adds three more high Scottish finishers; last-chance spot remains

• End of Scottie Scheffler’s “cut” streak prompts semantic debate about merits

• LIV Golf warns staff that potential downsizing is on the horizon

• How to watch the Open Championship

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Adam Scott, who played three straight days here last week to prepare for the Open, said the grounds staff was doing all it could do to keep the course “lush,” but clearly the rough has not grown to the thickness and deepness that it would under a normal rainy spring. “It won’t take much for it to be fiery,” Scott said.

That will undoubtedly be true, and a firm, fast links has the chance to be something special. But if there is little wind, rendering the course defenseless, we are in for a bevy of scores under par.

Pádraig Harrington, who won the second of consecutive Opens when he retained the Claret Jug at Royal Birkdale in 2008, played the course recently and raved about its

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Scottie Scheffler missed his first cut in 1,428 days since 2022 (Ross Parker/SNS Group via Getty Images)

NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — Scottie Scheffler has never been to Royal Birkdale, the site of next week’s Open Championship. He’ll get an earlier look than expected.

Scheffler, the No. 1-ranked player in the world, was on his way to a missed cut at the Genesis Scottish Open on Friday afternoon following a 2-over-par 72 at the Renaissance Club that left him outside of the top 65 and ties that advance to the final two rounds.

That followed a first-round 68 and put Scheffler at even-par 140.

“A little different than I was planning,” Scheffler said after his first missed weekend in 1,428 days. “Figure out how I get down to Birkdale and go from there.”

Also in today’s DD …

• Nelly Korda’s LPGA HOF bid falls short with missed cut at Evian

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This is rare territory for Scheffler, the four-time major champion who will be the defending champion at the Open next week, some 280 miles south in England.

Scheffler had the longest streak of consecutive made cuts on the PGA Tour at 78, having last missed at the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship, which was then a full-field playoff event that now does not have a 36-hole cut. The last time he finished outside of the top 25 was at the 2024 BMW Championship, where he tied for 33rd.

Earlier this year, Xander Schauffele’s tour-leading cut streak ended at 72 when he missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open. Scheffler surpassed him, getting just past halfway to the record of 142 that Tiger Woods set from 1998 to 2005.

Woods, Byron Nelson (113) and Jack Nicklaus (105) are the only players to reach at least 100 consecutive made cuts. Hale Irwin’s best streak was 86 made cuts, leaving Scheffler’s 78 at fifth on the all-time list.

“I didn’t really feel like I played that bad,” said Scheffler, who has 20 PGA Tour victories. “This golf course can be just tough at times. You know, there’s some humps and mounds out there, and yeah, I’m trying to think, just because it’s like — didn’t really feel like I played that bad.

“I felt like I needed at least a birdie coming in on my last few holes. I felt like the cut was going to be 2- or 3-under. Trying to think. I know I had to make the putt on 8 and I had to make birdie, I felt on 9. Just hit a good iron shot just a little short.”

Scheffler made four bogeys and just two birdies on Friday. Playing the back nine first, he got off to a slow start and was trying to catch up the entire way.

A birdie at his final hole, the ninth, at least would have made it interesting as he’d have finished at 2-under par and on the number before the afternoon wave finished. But the bogey dropping him back to even par all but sealed his fate dropping him outside of the top 80.

During his cut streak, Scheffler actually played in 25 events that did not have a 36-hole cut but for which he was credited. (Woods played in 31 such events among his 142 in a row.) He’s only missed three cuts since first ascending to world No. 1 ahead of winning the 2022 Masters, all three in 2022 at the PGA Championship, Scottish Open and FedEx St. Jude.

“It’s a a little different now with some of the signature events not having cuts,” Scheffler said. “But you know, this is — I don’t think I finished outside of the top 20 or something like that many times this year.

“I’m definitely proud of the consistency, and wish I had a couple days over the weekend to make up some ground. But overall, get down to Birkdale a little earlier than expected and get used to a new course.”

Scheffler has only one victory this year, at his season-opening event in January at the American Express Championship. Compared to previous seasons, it appears he’s having an off year, but he also have seven top-four finishes, a runner-up at the Masters and the Travelers, and just two previous finishes outside of the top 20.

And he ranks first on the PGA Tour in strokes gained total and strokes gained tee to green; third in strokes gained off the tree; eighth in strokes gained approach to the green; fifth in strokes gained around the greens and 12th in strokes gained putting.

At the Scottish Open, he was well below his usual standards, including 57th off the tee, 127th in approach and 75th in putting.

Scheffler was coming off a tie for fourth at the U.S. Open and a playoff loss to Viktor Hovland at the Travelers Championship. Last year, he tied for eighth at the Scottish Open before winning the Open at Royal Portrush the next week.

“I think I’ve been really close to winning some tournaments, and that can be frustrating,” Scheffler said Wednesday. “But at the same time, I’ve had some good results, and a fourth and a second are not bad results by any means.

“Margins in golf are really small, and just keep trying to do my best. I feel like no matter how the season goes, there’s always shots I wish I could have back. There’s always tournaments I feel like I should have won and I didn’t. That’s just part of the game. You’ve got to ride with it, kind of the highs and lows. And like I said last year at The Open: It’s not a satisfying venture playing professional golf, so try to take the good with the bad.”

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Nelly Korda missed the cut for the first time in 2026 at the Evian (Philippe Millereau/KMSP)

Korda’s shot at history will have to wait

Scottie Scheffler wasn’t the only world No. 1 to miss the weekend in Europe. Across the English Channel in France, women’s No. 1 Nelly Korda struggled at the Amundi Evian Championship and missed the cut after rounds of 74-69 at Evian Resort in the LPGA’s fourth major of the season.

An Evian victory for Korda would have put her into the LPGA Hall of Fame and gotten her one step closer to the career Grand Slam. The LPGA counts five events as majors, and Korda still hasn’t won the Evian (her best finish is T8 in 2022) or the Women’s British Open (runner-up in 2024).

Korda declined to comment after her first-round 73 put her in a deep hole. A bogey on the 17th hole Friday derailed her comeback effort to extend her two-year streak of made cuts. Needing a birdie on the par-5 18th — the easiest hole at Evian Resort — to guarantee a spot on the weekend, she left her 15-foot birdie putt inches short. Her 2-under 69 to finish at 1 over left her one short of the even-par total she needed.

In nine previous starts this season, Korda had not finished worse than tied eighth twice. She compiled four wins including major victories at the Chevron Championship and U.S. Women’s Open along with three runner-ups already this year.

Her last missed cut was in the 2024 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship — a season in which she won seven times.

Korda will play in next week’s ISPS Handa Scottish Open at Dundonald Links and then the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, the LPGA’s fifth and final major of the season.

England’s Lottie Woad leads the Amundi Evian Championship at 11-under par after rounds of 67-64.

Adam Scott surveys the scene at the Renassaince Club (Ross Parker/SNS Group via Getty Images)

NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — Adam Scott arrived a bit later than normal to the East Lothian area of Scotland, having first headed south to England to sample the venue for next week’s Open Championship.

Scott — the 2013 Masters champion who missed the cut at the U.S. Open last month where he was competing in his100th consecutive major championship — spent three days at Royal Birkdale, which will host the oldest championship for the 11th time.

He came away impressed by the venue after playing there for three consecutive days starting Sunday.

“Who wouldn’t want to play Birkdale, but to play it in the run-up to the tournament when nobody is there is fantastic,” Scott said at the Genesis Scottish Open, where he shot 69 on Thursday in the opening round at the Renaissance Club. “It’s one of the things I really enjoy about being in the Open. The course is closed and nobody is there. I’m basically out there by myself.”

Also in today’s DD …

• Rory McIlroy’s sparse spring and summer schedule

• Brooks Koepka’s PGA Tour playoff prospects

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A good bit of Europe and most of England has been enduring a heat wave that is forecasted to continue next week, with temperatures expected in the upper 70s and low 80s at least the first part of Open week.

That means the course is extremely dry, with firm conditions expected but less rough than might be expected.

“They’ve kept it lush for now but all they have to do is turn it off for a day and it’ll be very fiery,” Scott said.

Links courses are so weather dependent. When Mark O’Meara won in a playoff in 1998 at Royal Birkdale, the winning score was even-par 280. Pádraig Harrington’s 2008 victory in weather that was mostly cold and rainy came at 3-over 283. But nine years ago, when Jordan Speith prevailed at Birkdale, he did so with a 12-under 268 total.

During the third round in 2017, Branden Grace shot 62 — the first player in major championship history to go that low. It has since been matched four times, twice at the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club (Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele) and twice again at the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla (Schauffele and Shane Lowry).

With dry conditions and a lack of rough, we could be in for some good scoring next week, although Scott isn’t convinced it will be that easy.

“I didn’t start any day thinking there’s a 62 out there,” he said. “It was blowing 20 mph each day. There’s always someone who shoots a good score but they’ve pretty much got it so nobody is going to be cutting corners or able to overpower it. You have to play your way to spots there.”

Although it was not Scott himself who posted, some video was shared of him hitting a driver from a fairway at Royal Birkdale.

There was also video this week of Scottie Scheffler getting in some casual practice at the West Links in North Berwick — a popular spot with tour players this week including Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas.

Scheffler has not typically indulged much in recreational links golf over here but seems to be getting into it more, now that he is an Open champion.

“You can tell kind of why golf was invented here,” Scheffler said. “If you and I were to go out and play, you hit the ball I’m sure a little bit lower than me and probably not as far — no offense,” Scheffler said. “That style of golf works really well here, and you can hit a lot of clubs off the green. It’s not the same club every time, and it gives you an option. You can get some funny bounces sometimes.

“But it’s also a pure and raw way to play golf. The conditions change pretty quickly, and that could have an effect on a tournament. But when you have similar conditions over four days, it’s a pretty true test of golf. There’s always the weird bounce: You hit off-line and hit in a pot bunker and chip out sideways.

“Other times, you barely miss that bunker and get a clean lie out of the rough and hit on the middle of green. Those breaks always happen. They happen in regular tournaments, as well. This is a style of golf I wish we could play more often, but it’s not an easy style of golf to replicate. It’s unique to here and the coastal links courses, and it’s fun to play it a couple of weeks out of the year.”

Rory McIlroy got in some links work as well soon after getting to Europe following the U.S. Open. During the first round of the Travelers Championship that he was skipping, McIlroy was getting in a practice round at Royal Birkdale, one that might not have been disclosed had six-time major winner Nick Faldo been on site — where he ended up talking to McIlroy and filming him.

“Birkdale was definitely just a scouting trip for the Open for sure. I would have liked to have not had it known that I was there but Faldo couldn’t put his phone away, so,” McIlroy said, laughing. “I love Nick. In fairness, he’s great. I had a good time with him. He walked a few holes with me.”

While he only spent one day at Birkdale, McIlroy said it was valuable being there with his caddie, Harry Diamond.

“Harry came over with me. Harry actually played Birkdale the week before as well,” McIlroy said. “I think refamiliarizing myself with some of the holes but obviously Birkdale is a little bit different from what it was back in 2017, too. Just getting an early look at new holes. It just means it takes pressure off the start of the week and not feel like you have to play 18 holes any day, and if you want to just play nine, I feel like you can and not feel like you’re under prepared.”

McIlroy also indulged in some recreational links play in addition to attending Wimbledon in his green jacket with a host of European Ryder Cup mates.

“Then I played St Enodoc last Friday. And yeah, we spent four days down in Cornwall,” McIlroy said. “I had never heard of it before, and it’s I guess a top 100 course in the world. It’s really cool. But that was more just for enjoyment.

“You’re going out to play, but yeah, it’s nice, you start hitting the ball off links turf again and start to play in a little bit more wind. Your links instincts come back, even if it is for fun. The stuff that you’ve grown up with starts to come back to you.”

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Rory’s dwindling schedule during peak season

We’ve written extensively in the last few weeks about Rory McIlroy being on track to finish short of the PGA Tour minimum of 15 tournaments this year to retain his membership for 2027. (For the uninitiated, McIlroy is required to play 15 due to getting unlimited releases as part of the “home tour” rule in Europe; his status as a lifetime member does not apply.)

McIlroy is playing just his 10th event of the year this week at the Genesis Scottish Open, where he opened the tournament with a 65. With next week’s Open and three FedEx Cup playoff events and no indication that he will add anything else, McIlroy is going to come up one tournament short of 15.

That is potentially an issue but likely not for him. Although McIlroy is not technically in violation of missing the tour minimum, he’s made clear in the past that he was going to play less. And while the PGA Tour can deny him membership next year, that would also mean fewer chances for the two-time Masters winner to play in PGA Tour events. PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp or commissioner Jay Monahan have discretionary options on this.

“The PGA Tour and I are in constant dialogue,” McIlroy said. “I speak to Brian and his team a lot. Not just about that but about everything else. We’ll figure it out. I made them aware that this could happen at the end of last year. They know.”

Will this become a big deal? It’s unlikely. Sure, some critics will be upset about a different set of rules being applied to a star player. But the tour leadership has an out. McIlroy knows it.

McIlroy has definitely cut back on how often he plays. He didn’t play in the three weeks prior to the Masters after the Players Championship. He played just once (at Quail Hollow) after his victory in Augusta prior to the PGA Championship. And then he teed it up just once again (Memorial) before the U.S. Open.

That is just five events in approximately three months. The Scottish marks his only start before the Open, meaning by the time Birkdale is over he will have played on seven tournaments (four of them majors) in four months since the Players in mid March.

“The benefits are seeing my family more, feeling like I have a bit more balance in my life,” said McIlroy, who opened the Scottish Open with a 65. “And then the challenge is, I feel like even though I have played pretty sparsely over the past few months, the starts of my tournaments have all been really good. So it’s not like I’m coming in and starting slow, and the little bit of extra practice I think actually helps in some ways.

“I think one of the other benefits for me, like I’m nearly 20 years into this, and I need to do everything I can to keep my enthusiasm as high as possible, and playing a lighter schedule definitely does that.”

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Koepka’s playoff prospects reach point of urgency

With all the talk of his return to the PGA Tour this year after four years playing for LIV Golf, somewhat lost has been Brooks Koepka’s place in the game. The five-time major winner is still outside the top 100 in the Official World Golf Ranking (115th) and he began Scottish Open week 81st in FedEx Cup points.

As part of the terms of his return this year, Koepka was unable to accept sponsor invites into the signature events and was never able to qualify for any of them. He has five top-15 finishes this year but just one top-10, a tie for ninth at the Cognizant Classic.

“Good play takes care of itself,” said Koepka, who opened the Scottish Open with a 4-under 66. “I’ve got an opportunity to go out there and go play well this week. And next week is a major, so it’s a lot more opportunity to kind of move up the board, I guess, and just looking forward to that, and then hopefully kind of finish out the year pretty strong.”

Koepka needs to do some moving up quickly. He is currently outside of the top 70 who will qualify for the first playoff event at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, which is only five weeks away. And he needs to be in the top 50 after that in order to qualify for the BMW Championship, which would assure him of getting into all of the signature events in 2027.

The BMW Championship this year happens to be at Bellerive in St. Louis, where Koepka won the 2018 PGA Championship.

Harris English and caddie Eric Larson at the PGA Championship at Aronimink (David Cannon/Getty Images)

NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — Harris English is a veteran golfer who’s been through a few things in the game. He was part of the losing U.S. Ryder Cup team last year, where he lost two matches and had to sit out the singles due to any injury to his European opponent. He also finished runner-up at the 2025 Open Championship at Royal Portrush.

He’s won five times in his PGA Tour career and amassed more than $42 million in career earnings.

So English is going to be fine playing this weekend’s Genesis Scottish Open and next week’s Open Championship without his longtime caddie, Eric Larson.

That still doesn’t make it right, he says.

Larson is stuck at home in Florida, unable to travel to the United Kingdom. A 30-year-old drug conviction in the United States is haunting him — even though he’s been to the UK several times in the past decade and has been out of prison since 2005.

Larson was unable to obtain an Electronic Travel Authority visa, a new program that the UK instituted for Americans last year.

“Yeah, it’s wild; it just sucks,” English said Wednesday at the Renaissance Club. “He did everything he was supposed to do. He’s caddied for me for at least five or six Open Championships. He’s had a couple of Senior (Open) Championships. It’s been fine for so long, and then all of a sudden, it’s not. It’s frustrating. He’s doing everything the right way. It’s disappointing.”

Also in today’s DD …

• How will national opens like the Scottish fare in future scheduling

• DD podcast from Scotland with Bob Harig and host Justin Powers

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Larson’s story dates to the early 1990s, when he began caddying but also got involved in selling cocaine. He has maintained that he never used the drug, he never brought it on tour and that he didn’t deal in high-level distribution. It was just a way to make some extra money, for which he paid a heavy price.

“I am not nor ever was part of the cartel,” Larson said in a phone interview from his Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, home. “But I broke the law.”

Eric Larson was at Harris English’s side at Shinnecock but won’t be at Royal Birkdale (Logan Whitton/USGA)

Larson began caddying for Ken Green starting in 1991 and later switched to Mark Calcavecchia in 1994. Calcavecchia, who won the 1989 Open at Royal Troon in a playoff over Greg Norman and Wayne Grady, always remained loyal to Larson, who was indicted in Tennessee on charges of conspiracy to sell cocaine in 1993 — for which he was acquitted. But he was also indicted in Michigan, meaning it became a federal charge due to the activity crossing state lines.

Despite never being a user and insisting he was not a big-time dealer, Larson was given a harsh sentence: 13 years, with five years of probation and a $25,000 fine. He ended up serving a little more than 10 years, in four different federal prisons.

Larson, now 65, was released in late 2005 and later had his probation reduced so he could resume caddying later that year. Calcavecchia put him to work quickly and gave

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U.S. Open contenders Tom Kim (left) and Sahith Theegala got Open spots without having to qualify (Jeff Haynes/USGA)

NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — The U.S. Open leans into its open qualifying roots, with more than a third of the field earning their way to the championship via final qualifying. The Open Championship is leaning away from it, opting for a stronger field but robbing the tournament of one of its charms.

More evidence of this was apparent on Tuesday when the R&A announced 15 players who had earned a place in the field next week at Royal Birkdale.

None of them qualified via any of the more than a dozen exemption categories and none of them were part of final qualifying last week at four locations in the United Kingdom, where 20 players won spots in the field after a 36-hole day, much like the U.S. Open’s “longest day.”

The latest group made it into the field via their spot on the Official World Golf Ranking as of Monday.

Also in today’s DD …

• DD podcast from Scotland with Bob Harig and host Justin Powers

• Pay to play? That’s a prospect LIV golfers may face to stay alive

• Gray Hawaii: Seniors will take over Sony at Waialae

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The spots went to Sam Stevens, Nicolas Echavarria, Pierceson Coody, Ryo Hisatsune, Michael Brennan, David Puig, Tom Kim, Eric Cole, Keith Mitchell, Matt Wallace, Sami Valimaki, Max Homa, Thomas Detry, Max Greyserman and Sahith Theegala.

The Open takes the top 50 via the OWGR as of mid-May and then uses the ranking system to fill its reserve list. Given the number of spots available, the Open could have easily added more spots to its final qualifying, going from five to six positions at each venue to allowing for 24 qualifiers to get into the field.

Instead, it has opted to give its last remaining spots to the highest-ranked OWGR players not otherwise exempt — a move toward field strength as opposed to qualifying.

It seems this year the reserve list was far greater than normal, due in part to fewer spots being filled through its various exemption categories that eventually get the field to 156 players.

The Open has been on this path for the better part of a decade, diminishing spots in final qualifying in favor of a system called the Open Qualifying Series that grants exemptions to a select number of the highest finishers not otherwise qualified in 15 tournament fields around the world on multiple tours throughout the year. This week’s Genesis Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club is the last of the 15-event series and will see the top three players not otherwise exempt get a spot next week at Royal Birkdale.

There is nothing wrong with this system, it is simply a far different method than the way the Open used to operate — and a bit disappointing as it relates to that perhaps-too-romantic notion of 36-hole open qualifiers.

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How great if the PGA Tour opted to visit Irish icons like Royal County Down? (David Cannon/Getty Images)

NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — Here’s a wish for when the PGA Tour leans into its new two-tier schedule in 2028: have a mini links golf run leading up to the Open Championship.

Take the Irish Open and Scottish Open — or some similar combination — and make them Championship Series events leading into the final major of the season at the Open.

This idea is hardly new and there are myriad issues in trying to make it work.

But if the PGA Tour wants to lean into its strategic relationship with the DP World Tour, that would be a good first step. So is the idea to partner in the fall for several co-sanctioned events, which has already been floated by CEO Brian Rolapp.

Also in today’s DD …

• Is Chris Gotterup POY front-runner?

• LIV Golf future prospects depend on who you ask

• Colin Montgomerie opens new Wee Course with pair of aces

• Stray Shots; Deere wrap-up and looking ahead to Open

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For years, but more amplified with the emergence of LIV Golf, the PGA Tour has endured criticism for not taking its product around the world. The best, biggest and deepest tour is — for the most part — a domestic circuit that barely reaches outside the continental United States.

Yes, it goes to North American neighbors Canada and Mexico. And it does co-sanction this week’s Genesis Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club. But the PGA Tour abandoned a three-tournament Asian swing (now there is just one fall event in Japan) and earlier attempts to play World Golf Championship events overseas were typically met with sponsor apathy.

There is a reason the PGA Tour retreated to America and it is understandable. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t try again.

The fear in going to a more streamlined schedule — starting in February and ending in late August — is that international tournaments will be more unlikely to get on the schedule.

Already, the PGA Tour has left Hawaii. Outside of the continental U.S. — aside from the Canadian and Scottish Opens — it will have no international stops in the core schedule in 2027.

That can change in 2028 or certainly soon after. Getting it to work is tricky because the national opens are … well, open. The Championship Series events are not. They will be for players who qualify strictly via a points system and through major

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Pádraig Harrington celebrates a third U.S. Senior Open victory at Scioto (Jeff Haynes/USGA)

Pádraig Harrington deserves a good bit of appreciation. Not just for his victory on Sunday at the U.S. Senior Open, although that is just an extra bit of reason to do so.

The three-time major champion from Ireland did capture the U.S. Senior Open for the second consecutive year and third overall since 2022. But it was what Harrington said prior to the senior major championship that caught our attention.

Harrington, 54, is in the midst of playing eight consecutive weeks. That’s almost unheard of in today’s professional game, and certainly not by a senior player who also competed at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock last month and will play again next week in the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

“Some people have obviously said it to me, and I kind of go, when I’m 70 years of age, I won’t regret playing an extra event,” Harrington said.

Classic Pádraig.

In today’s DD …

• This week in golf: Gotterup rides again; 39-year-old rookie rises

• Spieth speculates gambling plays role in fan misbehavior

• Open field adds another handful

• The final ride on Firestone?

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Sometimes quirky and obsessive — think Viktor Hovland and the need to always being tinkering — but amazingly engaging and thoughtful, Harrington will one minute be talking about swing theory, the next about playing the first two rounds of the U.S. Open with Miles Russell, who is only 17, or explaining something about the videos he posts on social media.

Harrington began posting the videos during COVID from an amazingly nice practice area at his home in Dublin, Ireland. The series of lessons became popular and he continues to do so when he can today.

All the while, Harrington exhibits a “happy to be here” vibe which might at times seem corny but is also endearing.

“Who wouldn’t want to do what I do?” Harrington said. “Every tournament I turn up to, it’s in the best condition that a golf course can be for us. Everything is looked after. Everything is like as good as can be.

“For a normal person who’s into their golf, they would save all their money to have that one week’s holiday a year, and I get to do it 30 times a year. That’s not lost on me. I love playing golf. I love being out here competing. So I don’t have a problem playing lots of events.

“Like when I started as a pro, 28 tournaments (a year) was your standard. It’s really got lost in this world, this idea of only playing 20 tournaments or something like that. It was always 28 as a pretty much standard back in the day.”

It is somewhat lost in today’s pro world that playing 25 tournaments is still working less than half the year. Sure, there’s a lot more that goes into it than just the tournament week, but we’ve become conditioned to the idea that these guys get worn out playing three straight weeks and that a schedule beyond 20 events is somehow exhausting.

Perhaps given the demands of today’s game — the corporate commitments, the travel, the gym work, the practice time — it is too daunting to play that often.

Then there is Harrington, who started his run last month at the RBC Canadian Open, where he missed the cut, followed by a missed cut at the U.S. Open. Then it was on to the Dick’s Open on the PGA Tour Champions, where he lost in a playoff prior to his victory on Sunday at the U.S. Senior Open.

This week, Harrington is skipping another senior major, the Senior Players Championship, to compete in the Genesis Scottish Open, followed by the Open and Senior Open in back-to-back weeks followed by yet another PGA Tour Champions event at the Els Club Vilamoura in Portugal.

“If I was off, I’d be working anyway. I’d be practicing and doing things,” Harrington reasoned. “Golfing-wise, there’s always something to work on with the golf game. There is always something to keep you interested. If it does come down to it and I feel a little tired or I’ve done too much, I can always go and have a holiday at the event. That’s sometimes lost on people. You can turn up at an event and just go, I’m going to play four tournament rounds this week and do the minimum, minimum outside of that and just have a nice week.”

That is clearly a departure from the way most pros view tournament golf. And that’s fine, too. Playing just to play wouldn’t suit everyone. But for Harrington, there are those weeks.

“You don’t have to take a week off from golf to relax and take it easy,” he said. “So there’s many different types of weeks. Some weeks you’re out there and it could be a smaller event and you are working really hard. Other weeks it could be a smaller event and you genuinely go out there and have a good time.

“Then we know with the bigger tournaments like this week or any of the majors, you are actively trying to prepare for Sunday rather than Thursday. That means you would be trying to take as much rest in as you can in the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

“That is one thing that’s changed from years ago. I think years ago everybody panicked on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Players now know, certainly tee-to-green, that they’ll be able to adapt and deal with whatever they get on the tournament days.

“So players probably play a lot less practice holes now than they would have played 25 years ago.”

Typically observant, Harrington is correct. The top players, at least, rarely grind at a major tournament site anymore. The idea is to be physically and mentally prepared. Less golf means better golf, or so goes the reasoning.

For Harrington, more golf means … well more golf.

He wouldn’t skip this week’s Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club simply because he wants to best acclimate himself to play links golf and be prepared for Royal Birkdale, where he overcame Greg Norman and Ian Poulter in 2008 to win his second Claret Jug.

Always searching.

“If I hit the very best shot on the range — so if you gave me a 5-iron and I hit the purest 5-iron you could hit — I’d try and hit the next shot better,” he said. “That is the stupidity of me. I would not — in a game that’s all about consistency, I wouldn’t try and hit the next shot the same, I’d try and hit it better, which is kind of mad.”

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This week in golf

• At the John Deere Classic: As a warmup for his Scottish Open defense this week, Chris Gotterup fired a Sunday 62 to storm to victory over Max Homa and Lucas Glover at TPC Deere Run. It’s Gotterup’s third PGA Tour win of the season, fourth in 12 months and fifth overall. Ben Kohles lost his playoff chance with a finishing double bogey.

• At the BMW International Open: South Africa’s Michael Hollick, a rookie on the DP World Tour at age 39, got his first career victory with an eagle at the final hole at Golfclub München Eichenried to finish 18-under and jump countryman Hennie Du Plessis, who was in the clubhouse at 17-under par. Hollick made up a three-shot deficit over the final two holes as Du Plessis played them in 1-over at the tournament in Munich while he went 3-under.

• At the U.S. Senior Open: Harrington’s 4-under 66 on Sunday at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, was good for a four-shot victory over Stewart Cink and a title defense plus a third victory in the championship. Harrington joins Miller Barber for the most U.S. Senior Open wins and is the fourth player to win it back-to-back, joining Barber (1984-85), Gary Player (1987-88) and Allen Doyle (2005-06). Cink was trying to win his third PGA Tour Champions major of the year and keep his Senior Slam alive.

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The Open field takes shape

Hennie Du Plessis might have lost the trophy at the BMW International but he won a spot in the Open anyway. He was one of five players who qualified for next week’s major at Royal Birkdale via a category for the top five players in the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai standings who were not already exempt. De Plessis was joined by Bernd Weisberger, Jayden Schaper, Andy Sullivan and Dan Bradbury.

The field now stands at 138 players, although Sam Burns is expected to withdraw due

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In the DD podcast …

• Host T.J. Rives welcomes Bob Harig and Peter Kaufman, managing partner of Gordian Group, LLC

• The lastest with LIV: if they reach 2027, how are they financing it?

• What benefit could bankruptcy bring?

• Jon Rahm’s and Bryson DeChambeau’s role in LIV’s future

In today’s DD …

• Whither long-time events like the John Deere in two-tiered tour

• Daily Drive podcast on the business of LIV Golf

• Winners & losers in Open Final Qualifying

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2015 John Deere champ Jordan Spieth is a marquee draw in 2026 field (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

‘It’s going to be just extremely competitive’

A week on from the PGA Tour’s big unveil of its future two-tiered system, there remains much to unpack. Which tournaments will be part of each series? How will players qualify for them beyond the basics announced? What unforeseen issues will arise?

One thing is clear: the competitive intensity will be increased, and there’s not going to be much ability on the Championship Series to go find your game among some easier competition if it so suits you.

Save for maybe a handful of players, the fields in the new Championship Series events in 2028 will basically be the same. They will be the top 90 finishers from the previous year plus likely various major champs, multiple winners and tournament winners who are qualified via some system to be determined.

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There won’t be events with “lesser” fields to play in, as is the case this week with the John Deere Classic.

The long-time event that is played near the Quad Cities on the Illinois-Iowa border has traditionally made the most of a tough week on the calendar. For years, it was played the week prior to the Open Championship. This year, it follows the signature event Travelers Championship and precedes the Genesis Scottish Open, where numerous name players will head this weekend for a two-week links golf run through the Open Championship.

That makes it tough for organizers to get a top-notch field, but for years they’ve put on what is considered a great community event, backed by loyal players — Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson come to mind — and a title sponsor, John Deere, that is located in Silvis, Ill., where TPC John Deere plays host.

That has never stopped a smattering of established players from attending. Jordan Spieth is in the field. He won the John Deere in 2015, the week before attempting to get the third leg of the Grand Slam at St Andrews where he came up a shot short of a playoff won by John Deere regular Zach Johnson.

In the DD podcast …

• Host T.J. Rives welcomes Bob Harig and Peter Kaufman, managing partner of Gordian Group, LLC

• The lastest with LIV: if they reach 2027, how are they financing it?

• What benefit could bankruptcy bring?

• Jon Rahm’s and Bryson DeChambeau’s role in LIV’s future

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Max Homa, Rickie Fowler and Keegan Bradley are a couple of others in this week’s John Deere field, something they won’t be able to play in the future if they are part of the Championship Series of events. The Deere is most likely headed toward being a Challenger Series tournament, which means it will be part of the second-tier events meant to give playing opportunities for players aspiring to move up to the bigger Championship Series the following year.

What it won’t do is allow for someone like Spieth or Fowler or Bradley — guys who played at the Travelers last week — to play in an event that is not filled with all of the big names.

“It’s going to be just extremely competitive,” Bradley said of the future tour model. “Golf has always been a sport where you have to earn what you get and, like, this is going to become even more so with that. You’re going to see players, top talent players … a lot of the Europeans that don’t get to play a full schedule out here, where they’re playing 14, 15 events. The consequences now are extreme. You’re going from playing the biggest tournaments in the world to you’re not in them, which is going to be really, really intense. I think the membership is very aware of that and golf is now even moreso becoming a result-oriented sport.

“You can’t rely on (having) a good year two years ago. You got to prove it every year, which I think is great.”

Bradley is correct in that there will be no letup in these 15 or so Championship Series events — which will be in addition to the four major championships, the Players and the postseason events.

But will a player who had a great year two years ago really be in danger of dropping out? Currently PGA Tour winners get two-year exemptions. That is one of the big decisions that will undoubtedly be a heated talking point.

Could Scottie Scheffler — as an extreme example — not be part of the Championship Series if he fails to finish among the top 90 next year? (Work with us, we realize it’s a very unlikely scenario.) Scheffler won two major championships last year. He’s won seven events in the past two seasons.

The Future Competition Committee has myriad decisions like this to make. To have it be as intense as Bradley suggested, there has to be some fear of relegation for even the best players. But where do you draw that line?

Do major winners of the past five years get a pass for any amount of time? They’ll clearly be part of the PGA Tour, but could they not be part of the top tier.

What about someone like Tiger Woods? Does his long career of excellence mean a carved-out spot in the upper tier? As it stands now, Woods is exempt into the signature events due to a special rule enacted for 80-time tour winners.

Put it this way. In the new system, if Woods wanted to play in his own Genesis Invitational at Riviera where he is the tournament host, without some sort of rule he’d be ineligible. Because there will be no sponsor invites.

Woods’ case is probably an easy one. It’s a single player that any one of those tournaments would want to have him participate. But so many other aspects to exemptions have to be determined. Medical, lifetime member, career money — not easy decisions for any of them when fields will be limited to 120 to 130 players. These

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Scottie Scheffler can’t believe he missed 4-footer to extend playoff (Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

The Shotlink distance originally said it was 2 feet, 6 inches. And while it was later amended to 4 feet, 10 inches, in either case it was certainly not very far from the cup. After seemingly making everything he needed on Sunday — including a nearly 9-footer to save par on the 72nd hole to force a playoff — Scottie Scheffler couldn’t get the short birdie putt to drop early Monday morning when he needed it to.

And just 13 minutes after it started early Monday, Scheffler’s chance to extend the sudden-death playoff was over. Viktor Hovland was the winner — having drained a 9-foot birdie putt of his own on the first playoff hole — while the No. 1-ranked player in the world was left to lament yet another close call.

“Maybe hit it a little firmer than I intended to,” Scheffler said of his putt that rolled nearly 6 feet past the cup.

It was the fourth runner-up finish this year for Scheffler after winning his first event of 2026 at the American Express Championship.

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This isn’t like last year, when he won six times including two major championships. Or 2024, when he won eight times including the Masters and Olympic gold. Or even his breakthrough season of 2022 when he won four times in an eight-week span to first ascend to No. 1. The victories aren’t coming with such regularity and abundance this year.

Scheffler is stuck on 20 PGA Tour wins, and it is simply yet another reminder of how difficult it is to win golf tournaments … for anybody.

Comparisons to Tiger Woods are always unfair, and often a stretch. But Scheffler can relate in many ways to the “various” slumps that Tiger endured during the prime of his career.

Because it’s all relative.

Woods won but a single time in both 1999 and 2004, the latter year when he had just a single top-10 in the major championships. His only victory in 2004 came early, at the WGC Match Play before the Masters, and he went on to post a total of 10 top-five finishes.

You’d have thought the world was coming to an end the way critics fretted about it..

Scheffler this season has one win, four runner-up finishes, eight top-fives and nothing worse than a tie for 24th. In only 14 starts, he has nine top-10 finishes. Some players would consider that a career year.

So it’s all relative.

Scheffler, like Woods before him, is being judged by the enormous level of success he’s established for himself.

And there were some times earlier this year when he was definitely not the same Scottie Scheffler. He tied for 24th at the Arnold Palmer and then tied for 22nd at the Players. At the Masters, he found himself 11 back through 36 holes, only to come up a shot short of catching Rory McIlroy.

There have been driving issues and iron issues and putting issues — and a difficulty in putting all the pieces together.

“Ball striking is definitely in a good spot,” Scheffler said after the one-hole playoff. “That was some of the best I hit it all season, which is a good spot. Obviously I think just a little bit … a little disappointed with the result of today. But, I did a good job of keeping myself in the tournament last night, made the nice putt to close out last night, and so trying to remember that one.”

That 8-footer to tie Hovland — and avoid a crushing three-putt final-hole bogey — was big. Scheffler made several huge par-saving putts during the final round and didn’t have a three-putt green the entire tournament.

He ran into a player in Hovland who won for the eighth time on the PGA Tour but the first in more than a year. If you want to talk about an elite player who has struggled, Hovland is the man. He was coming off a missed cut at the U.S. Open and spent the weekend on the Shinnecock Hills driving range.

Scheffler, meanwhile, has been playing at a highly consistent pace all year.

“I haven’t looked at the statistics, but I think I’ve been pretty good in first rounds over the course of my career, especially the last couple years,” Scheffler said. “I think for whatever reason I haven’t gotten out of the gates as quick I want this year. And that could be the nature of waves, tee times, a lot of it on me, there’s different factors that go into that. But overall I think my approach to how I play tournaments, I don’t think that really needs to change at all. I feel like I’m in a pretty good spot. I think just try and get out of the gates a little quicker. Can’t really force it. I’m trying as hard as I can.”

There’s still a lot of golf to be played, including an Open Championship defense coming up at Royal Birkdale. Even one more win puts a different spin on what has been a remarkable year if the numbers were attached to just about anybody else’s name.

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Missed context has bossted Rory McIlroy’s eligibility chatter (Erick W Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

Rory McIlroy didn’t play the Travelers Championship and isn’t scheduled to play again until the Genesis Scottish Open next week. He headed home to England following the U.S. Open, skipping a signature event for the third time this year and creating plenty of chatter.

Our stories last week on the issue (here and here) created quite the range of opinions, some based on poorly aggregated bursts of information which did not capture the context of the subject.

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In today’s DD …

• This week in golf

• Who is (and isn’t) at Open final qualifying?

• Phil Mickelson will do something for the first time since 1989

• Bryson DeChambeau speaks candidly about major failures

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And our own wording missed some of the nuance of the situation, which perhaps led to confusion.

So here is a summary of where things stand in relation to the two-time Masters champion and his 2027 PGA Tour membership.

• When McIlroy skipped the Travelers, it raised the possibility that he will not meet the PGA Tour-mandated minimum of 15 events in a season which, in theory, puts his membership status in question for next year.

• He has played nine events so far this year with the Scottish and the Open Championship bringing him to 11. He is not expected to play the 3M Open or the Wyndham Championship. That means playing all three playoff events would bring him to 14 events and one short.

• He could play somewhere in the fall, including the event in Japan, but his agent, Sean O’Flaherty, said he would not be playing there. McIlroy has a busy post-Tour Championship schedule on the DP World Tour, with at least six events expected.

• O’Flaherty was asked if McIlroy planned to give up PGA Tour membership next year and he said no. He suggested that the situation would be worked out as McIlroy would be given credit for the extra event due to the Strategic Alliance between the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. The PGA Tour has not confirmed that.

• Why is this an issue? Because as a citizen of the United Kingdom, McIlroy is allowed to claim the DP World Tour as his “home” tour. That means the PGA Tour will grant him unlimited media and conflicting rights releases to play in Europe and the Middle East. A PGA Tour member typically gets only three and must get approved to play more. McIlroy — and other European players such as Matt Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry and Justin Rose — all utilize this requirement. Falling short of the minimum has been non-negotiable at times, as Martin Kaymer found out following the 2015 season.

• What about McIlroy’s lifetime membership status? As a 20-time winner (McIlroy has 30 PGA Tour victories), he is considered a lifetime member, which means the 15-event minimum can be avoided — except in the case of a “home” tour membership stipulation. This is clearly spelled out in the player handbook. It has no bearing, unless the PGA Tour wants to change the rule.

• But the handbook also has this wording which allows for some leeway: “Upon application by a foreign member and for medical reasons or other extraordinary circumstances that the Commissioner, at his discretion, determines to be a valid reason for not playing in at least 15 PGA Tour co-sponsored or approved tournaments, may reduce the 15-minimum tournament requirement.” We are not aware of an injury or extenuating circumstances but it appears this issue has at least been discussed privately.

• As a non-member (Kaymer did this in 2016), McIlroy would be allowed to accept seven sponsor exemptions and play a total of 12 times on the PGA Tour, including the major championships and the Players. But he would be ineligible for the FedEx Cup playoffs.

For now, nothing has been officially decided. The season has yet to play out, so nothing needs to be done until that time. But it certainly appears there have been conversations. McIlroy is unlikely to meet the minimum and yet is planning to remain a member next year.

None of this would be an issue if McIlroy simply would add the 15th tournament.

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Rory McIlroy got some practice in at Royal Birkdalethis week instead of playing Travelers (Jeff Haynes/USGA)

Rory McIlroy got a first look on Thursday at Royal Birkdale, the site of next month’s Open Championship where he tied for fourth in 2017, the last time the tournament was played at the English venue.

That means, of course, that McIlroy was not competing during the first round of the Travelers Championship, a signature event on the PGA Tour. McIlroy elected to skip it — the third time he’s missed a signature event this year, as is his right.

As Daily Drive reported Thursday, that would seem to puts his PGA Tour membership for 2027 in peril. At least in theory.

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McIlroy is going to fall short of the PGA Tour minimum of 15 events that he is required to play via the “home tour” rule which allows him to get unlimited releases in Europe and the Middle East in exchange for having to meet the minimum on tour.

But there apparently is an out. The PGA Tour provided this wording from the player handbook that DD did not cite in the original report.

“Notwithstanding the above, the Commissioner, upon application by a foreign member and for medical reasons or other extraordinary circumstances that the Commissioner, at his discretion, determines to be a valid reason for not playing in at least 15 PGA Tour cosponsored or approved tournaments, may reduce the 15-minimum (or 12-minimum as the case may be) tournament requirement.”

Isn’t that convenient. There was little doubt McIlroy would remain a member for next year, but the tour took issue with the phrasing that it would be “bending the rules” to make McIlroy fully eligible if he didn’t meet the minimum.

There may very well be extenuating circumstances we are unaware of at this point. McIlroy did have an injury that caused him to withdraw before the third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational and show up late the next week to the Players Championship. He didn’t play again until the Masters, which won he for a second straight year.

He then skipped two more signature events — the RBC Heritage and the Cadillac Championship at Doral — during a jam-packed part of the schedule prior to the PGA Championship. But it appears McIlroy is healthy enough and could have played this week to meet the requirement.

Ten years ago, the PGA Tour did not give Martin Kaymer a break when he failed to meet the minimum, meaning he had to forego membership in 2016. But in 2019, when he came up short having missed out on a chance to get into the Open Championship as an alternate, the tour viewed that as an extenuating circumstance (he could have played the opposite event that week) and allowed the two-time major champion from Germany to keep his membership.

McIlroy, 37, has made clear his desire to play less while not saying he wants to give up his PGA Tour membership. He’s exempt for all of the majors and plays a worldwide schedule, which after the Tour Championship this year will take him to Ireland, Scotland, England, India, Dubai and Australia.

At the Tour Championship last August, McIlroy addressed his schedule as he has in many different settings.

“I’ll always look at the schedule at the start of the year and see what best fits me and my life and everything else that I sort of do, whether it’s with family or other opportunities that I’m pursuing outside of golf. I’ll always look at that,” he said.

“I’ll always choose the schedule that best fits me, and this year (2025) that meant skipping a few signature events. I might skip less (in 2026). I might skip the same amount, I don’t know. It’s all just — the luxury of being a PGA Tour player is we are free to pick and choose our schedule for the most part, and I took advantage of that this year and I’ll continue to take advantage of that for as long as I can.”

McIlroy also appears to be taking advantage of a loophole that will allow him to be a member without playing the minimum. There appeared to be no angst over this when McIlroy’s agent, Sean O’Flaherty, discussed it at the U.S. Open.

And given what he means to the PGA Tour, his status as the No. 2 player in the world rankings and a six-time major winner, it makes sense for CEO Brian Rolapp and commissioner Jay Monahan to give him a pass. It might not go over well with others, but they can certainly make the argument on his behalf.

When the time comes, it is best they present it in that manner. Be transparent. There will be folks who get upset either way, so it is better to simply lay out the facts: McIlroy wanted to play one less event, and the tour is abiding his wish, for which fans will be rewarded rather than punished.

Meanwhile, he went home to England and got in some practice at the year’s Open venue. His next event is the Genesis Scottish Open followed by the Open Championship.

“I’ll be playing some links golf this week probably coming up, but yeah, it’s my favorite time of the year to go back home and play, play the Open, and I get to spend a bit of time back there,” McIlroy said following his final round at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.

“This was not too dissimilar to an Open Championship in terms of how the golf course started to play over the weekend, but a bit of links golf over the next couple weeks will be nice.”